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Simone Weil argued that since real evil is boring and real good is fascinating, fiction that makes evil seem more interesting than good is immoral. That might be too sweeping and absolute a judgment, but at least it's an issue to be aware of. A similar point could be made regarding the imminence of heaven and hell in movies like Hellboy.

Even if such movies give us no more than evil to fight against, evil itself is a signpost of sorts pointing to goodness and God. A world without God is a world in which good and evil are meaningless concepts, in which there are no monsters or demons, only differences and misunderstanding. The moment you contemplate that the Devil hates you and has a horrible plan for your life, the jig is up.

Crosses and rosaries and such, even when seen as no more than talismans, are likewise signposts, tacitly attesting the historical hegemony of Christianity in Western culture. We may live in a post-Christian civilization, but it is still post-Christian, and the place of Christianity in the collective imagination remains unique. Americans may increasingly be sliding vague "spirituality" to organized religion, but crystal skulls and sankara stones don't do it for us like the ark of the covenant and the Holy Grail—or the cross.

You won't find the gospel in the Hellboy movies. But what you may find is signs of a world that has been touched by the gospel—a world that retains some awareness of sinister forces to be avoided or resisted, of evil that cannot be overcome by therapy or education or communication, that calls for a response from another realm entirely.

© Steven D. Greydanus subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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