This might be a very odd question, but I'm asking it anyway:
Are there Christian Good Omens fans? And if there are, how are you feeling about the finale?
I ask because I have a few very dear Christian friends who I believe would very much agree with the original messages that were in the first two seasons. There was so much valid critique in them that were almost a perfect mirror to the conversations I have with my friends about their feelings towards the church.
And I can't help but feel like the ending became a little disrespectful to the religion it was critiquing.
And let me be clear: I am not the person who has ever or will ever come to the defense of the church. But I will come to the defense of the genuinely kind hearted people who have risen above what it's become and have found the good within those teachings.
Because whether we like it or not, our entire world has been deeply affected by Christianity, and always will be. And at its core, and like any religion, it SHOULD have been and should BE a beautiful thing. It's been corrupted to all hell and caused an unacceptable amount of harm, but Jesus's teachings were, at their core, good. And this finale acknowledges that. Only to dismiss it completely and write it out. And though I'm not Christian, and do not know the Bible very well at all, it feels wrong to spend so much time building such a nuanced conversation around it and then just... Decide it's all inherently evil.
What is Jesus without his history? Without his past? What does that absence do to this world? Are there still wars? Conflicts? And if not, is that not a sanitized, free-will-less facsimile of our world? It feels disrespectful to our history as a people to take all of that away.
Even those who are not Christian take comfort in the idea of there being some sort of presence, whether it's a God, multiple, or something else. And idk, it just feels wrong to potentially rob that from people.
And I agree that, in the context of this particular universe, Heaven and Hell, devils and angels SHOULDNT meddle in human lives. But there is not a single narrative reason that they couldn't have come up with another answer. Why not return to the same world there was, but without meddling? Hell, make Aziraphale and Crowley the official Protectors of Humanity or whatever, but you cannot convince me that they would choose what they did.
Aziraphale's entire character hinged on his belief that this system CAN work, CAN be for good, but that it needs changing, and Crowley has done nothing but say "fuck no" to God's very wish and plan. So why play by God's rules? It doesn't make any sense to me.
I hope I don't come across as naive, but I think a little empathy towards those we critique goes a long way
