The Way, The Truth, and the Anti-Life?

Are the followers of Darkseid in Final Crisis meant to represent the evangelical church?

The notion first occurred to me upon reading the above panel from Final Crisis: Submit, in which Black Lightning gets indignant over the practice of book burning taken up by those brainwashed by the anti-life equation. The use of Darwin's On The Origin of Species to illustrate the scene is by no means neutral or coincidental. It instantly evokes thoughts of the culture war in America and the standpoint of many conservative Christians, who, though generally not physically burning the book, are vocally opposed to its teaching in schools.

If the image had come from a tie-in written by another author, I probably would have dismissed it in terms of its relevance to Final Crisis at large. But the issue was written by Grant Morrison himself, and, assuming that the choice of book shown here wasn't left up to the artist's discretion, it should be seen as consistent with the themes of the series as a whole. This led me to examine the rest of the series, both prior to and following the Submit one-shot, for more of the same. As it turned out, I must have been a bit blind not to notice it before.

Courting Luthor back in Final Crisis #3, Libra asked him to "renounce science" and "swear an oath on the Bible of Crime." Note that the disciple of Darkseid doesn't contrast his religion of evil with some other religion that embraces good but rather with the logic and rationality of science. Throughout the series, those given over to anti-life are instructed to "judge" those who are different. And isn't "being judgmental" one of the stock accusations raised against Christians who openly espouse their ideas of a universal morality? Ironically, though one of the evil gods in the series takes the form of a TV preacher, I actually don't think he works as another critique of conservative evangelicals. He looks and talks too much like Al Sharpton for that.

It's a genuine shame to see Mr. Morrison analogize Christians to the bad guys of Final Crisis. First of all, it isn't a particularly inspired or original approach. But even if it were, too many of the positive themes of the story agree with Christian theology for this villanization to make sense! From the words of Metron on the first page of Final Crisis #1, Morrison has made it clear that the rise of heroism in the DC Universe has been enabled by a higher power. It is not simply a product of the works of man and the philosophies of reason. Superman Beyond highlights Superman not only as the prototypical hero of Earth-1 but portrays the Man of Steel himself as the product of a deeper eternal archetype. As a reader of the Old Testament who recognizes the typology of Christ at work in Moses, David, and Elijah, I can jump on board with that.

Here's hoping that Morrison doesn't view himself as the originator of such themes. At the latest, the Apostle Paul beat him to it by a couple thousand years!

I believe it would have been much more interesting (and consistent with the true nature of good vs. evil) if Darkseid had been portrayed as a corrupter of religion. As he seeks to define the nature of the coming Fifth World with his own perverse version of faith, the heroes rise up to defend the ideals of truth and purity. Imagine if the following encounter occurred in Final Crisis between Libra and one of DC's nominally Christian characters, let's say...the angel Zauriel, a Morrison creation from his JLA days.

[The Justifiers, led by LIBRA with anti-life helmet in hand, close in on the wounded ZAURIEL.]

LIBRA
Submit to anti-life!
Confess that Darkseid is GOD!

ZAURIEL
A god...yes.
But...there is only...
...one God..
...and His name...
...isn't...
Darkseid!