I’ve been thinking about these two interconnected pieces on Across the Spiderverse by Think Christian all day today. One a podcast episode, the other an article located here https://thinkchristian.net/spider-verses-great-commission and here https://thinkchristian.net/podcast/spider-verse-spirituality
I had some similar thoughts floating around in my head, but I couldn’t quite place it or make sense of this. The element of these pieces that helped me narrow it down to something comprehensible was simply this; in Into the Spiderverse the question being asked is “who can be Spiderman”. The answer we get is anyone can be Spiderman. The question being asked in Across the Spiderverse is “what does it mean to be Spiderman”
The author and host of these pieces then finds in that a correlation between the central question plaguing the NT letters (does one need to be circumcised to follow Jesus) and the answer that comes with the proclamation of the Gospel being taken to the Gentile (all) the world.
Now, I do disagree slightly with some of the Protestant assumptions of the above writers and hosts. The answer they find is the classic refrain “by faith through grace”. My own reading of that verse rests on the assumption that grace is the gift of the person and work of Jesus in establishing the kingdom of God through the defeat of the enslaving Powers of Sin and Death, and that faith is best rendered faithfulness to or allegiance to the Kingdom of God. But I do love how they tease out the parallels and the simple and concise correlation between the questions of the film and the questions of the text.
It called up for me another two films as well: The Last Jedi (who can be a Jedi) and Rise of Skywalker (what does it mean to be a Jedi). What I especially appreciated about those two questions is how, taken together, they point to the importance of being bound to a larger story. Simply to say that anyone can be a Jedi is meaningless without the greater hope the story the Jedi is attached to. Without that all they would have is enslavement and defeat. The Darkside wins.
In Spiderman the question is more intimately tied to that basic relationship between being and becoming. If it is simply about becoming, then the portrait we are left with is one that remains detached from the larger story. As the above works note, by saying that anyone can be Spiderman, Across the Spiderverse is forced to wrestle with the problem of community, and diversity within community. Without a grand narrative to bind these spiderpersons together, any sense of being Spiderman becomes pointless and defeatist.
Being roots us in a larger story that then informs our becoming. The question then is, what does it mean to be Spiderman. Similarly, what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus, or in broader terms a child of God. Here is where story matters, both to the film and to the biblical narrative. Ephesians 2:8-9 is often rendered;
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
The better rendering, in my opinion, would be the following;
For it is by (the grace gift) you have been saved, through (the faithfulness of Jesus)- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by (circumcision), so that no one can boast
This simple reappropriation of the language of the text moves it from being focused on us as individuals to the larger story that defines us and beckons us to participation. Thus, to be Spiderman means to bind ourselves to the nature or character of Spiderman in a formative sense. This does not diminish our agency and distinctiveness, it affirms it and locates it as well in the common human experience. It anchors us in community and allows the diversity of our becoming to be caught up in the hope this represents. Across the Spideverse locates this overarching story in family and relationship, rooting it in a central portrait of home, something that has the power to define who they are as spiderpeople even as the story gets recontextualixed into the particular fabric of their lives and their experiences
The Stories of my Life 