Jesus Goes to Charm School

Dante's path to charm class

Some of my dear readers have been wondering whether charm school is really all that evil. I understand the confusion.

Charm school itself is a perfectly lovely idea. Charm school that causes little girlies to think that the consequences for missteps involve eternal damnation in a burning lake of fire, though – that’s just not cool (especially when combined with a complete fundamentalist regimen, which is definitely not part of a healthy breakfast).

Sometimes, these distinctions are subtle. Dante’s inferno aside, literature has shown us that the devil – or whatever personification of evil floats your boat across the River Styx – is at his wiliest when he’s less obvious than horns and a pitchfork.

Witness the very dapper Satan on CW’s surprisingly amusing Reaper. Or recall the C.S. Lewis space trilogy in which the devil drives someone mad just by being incredibly annoying and childish. How about that Northern Exposure episode when the friendly, balding devil sold hot tubs? To conclude this random whirlwind of  cultural devilry, I hereby boldly assert my personal theory that the devil, in fact, does not wear Prada but is more likely to be found sporting something from Talbot’s.

Anyway, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether something is pretty dang cute or whether it emanates from the pit of hell.

So on the next episode of Jesus Goes to Charm School, we’ll explore Dante’s circles of hell to find out where Christian Charm School is located in the morass…

This entry was posted on March 31, 2009 at 9:08 PM and is filed under Charm School Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.