Comic But Recognizable
The Peanuts characters illustrate the Christian teaching that human beings need salvation not merely because they occasionally make mistakes, but because they are fundamentally unable to heal their alienation from God by their own goodness, intelligence, or effort. Humanity’s tendency is to trust in people, achievements, and self-made solutions instead of receiving God’s grace. Human beings are deeply flawed The Peanuts children repeatedly display jealousy, cruelty, selfishness, insecurity, pride, and resentment. Their behavior becomes a miniature picture of the human condition: people often know what is right but still fail to live according to it. The Christian doctrine of sin: Sin is not only the commission of isolated wrong actions; it is also a disorder in the human heart. We are inclined to put ourselves at the center, protect our pride, and use others for our own purposes. The children’s treatment of Charlie Brown is a small-scale picture of humanity’s sinful predicament....