lydamorehouse | (Reply)

From:

I originally saw this post go by and thought, hmmm, yes, there was something that struck me about that scene...what was it? And my subconscious must have been working on it, because it just presented me with a possible answer.

I can only speak to the tradition I was raised in: mainstream Protestant, specifically Wisconsin Synod Lutheran. In that tradition, Jesus Christ is CENTRAL to the faith—the Alpha and Omega—the son of God, yes, but also God in his own right. (Cue long discussion of the Trinity and what it means about the personhood of God.) I think many people in the church I grew up in were afraid of God the Father, so they prayed mainly to Jesus.

And in that scene in Good Omens, Jesus is a blip in history. He's not central or divine at all. Just a man who was gruesomely murdered by the state. So maybe that's what your friends were reacting to? With Jesus-as-God absent from its universe, Good Omens is left with just the Old Testament vengeful God. Or, in God's absence, with God's vengeful angels. No mercy—no redemption. Just punishment.

You could even argue that Crowley/Aziraphale are taking the place of Jesus in the narrative, by ultimately choosing love for the Earth and mercy for its inhabitants rather than a world-ending Apocalypse, even with the threat of retribution and obliteration facing them.

In any case, I loved Good Omens, and am reading ALL the fanfic.