“The Only Christ We Deserve”: Meursault Meets The Dude

(Creative Commons)

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Christ-figures, in literature and cinema, are always going to be problematic. The theological tail of the Jesus-comet is long and dense: attempts at transferring its energies to Christ-like creatures with exclusively human natures are always going to come up short. The trick to avoiding this artistic fate is, I think, to make it clear that allusions to Jesus Christ —…