Edward and Bella as 'saints of tomorrow'

A theological defense of the Twilight Saga

Edward + Bella: applying for sainthood. (Credit: Temple Hill Entertainment) This is one of my (Daniel’s) favorite frames.

Today, I’m pleased to present Madeleine Meyer’s insightful piece on The Twilight Saga! Being a lover of fantasy, popular art/culture, and orthodox Christian theology, I especially enjoy when these (sometimes) seemingly exclusive genres entangle. Much thanks to

Tamar

for bringing Madeleine’s work to my attention. Having been party to many negative religious takes on popular young adult stories, I was thrilled to read something so engaging, insightful, and thoughtful as what’s below.

Here’s a bit about Madeleine.

Madeleine Meyer (of no relation to Stephenie Meyer that she is aware) is a master's student in the Theology and the Arts program at the University of St. Andrews. God led her to her studies through a passion for finding the sacred in the mundane, and unwavering curiosity for how Christ meets us in Beauty to transform ordinary moments into invitations to encounter grace. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, she resides in St. Andrews, Scotland. When she isn't marveling over the radiance of God's character in the ducklings by her house, she enjoys exploring the Scottish coast, reading fairytales, and attempting to be a poet.

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the least expected journey

Organizing an academic interdisciplinary conference on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga was truly not on my 2025 bingo card. But one of the occupational hazards of studying theology and the arts is that you often find yourself on unexpected journeys. One must always be prepared to be thrust from their comfortable hobbit hole and launched into the least likely intellectual adventures. Sometimes, these adventures include sparkly, smoldering vampires. Traveler, beware!

When I told people from home that I was helping organize such a conference, I heard many sarcastic comments to the effect of “I’m glad this is the kind of intellectual rigor you’re paying the University of St. Andrews for.” These sardonic responses illustrate exactly why I ended up organizing the conference in the first place. There is a tendency both in academia and wider society to want to dismiss things like Twilight, perhaps because of its audience or genre, on the grounds of frivolity. Theologians and Christians, I think, are also prone to do this with books that are not obviously spiritual, and with popular Young Adult fiction, seeing them as a product of the worldly world. While Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism has been discussed extensively in Twilight’s scholarship, there has been little broader theological focus on her unusual vampires. This is a mistake.

From a Christian theological perspective, Twilight can be, in certain respects, problematic. However, I would argue that because of how Twilight addresses the body-soul relationship, it can function as an imaginative apologetic and speak to the culture. An apologetic aims to defend faith with reason. An imaginative apologetic aims to do so with the tools of the imagination. According to Allison Milbank, to be effective, an apologetic needs to first open the mind to the sense of God or the spiritual.¹ This is perhaps where imaginative apologetics is most effective and where Twilight has an opportunity. Because of how it interacts with drinking blood and sexual ethics as well as the themes of choice, it invites its readers to consider what it means to be an ensouled creature and to think beyond the material realm about what it means to be human. I would like to examine how both Edward and Bella do this.

Edward’s glittering virtue

Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) in Twilight. [Credit: Temple Hill Entertainment]

Throughout the books, the choices the Cullens make are motivated by the desire to do good and, in Edward’s case, an underlying concern about possible damnation for their kind. Edward adopted roughly the same ethical code as his father, Carlisle—up to a certain point. He, like his father, believes in God, heaven, and hell, but not for vampires. Vampires, he thinks, lose their souls once they are turned. This is his primary hesitation in turning Bella into a vampire—not only does he think it is selfish to turn Bella for himself, his refusal stems from concern for her soul and eternal life.

It is also why he refuses to have sex with Bella. In a reversal of vampire stereotypes, Edward spurns Bella’s attempts at seduction in Eclipse, telling her, “How many people in this room have a soul? A shot at heaven, or whatever there is after this life? [...] Now, there’s a world full of dissension about this, but the vast majority seem to think that there are some rules that have to be followed.”² Edward’s rejection of premarital sex also extends to his own soul, or whatever is left of it, telling her, “You know that I’ve stolen, I’ve lied, I’ve coveted… my virtue is all I have left.”³

Many critics of the Twilight books point to Edward’s “enforced abstinence” as proof of a controlling nature and as evidence of a patriarchal relationship that strips Bella of any agency. In a frequently cited article “Bite Me! (Or Don’t),” Christine Seifert describes the series as “abstinence porn,” and laments Bella’s lack of power in her relationship with Edward.⁴ According to her, the Twilight books are another example of how “a woman’s virtue, sex, identity, or her existence itself” is “all in the man’s hands.”⁵ Edward’s refusal to change her into a vampire or sleep with her is merely part of his quest for control over himself and Bella.

I don’t wholly disagree with this assessment. Edward can be controlling, and I think a discussion about abstinence porn is very appropriate here. The books, however, make it clear that Edward’s whole character is motivated by a desire to do good. Even when he rebels against Carlisle in 1928 and decides to drink human blood, he only kills murderers and rapists. Even his homicidal tendencies operate within moral boundaries. Furthermore, Edward often affiliates the elevation or degradation of the soul with bodily action. He lives in accordance with Carlisle’s philosophy that drinking animal blood instead of human blood preserves the soul to some extent. His reasons for not sleeping with Bella are rooted in the same idea.

Another view of these choices is displayed in the essay “The Body Project,” where Karin Nykvist argues that the Twilight books compose a story where the body is the means of salvation. She claims that Edward only sees himself as a body and values the mind above the body. Nykvist tries to correlate Edward’s practices and attitudes with Christianity, saying Edward’s hierarchy of mind and body “is at the core of [Christian] doxa, as it is transcended only through divine intervention, as for example in the individual’s life after corporeal death and the evocation of the body of Christ in the Mass.”⁶ She presents Edward’s choices of vampiric vegetarianism and abstinence as mere ascetic practices that will elevate him towards a more spiritual status. If what Nykvist says is true, then Edward would truly believe in a total separation of body and soul.

There are a few things wrong with Nykvist’s argument. The first is her claim that Christianity supports the total separation of body and soul, and that Christians value the soul while disregarding the body. While theologians continue to debate the exact relationship between the body and soul, I would say historically, Christian theology supports an interrelated relationship between the two. Thomas Aquinas argues that the soul, though not contained by the body, is still conjoined to it.⁷ The body serves as the organ of the soul, even in the soul’s transcendence.⁸ Lust, Aquinas claims, is actually evidence of the soul’s affinity for its body, as the parts of the soul in unity with the flesh desire that which the body finds pleasurable, even when in conflict with the spirit. In this model, one cannot decisively claim that Christian theology supports the separation of body and soul, or that Christianity has a low view of the body.

Nykvist’s assessment of Edward presumes that his lifestyle is an ascetic one that reflects a Christian belief in escaping the body for a spiritual existence.⁹ In Theology of the Body, however, Pope John Paul II claims that it is the body which is responsible for the visualization of an invisible, spiritual, and divine reality. This bodily sacramentality, he argues, gives context for God’s command for marriage.¹⁰ Christianity does not argue for a lifestyle of mere deprivation, but for one of orderliness, so Nykvist’s argument that Twilight reflects a Judeo-Christian theology of the body is incorrect if she is basing it on a Gnostic foundation.

Instead, I would argue that Edward shows through his sexual and dietary restraint that he firmly believes that how one treats the body impacts the soul. He displays a high view of Bella’s soul as well of her body, and, if he believes that what one does to the body impacts the soul, the body must be of equal value. Body and soul are irrevocably linked. As seen by Edward’s strict abstinence, there is a part of him that still believes he has a soul that can be affected by premarital sex, a bodily act.

It might be easy to assume that the books are merely pushing a pro-abstinence agenda, but I do not think the books were written with the intent of being propaganda. I would argue, however, that the books use abstinence and the ethics of drinking blood as a means of inviting the readers into considering the relationship between their own body and soul. It urges them to consider that maybe their physical beings live in association with the spiritual world, thus awakening a sense of the spiritual.

Even though Edward does not explicitly come to his conclusions through a systematic theological approach, and his conclusions are not necessarily wholly Christian, his core philosophy demonstrates a concern for the spiritual. Sara Hutchinson, in an article on sexual exploration in YA fiction, argues that the genre can be a platform to encourage young readers to reflect on their own sexual expectations.¹¹ Her research focuses primarily on sexually active teenagers reading sexual scenes in YA fiction, and her thesis applies to YA fiction and sexual abstinence. Edward’s sexual ethic is not merely reflective of a passive old-fashioned (one could say Edwardian) belief that sex is for marriage—rather, it has a complex philosophical framework that questions what it means to be an embodied soul. Further, it presses us to ask what it means to be human or monster. If YA fiction can be used to prompt discussions about sexuality at the age of its target readers, then it can use sexuality to ask what it means to be a human person with an ensouled body and the implications of such an idea.

vampiric saints

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) in Twilight: New Moon [Credit: Temple Hill Entertainment]

This analysis is not an attempt to completely defend all of Edward’s behavior or even claim that Edward embodies a Christian ideal. But even with Twilight’s flaws, the series still has theological value and can be beneficial in contemplating what it means to be human in a world that is not just material.

Another of the books’ major themes is choice. This theme is reminiscent of the way the stories of the saints function. David Brown’s chapter on the novel in Discipleship and Imagination illustrates how contemporary novels can be valuable in developing a sense of the imitation of Christ by explaining the significance of the lives of the saints in the medieval church. Certain stories about the saints were attempts to reimagine what it meant to live a Christ-like life even when one’s own life was so different from his. Today, Brown claims, there is still distance from the life of Christ, but the need for remembering the life of Christ is still there. What he suggests is an adoption of the medieval imaginative story where one uses a narrative to reimagine the life of Christ in a new context, rather than just regurgitating old patterns found in the Gospels. Novels can do this to show “the working out of a similar graced life in very different circumstances.”¹²

This is where the value of Meyer’s books lie. Meyer states that the reason the book cover for Twilight features an apple, representing the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is to emphasize the theme of choice.¹³ Bella has to choose between humanity and vampirism, Jacob and Edward, right and wrong. Even though the books take place in a fantastic world, readers also make choices with consequences every day in their own mundane ordinary lives. Thus, choice bridges the real and the fantastic, and the reader can ask themselves what it means to be human in this bizarre narrative amidst flawed characters.

Brown specifically addresses the stories of female saints and how those stories illustrate female agency. Using the same framework Brown uses, one can see in the wider arc of the Twilight narrative how women try to make the best choice they can as humans in a fantastic world. Towards the end of each book, Bella must decide whether she will save someone’s life even at the risk of her own. In Twilight, Bella sacrifices herself to James when she thinks he is holding her mother hostage; in New Moon, she saves Edward from killing himself despite the risk of being caught by the Volturi; she draws her own blood in Eclipse to distract Victoria from the fight with Edward, saving his life; and in Breaking Dawn, she puts herself through a harrowing pregnancy to give birth to her daughter. In this last case, childbirth nearly kills Bella, and Edward turns her into a vampire to save her.

In looking at the Twilight metanarrative, one understands that Bella is not merely a silly girl obsessed with a boy, or a woman stripped of agency by patriarchal structures, but a human trying to make the best choices she can in a supernatural world. In each book, Bella is the weakest and least impressive character; she cannot compare to the vampires in strength or beauty. Yet, despite her awareness of her weaknesses, she continually saves the lives of these extraordinary creatures. In each choice, she demonstrates her strength through self-sacrifice.

Through their inhumanity, the vampires draw out in Bella what it truly means to be human in the way Christ was. This is what Brown ultimately postulates about the value of the novel as a form. Like the saints, Bella is a flawed human capable of poor choices, yet her narrative shows how young women are capable of agency in a world that threatens to overwhelm them, and what it looks like to use that agency in a Christ-like manner.

The vampires themselves are also crucial to the readers’ understanding of Bella’s choices. Milbank draws on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “On Fairy-Stories” when she says that we need “estranging techniques” to “shock people into engagement,” as the material objects set before us in reality can hide their true depth.¹⁴ This is exactly what the vampires do in Twilight. A vampire in the 21^st-century is shocking enough on its own, and even more so when he or she has morals. Instead of embodying the Antichrist like Dracula, the Cullens’ strange life of blood and morality prompts the reader to contemplate virtue in near-impossible circumstances the same way Brown argues the lives of the saints did. The reader, in looking at the Cullens’ inhuman nature, sees how they behave humanely and are forced to think about what it truly means to be human (or inhuman).

