John at Locusts & Honey has a great post about why true humanism is incompatible with Christianity and its notion of human depravity.

John touches in passing on how humanism is reflected by certain types of heroes in popular culture, and I’m always shocked by some Christians who miss this distinction — who actually seem to prefer self-sufficient humanist heroes to flawed heroes in need of grace, because they seem more wholesome somehow.

I accept the need for, and the benefit of, larger-than-life heroes, heroes who are a little better than the rest of us and give us something to look up to. I strongly support such larger-than-life storytelling and believe it often tells a deeper truth than the type of gritty faux realism which is brutal for the sake of being brutal.

But I think that, even in fantasy, stories with a truly Christian world view make it clear that the hero is in service to something higher than his own will — and occasionally in need of being saved himself.