Saturday, July 01, 2006

Superman a Methodist? Nah, He's a Lutheran!


Church elder and deacon, chemist, businessperson, blogger, and comic book aficionado John Schroeder points to a study that tries to pinpoint the religious affiliations of various comic book heroes. Three panels on the left of John's post (seen here on the right) shows a young Clark Kent speaking with his pastor. The pastor's name is Linquist, which made me wonder how the author of the study John cites could say that Superman was a Methodist.

I wrote:
Superman a Methodist? And his pastor is named Linquist[?] Chances are with a pastor bearing a Norwegian moniker like that, the Kents are Midwestern Lutherans. Besides, everybody knows that after serving [in] Smallville, Pastor Linquist went on to [become] pastor of the Lutheran congregation in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota.

6 comments:

John Schroeder said...

Funny Mark - very funny.

Just saw the movie...

Way too much effort to be like the Chris Reeves ones.

Mark Daniels said...

John:
Agreed...about the movie.

Mark

P_J said...

Mark -

You're right about the name.

Although in my circles, they would no doubt be Evangelical Free :)

... especially since these folks are only building a wooden church during Clark's growing up (in the 30s, I think?). Everyone knows the Lutherans have the big old stone church in the middle of town.

Big Red said...

No way, that's definitely a Kansas/Nebraska-style countryside Lutheran church. My folks used to go to one that looked just like it.

Superman eats green jello in the narthex and sings "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus" sitting down. I'm positive of it. He's a Lutheran right down to his synthetic rubber boots.

Ed Darrell said...

I think the guy in Lake Woebegon is Inqvist. I could be wrong.

Mark Daniels said...

Jeff:
Here in Ohio, rare is the big stone church in town a Lutheran one. Those usually belong to the Methodists.

I served a congregation in NWOhio. The building was erected in 1869 and except for a brick face added in the 1970s, when they put up a canopy, it was a wooden structure. (By the way, in the 1930s, they picked the whole extant structure up, built a basement, and then turned the building around so that the front doorway faced the road.)

Big Red:
You're obviously a Lutheran insider.

Ed:
You're right about Pastor Inqvist (Inquist). I was just trying to make a funny.

Thanks for your comments.

Mark