DeBerry 1

Hillary DeBerry

Professor Matthew Wilsey-Cleveland

WRTG 3020-044

4 December 2009

Word Count: 1534

Fight Club: A Critical Illustration of Christianity

Religious imagery is apparent throughout Chuck Palahniuk’s novel

Fight Club. In the novel, the nameless main character finds redemption from

the consumerist, corporate society through his alter ego, Tyler Durden. The

main character, along with his “savior” Tyler Durden, forms a fight club

where men join together and beat up each other. Through reducing

themselves to a state of abjection, the characters are able to attain

salvation from social constructions and identities. Christopher Deacy, in his

article “Integration and Rebirth through Confrontation: Fight Club and

American Beauty as Contemporary Religious Parables,” claims that the

religious imagery in Fight Club provides an adequate reflection of

Christianity. However, the religious imagery presented in Fight Club is

transgressive and critical of Christian tradition rather than venerating it.

Although the book Fight Club includes religious language, the reversals

of crucial elements of Christian beliefs within the statements create a

parody of Christianity. Throughout Fight Club the narrator and characters

use language that was spoken by Jesus Christ or that appears in the Christian

Bible. The mechanic in Fight Club declares “Believe in me and you shall die,
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forever” (Palaniuk 145). This statement reflects conversely the biblical

passage in the book of John which reads “For God so loved the world, that he

gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not

perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The narrator toys with the

reversal of everlasting life to eternal death which disrespect a primary belief

for Christians. After the main character in Fight Club learns that his

apartment was destroyed in an explosion, he calls Tyler Durden and prays

“Oh, Tyler, please deliver me… Oh Tyler, please rescue me… Deliver me,

Tyler, from being perfect and complete” (Palahniuk 46). This language

parodies the Lord’s Prayer, found in the gospel of Matthew, in which

Christians ask to be delivered from evil (Matthew 6:10-14). To Christians,

redemption from evil is an essential aspect of their beliefs. In his book Jesus

Our Redeemer, author Gerald O’ Collins explains the importance of Jesus’ act

of salvation involving redemption from evil (117). He asserts that “Jesus

knew his redemptive work to involve liberation from sin, evil, and a misuse of

the law and to bring the gift of life in abundance” (O’Collins 117). Whereas

Christians sincerely desire redemption from an evil world, the main character

prays to be free of perfection, while perfection is usually a goal of humans.

This reversal of language mocks prayer. The religious language in Fight Club

creates a satirical view of Christianity because of the reversal of key facets of

belief.

Although Fight Club includes images of salvation, redemption,

and freedom, it rejects vital aspects of Christianity such as love. The

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rejection of these aspects of Christianity highlights the problematic aspects

of Christianity such as denying oneself and submitting to an all-powerful

savior. Whereas Christianity honors the figure of a loving savior, the savior

figure in Fight Club is destructive. Jesus Christ declares “Come unto me, all

that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon

you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest

unto your souls. For my yoke [is] easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew

11:28-30). This passage illuminates a loving and compassionate savior who

desires to provide for the people of the world. Robin Routledge discusses the

power that sacrifice and hesed, (a Hebrew word relating to kind of love) have

in connecting with God in her text “Prayer, Sacrifice, and Forgiveness” She

asserts: “God’s faithful commitment to his people opens the way for the

possibility of a new relationship and a new covenant – based on God’s hesed

(love)” (Routledge 21). Routlegde refers to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ which

allows God’s creation to partake in his love, a prominent belief in

Christianity. The savior figure, Tyler Durden, in Fight Club is destructive and

not loving. He inflicts immense pain on the main character by burning his

hand with lye (Palahniuk 74). Even though he is looked to as the savior,

Durden rejects the primary loving qualities of the Christian savior which

dishonors Christian beliefs. In Fight Club there are no loving relationships.

The narrator affirms that Marla loves the main character and that Tyler

Durden loves Marla, but ambiguity of identities in the novel creates

uncertainty about the actual object, or even the reality, of their affections
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(Palahniuk 193, 199). Even when main character embraces Bob, it is for

selfish motives so that the main character can sleep, and it is not about love

(Palahniuk 21). At the end of the novel, the main character further rejects

the idea of love. God asks him “Can’t [you] see that we are all manifestations

of love?” and the main character declares that “God’s got this all wrong”

(207). He asserts that love is not a facet of human beings. The rejection of

love in Fight Club creates an irreverent view of Christianity.

