transformers as christian allegory from a 7-yr-old

there's a kid named manny in my bible study group that is seven years old and completely and utterly enthralled with the world of transformers.

about three months ago, he discovered that i knew about transformers, which up to that point he thought was an experience that was unique to kids his age.

since then, he has hounded me with questions about specific characters that i hadn't thought about since i was his age twenty years ago.

every week at bible study group he regales me with stories of the various incarnations of optimus prime, the governmental structure of the speed planet the pivotal role of unicron and the insidious nature of megatron.

this has been going on weekly for 3 months now.

this past saturday, he started in again about a particular character named Sideways who's nefarious plot is to simply stir up contention among the autobots and get them to fight each other.

not only can manny go on and on for hours on the subject, he is also VERY soft-spoken. this makes it hard for even the most intent listener to understand what he is saying.

i did my best to listen to this long diatribe but after about 10 minutes i asked him to stop. we were, after all, out in the public ministry work and i had determined that it wasn't the appropriate time.

as kindly as i could, i said to him, "manny, maybe we should talk about something else right now. it's time to talk about the bible with our neighbors. let's talk about jesus and god's kingdom."

there was a long healthy pause in the conversation.

after much deliberation, manny spoke.

"y'know, optimus prime is kinda like jesus... he's wise and powerful and kind... "

"plus he died and came back... " i chimed in.

"and megatron is kind of like satan because he wants to rule the universe and only wants to do bad things... and the deceptacons are kind of like the demons because they follow him... and unicron is kind of like god because he created all the transformers and the planets and he can never die and he was never born, he just always was... "

at this point, manny's dad, randy, stepped in and said, "okay, manny, i think we're done with transformers today."

i laughed.

but then the more i thought about it, manny is right. there are an awful lot of parallels to biblical accounts in the world of transformers. i think he may be the only seven-year old alive who "gets it".

inspired by this new insight, i've created the art above.