Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
My family loves science fiction or superhero-related media. We’re a bunch of nerds.
So, it wasn’t out of character for us to check out the pilot for the Syfy channel’s new series, “Deadly Class.”
Spoiler alert: We won’t be returning for more. It’s like a toilet backing up and filling the house with its contents.
On the other hand, at the risk of sounding less than holy, you Christians might benefit from watching this first episode. Don’t expect harmless entertainment, though. That’s not what it is.
Nevertheless, if you care about reaching the world with the message of hope we call the Gospel, you should think deeply about how that message stands in contrast with what the world believes, and where that belief is taking it. “Deadly Class” does us the favor of putting this unbelieving philosophy on display. Other programs hint at this occasionally, but then back away to a brighter place.
This show, however, doesn’t blink. It embraces the darkness. It functions as a visual sermon promoting the philosophy of nihilism.
Nihilism, or “nothing-ism,” is the destruction of meaning. It holds that all existence is vain; that there is no God, no truth, no right or wrong.
Some forms of nihilism, following Friedrich Nietzsche, advocate that the best course of action is to abandon the search for meaning altogether. Embrace the nothingness.
If the individual is strong enough, he may thereby break the chains of traditional morality, transcending the average existence. He may become what Nietzsche called “the Superman,” ruling over the futility of reality by the force of his own will.
In nihilism, the only laws are the ones we set for ourselves, and the ones that can be enforced by someone more powerful.
“Deadly Class” features a homeless teenager who is taken in by a group running a boarding school, called Kings Dominion (also the name of a Virginia amusement park), where the students are trained in how to become assassins and criminals. It’s Hogwarts for sociopaths.
Our teen protagonist struggles with figuring out why he shouldn’t kill himself and end his slavery to a meaningless, painful life. Without using Nietzsche’s words, the answer he is given is that he must become the philosopher’s Superman, commanding his own existence, and deciding for himself who deserves to live and die.
This is the only media I’ve seen that unflinchingly promotes the Nietzschian ideal (with the possible exception of songs like “The Sound of Silence”) and for that reason, it is quite instructive.
How does your Good News answer this, Christian?
For myself, I agree with Nietzsche, at least in this: He didn’t shrink back when he stared into the abyss of nothingness that his atheism logically demanded. He ridiculed fellow atheists, who, though tossing God on the ash heap, wanted to find a way to maintain concepts like meaning and morality. Without God, though, this is a fool’s errand.
My answer to Nietzsche and “Deadly Class” is the first four words of the Bible: “In the beginning God.” If you are looking for purpose, truth, morality, or an answer to the big Why of our existence, it all flows from that fountainhead … and from nowhere else.
In the beginning God.
Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at: