I have been speaking figuratively

I'm the one turning regular stories into salvation messages. So not calling up kettle here, but this blog tying popular culture to Christianity might take the cake, as far as cake-taking goes. Can't read all the cake-taking, so just focus on the one below:

'Lost': The Island Giveth, the Island Taketh Away
Posted by Sherry Huang
Nov. 11, 2005 | 1:35 p.m.

Death claimed Shannon Rutherford this week on "Lost," the second death of this series (after her stepbrother Boone) but the first of this season. While the last episode (before a bunch of recent repeats) left off with a feeling of hope, this episode left off with a feeling of futility and hopelessness. After seeing strange visions of Walt, Shannon spends the episode begging for someone to believe in her, not just in her story but in her deeper potential of transforming into someone new.

Struggling with self-esteem and abandonment issues, Shannon says, in a pivotal scene: "Everyone thinks I'm worthless." Once she reveals this, she is free for the first time in her life—her words and her old self washed away by the rain pouring down on her, a metaphor for immersion baptism, as the sins of her Jezebel-tinged past (namely, her incestuous one-night stand with Boone and her years of keeping house with older men in order to swindle money from her stepmother) are washed away.

Yet, instead of a burst of light breaking through the rain to fully complete the transformation from old to new, Shannon is promptly killed, just as she releases her yoke onto the shoulders of her savior, Sayid, who declares his undying love. Although the rain seems to wash away Shannon’s sins, it does not fully cleanse her because her repentance is incomplete; she does not fully express regret about her past sins or seek hope in the island, which should be her true savior.

Even though Sayid seems to be her savior, he is really a false savior; instead, she transfers her hope and desperate codependency from one idol (Boone) onto another (Sayid). Because Shannon’s repentance is not entirely true, instead of being saved, she is punished, and it is Ana-Lucia who literally casts the (accidental) first stone—a bullet. As Shannon dies in Sayid’s arms, the horror of the island’s judgment reverberates: "For the wages of sin is death..." (Romans 6:23a, NIV ).

Despite having finally found self-worth, the island ultimately judges her life worthless—and beyond redemption.

I don't know how to respond, really. The rain as baptism. The Jezebel reference. The death as judgment. The island as judge, apparently. All too much, a bit forced. But that's what good evangelism is -- forcing the issue of salvation into all contexts in order to illuminate the need for God no matter the discussion. That pop culture or otherwise, all conversation leads or should lead to the cross.