I was watching church on catch-up — I work on Sundays, but since the pandemic resumption, church still has a streaming option I can catch like a podcast — it was an all-age service - meaning one where children don’t go to separate groups, they stay for the service itself. As a child I hated these and called them old-age services. Everything seemed tailored to adults. Things were cheerfully the opposite this Sunday, as a lot of the service was tailored to engaging children and families. There are many ages of child, so expect it’s a hard audience to cater to.

I wasn’t the core audience, and that’s fine. Church shouldn’t be about audience experience, so any service you ever go to will probably need some effort to connect and communicate with God, rather than getting a gratifying show.

There was only one thing I didn’t really like in the service, and it was a song about how Jesus is better than any superhero, better than any superhero, whoa, whoa. Better than spiderman, better than superman, better than batman, better than Pokemon, better than Barbie… - the list went on naming plenty more, but those are the ones that stuck in mind. I am aware that some of those are not superheroes, but I’ll excise that, as I can imagine exactly the thought process that made these the lyrics.

Musically, there’s hope for it, if it was done with an electric guitar and a vicious charisma. It wasn’t, and I think that left the lyrics a little bare. A list of cool people Jesus is better than, and I don’t think that works, really. Because these are characters with exciting movies. Children are a lot more excited by any interaction with Spiderman or any given Pokémon than they are with Jesus, and so is almost anyone I know, but I do move in very autistic circles. Barbie was on the list, too, and anyone who has seen the trailer for this year’s Barbie movie is probably more excited by that than by any forthcoming church service, even if they’re going to a wedding. Its cast includes Rhea Perlman and Ncuti Gatwa. What I’m saying is, a song which merely says ‘Jesus is better than all pop culture, and knocks your favourite franchise into a cocked hat, whatever that peculiar phrase means’, is the epitome of telling not showing. Church is, in general, not as exciting as a good superhero movie like The Rocketeer, and I think trying to appeal to children by saying ‘Jesus is better than any superhero’ will do nothing to convince them, and honestly is more likely to irk them. If you stand on any street corner and declare ‘Star Wars is better than Star Trek, and vice versa’, you will change nobody’s mind, and will be more likely to make people inherently defensive about their best beloved.

Could you make a song that does what this song aims to do, and makes Jesus cool? For a start, it would need to be more than ‘Jesus is better than this list of people’. Is there any medium in which you can make Jesus more appealing to a young audience than the heroes who famously appeal to young audiences? Unlike Iron Man, Jesus doesn’t make jokes. Unlike Barbie, his outfits suck and his aesthetics make nothing tingle. Unlike the Jedi, Jesus doesn’t do sick flips. Unlike Batman, he doesn’t go around having fist-fights in the rain. Unlike Superman, he only flies once, and it’s into the sky. If you wait for him to return, you’ve waited too long to make the point. He’s not a man of hick-kicking action, unless you have him turning the tables of money-changers in the temple, but even that is low on explosions and on a sense of jeopardy, and he doesn’t turn to camera to say ‘shocking’ in Schwarzenegger stylee. You could do the harrowing of Hell, but that’s more salvation than fisticuffs. You could do the end of the world, but it would be hallowed and so difficult to put on screen that no notable movie ever really attempted it. Superheroes are superheroic. They fight and prosper. Jesus was - not passive, but talkative, conversational, given to having meals and conversations and stories. Even Yoda did jokes and backflips. Jesus’s big move was to surrender and die, and it’s just not exciting. When you come to understand the injustice of the crucifixion, its cost, as the price to wipe away humanity’s sin - our own wrongdoing - it can be devastating! There’s room for a low point in a superhero tale, but it can hardly be the main event. If Jesus could sling webs, and shoot arrows, and did his miracles during chase sequences rather than during long lunches, and if he cursed more vegetation like he did with the fig tree, and if he once-in-a-while punched people in the neck or tied them up in a lasso, and to be honest, if he was fallible like Peter or Moses, and made mistakes then rose up to recover from them, there’d be more to work with.

I think it’s not reasonably possible to make Jesus seem like a worthy competitor for ‘better than any superhero’, even though he is. I think it starts from the wrong footing, and can only end in disappointment or disagreement, via cringe. Maybe you could do it with David or Samson, maybe you could do it with Joshua or Gideon, but I think trying to wow children with Jesus’ powers is a misstep. I have no idea how to engage them with him, but I think a focus on his hope, his goodness, and a song that rocks and rollicks in different directions - about what he did do, about what he said, and probably about our relationship with him — as much as I’m wary of songs which talk about us rather than talking about him — because that personal connection is going to fire our hearts far more than a list of also-rans. And sing it like you mean it!