Salvation in Christianity comes through accepting Jesus’ acts of

suffering and self-annihilation, and not from self-suffering, as depicted in

Fight Club. In Fight Club the characters find salvation through the beating of

their bodies and the self abjection (Palahniuk 51). After emerging from a

fight, the members of fight club “feel saved” (Palahniuk 51). Deacy asserts

that this supports the Christian idea of “resurrection through human

suffering” (Deacy 64). However, for Christians, salvation does not come from

causing harm to oneself, but accepting the act of suffering that Jesus

performed on the cross which redeemed all people once and for all. In his

article “Wound Made Fountain: Toward a Theology of Redemption,” author

Jerome Miller discusses Jesus’ crucifixion as his way of identifying with the

oppressed and connecting God’s children back to him. Miller affirms that

Jesus’ crucifixion allowed for the redemption of all people and believes in the

“suffering of the crucified Christ as the alternative to—hence in some sense a substitute for—the

retributive punishment we sinners deserve” (Miller 526). Christians believe that it was

God’s plan that Jesus suffer once and for all so that the people could be
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saved. In the book Christ the Center by George Knight, the author discusses

that as Christians, “what we discover from the utterances of Jesus from the

Cross is that he himself was at that moment in our time performing the one

and only act of redemption that empowered the salvation of all humankind”

(Knight 47). Mankind would no longer have to suffer to be redeemed.

However, the image of Christianity that Fight Club creates is that in order to

achieve salvation, the individual must suffer. This mocks Christianity

because the Bible claims that

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that

the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:16-17)

Salvation for Christians comes only from belief in Jesus Christ. The distorted

image of salvation in Fight Club suggests that one must suffer to be saved,

whereby rejecting the Christian truth that redemption comes through faith.

Whereas salvation leads to eternal life for Christians, at the end of

Palahniuk’s novel, salvation fails the main character which alludes to the

failures of Christianity. Throughout Fight Club, the main character reveres

Tyler Durden as his savior (Palahniuk 46). At the end of the novel when the

main character realizes that Tyler is part of himself, his redemption through

the savior image of Tyler falls apart. As the reality of the existence of his

savior Tyler Durden dissolves, the main character’s sense of redemption

becomes weak, instable, and unreliable. The main character realizes “there’s
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nothing left” and “everything has fallen apart” (Palahniuk 193,202). He

asserts that he is not longer free and that he is alone (Palahniuk 174). After

killing himself and entering a sort of heaven, the main meets God. Rather

than acknowledging him as his redeemer, the main character sees God as a

figure similar to a corporate manager, sitting behind his long walnut desk

(Palahniuk 207). Salvation for the main character was about escaping the

social construction of the consumerist world and now God appears as

another facet of the corporate social structure from which he fled. In this

way, God is powerless and the main character rejects God as a redeeming

figure. He insists that “God’s got this all wrong” and denies his authority

(Palahniuk 207). The failure of salvation for the main character in Fight Clubs

mocks Christianity as it questions the actual reality and sacred power of

Christians’ salvation through Jesus Christ.

The novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk contains many Christian

images and Christian language. Rather than providing a parable of

Christianity, the novel creates an irreverent view of Christian beliefs. By

twisting religious language, the exclusion of love, the misrepresentation of

attaining salvation and the failure of salvation at the end of the novel,

despite its religious tone, Fight Club is a sacrilegious text.

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Works Cited
Knight, George A. F. Christ the Center. Grand Rapids, Michigan; Handsel Press 1999.

Miller, Jerome A. "Wound made Fountain: Toward a Theology of Redemption." Theological

Studies 70.3 (2009): 525-54.

O'Collins, Gerald. Jesus our Redeemer :A Christian Approach to Salvation. Oxford; New York:

Oxford University Press, 2007.

Routledge, Robin. "Prayer, Sacrifice and Forgiveness." European Journal of Theology 18.1

(2009): 17-28.