Brown’s and Milbank’s structures for creative mediums give the Twilight series a chance at dignity. Brown’s work gives the reader the opportunity to forgive the author and characters for poor choices while still seeing Christlike behavior in them.¹⁵ In doing so, Milbank’s imaginative apologetic sweeps the reader to a place where they may allow themselves to contemplate the spiritual. It will also allow the reader to awaken themselves to the world around them and understand it better.¹⁶ Meyer’s books place the audience in an environment where the supernatural surrounds them and asks whether they are only bodies or something more. If we are more than flesh and blood, then that must affect the way we live and think

concluding thoughts

Edward + Bella. [Credit: Temple Hill Entertainment]

This is not an attempt to bypass certain issues with Twilight. What I’m hoping I’ve shown is that Twilight participates in a larger tradition of interrogating the human person about the nature of their being and opening the mind beyond the material. I also hope I have shown that the series does have philosophical and theological depth beyond what some may assume of a YA novel oriented towards (though by no means limited to) young girls.

My goal is to show that the Twilight Saga is not frivolous or entirely unserious. It is of particular significance that a book in the YA Romance genre does what Twilight does. Twilight goes beyond itself and shows that books oriented for teens, specifically young girls, can possess substance and communicate important themes. In acknowledging this, not only do we concede dignity to the books themselves, but also to its young audience.

The series has its problems—I could ramble for a couple thousand words (and have already done so at other times) on the unhealthy dynamic between Edward and Bella. However, in using Brown’s and Milbank’s frameworks, the goal of analyzing the saga’s value is no longer dependent just on how orthodox the underlying philosophy is, or in how perfect the characters are. Instead, the series finds its value by urging readers to consider what it means to be human and to look for saintly behavior in flawed people.¹⁷

If Edward and Bella are, as Brown says, the “saints of tomorrow,” then they will not behave in an obviously saintly manner.¹⁸ Both Edward and Bella operate within a narrative that invites the reader to participate in an experience that transcends their immediate circumstances. It asks them what it means to be an ensouled creature and what it truly means to be human. Edward and Bella may not be perfectly crafted characters. But as G.K. Chesterton notes in The Defendant, “Ivory may not be so white as snow, but the whole Arctic continent does not make ivory black.” Edward Cullen may not be as pure as Christ, but his imperfections do not make him Dracula.

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1. Alison Milbank, “Apologetics and the Imagination: Making Strange,” in Imaginative Apologetics: Theology, Philosophy and the Catholic Tradition, 32.

2. Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse, 453.

3. Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse, 453.

4. Christine Seifert, “Bite Me! (Or Don’t),” Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, no. 42, pg. 23, 25.

5. Seifert, “Bite Me,” 25.

6. Karin Nykvist, “The Body Project,” in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twilight: Studies in Fiction, Media, and a Contemporary Cultural Experience, 34.

7. Thomas Aquinas, “Questions on the Soul,” in The Collected Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Article 2, corpus.

8. Aquinas, “Questions on the Soul,” Article 2, ad 2, ad 16.

9. Nykvist, “The Body Project,” 34.

10. Pope John Paul II, The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan (Boston: Pauline Books & Medi, 1997), 76.

11. Sara Hutchinson, “Let’s Write about Sex: YA Fiction as a Means of Learning about Sexuality,” in New Writing, 315–25.

12. Brown, Discipleship and Imagination, 64-65, 77, 95.

13. Stephenie Meyer, “Frequently Asked Questions: Twilight - Stephenie Meyer,” Section “What’s With the Apple?” https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-books/twilight/twilight-faq/.

14. Milbank, “Making Strange,” 32, 38.

15. Brown, Discipleship and Imagination, 98.

16. Milbank “Making Strange,” 44.

17. Brown, Discipleship and Imagination, 98.

18. Brown, Discipleship and Imagination, 100–101.