The Importance of Father Mitchell

I don’t know when this blog is going to go out versus how much will be known about Father Franklin Mitchell at the time of my writing this, but I wanted to take a moment to talk a bit about him here and why he’s probably the character I most identify with in the world I’ve created. Lots of people talk about DMs and their self inserts, how they’ll put in a powerful or cool character that they can act out their own fantasies within the world, whether that be the unhealthy DMPC (which I hope that I’ve created healthier versions through characters like Damian, Fulmer, and others you’ll meet in the future), a character to impact the world in a way that the DM themselves can’t impact their own, or sometimes a character that exists just to help the DM vent their worldview a bit in their creation when their own world falls short. 

Unintentionally, I created the third option with Mitchell. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a religious person. My faith in a god vanished when I was in High School, and I’ll admit to being a very bad atheist at that point in my life. At that point, I saw religion as fairytales that people held on to because they weren’t smart enough to figure out how to live their own lives. Then, as I got older, I believed that they were fairytales people held on to because they didn’t want to do the work to figure out how to live their own lives. This belief was only made stronger when I saw the cruelties and evils that people did in the name of their religions. It seemed like religion was just a get out of jail free card for people to hate and demean and despise one another. How could good people legitimize something as horrible as that?

I’d like to say that I got smart about it after learning about world mythology from my 12th grade English teacher, that I became a better atheist, and all around better person, when I started studying all these other cultures that had such similar beliefs and still hated and persecuted each other, but honestly, I think it made me worse for a while there. “How can they be so stupid to think their god is real when there are thousands of others that people saw as real and now aren’t worshiped anymore? Don’t they realize their god is next?” That was the way I thought, and it took decades before I realized how stupid I was acting. 

See, I took to teaching the same class, using my notes to do so, to teach kids about other cultures, not with the explicit goal of spreading atheism, but with the goal of showing kids raised in the bible belt that they needed to respect people who didn’t share their faith because I was sick of the elitism I was surrounded with. But then something impressive happened: these kids took to the teachings of mythologists and dead cultures like ducks to water, applying the teachings to their lives and their faith. Faith grew stronger, and for the first time in my life I was seeing good religion. 

That’s not to say it was the first time I was exposed to good religion or good religious people. It was just the first time I was seeing it, accepting it, and realizing what the lessons I was teaching really meant. Sorry it took me so long, Pasca. 

A lot of that really began to shape Mitchell’s character. Originally, he was supposed to be a Catholic priest who was going to become disillusioned by the church and despite his crisis of faith, he was going to do what was right. At first that meant showing compassion to the people around him regardless of what the Pope or the Bishops or the Dogma told him to do, but soon “do the right thing” started to take on a different meaning to him. Doing what was right began to become muddied with doing what was compassionate. I couldn’t rectify the two, and I’ll avoid spoilers here, but in all honesty, a lot of my personal beliefs started bleeding into him until I realized something profound about myself and about why I needed Michell. 

See, I still don’t believe in any gods. I don’t need to. Religion isn’t a crutch, though there are some people out there who use it that way. Religion is meant to be a philosophy, prayer is meant to be meditation, and faith is meant to offer strength when human strength gives out. It’s meant to be a lot of things, but many people who turn their back on it do so because those that practice religion don’t realize what it’s meant to be. That’s who Father Mitchell is, he’s a man who practices Christianity the right way. 

Joseph Campbell quotes a Hindu saying in his book The Power of Myth that states: “Only God can worship God,” and then goes on to explain that this means that only those who act as much like their god as possible have any right to call themselves members of that religion. Mitchell acts, in every moment possible, as much like how he believes his God would act. He fails now and then, and this is because he’s human, but he attempts to atone, he apologizes, and he is aware of himself, trying to be better in the future. Father Mitchell is everything I want to see in people who claim to be christians, but too few manage to meet these expectations. And I can’t blame them for that, as how can one justify the actions of the so-called christians who claim to be acting in the name of God these days?

Even I feel the weight of Mitchell’s struggle in the real world. Mine is just framed differently from his. I began to notice it a few years back, specifically when I stopped reciting the pledge of allegiance at the schools I worked at. Looking at the flag and then looking at the actions of my country, I couldn’t in good conscience pledge myself to those actions. Then as time went on, and things got worse, I realized that I wasn’t able to say that I was proud to be American. I couldn’t even lie and say it, the words tasted like bile in my mouth. How many times had I thought about how both my grandfathers fought the nazis in World War Two, but now my countrymen were electing them? And now, with the files being released, we’re learning how we were actually being run by a cabal of pedofiles, it just wasn’t the people the conspiracy theorists kept claiming it would be. I’m not proud of being American. I’m ashamed. 

Father Mitchell was ashamed of the actions of his Church, just as I am ashamed of the actions of my country. There’s the common cry that follows, “If you don’t like it, leave!” Sometimes I wish I could, though the system set up by this cabal has been done in such a way that we can’t afford to just leave. Other times, I stop and ask “why the fuck should I?” This is my home, much like how this is Michell’s faith. We were taught what it meant to be what we were now ashamed to be, but we weren’t ashamed by the ideals of what we were raised to be, we are ashamed of the actions of those who represent it. Those who lie and paint themselves to be the representation of what we are. 

Christ, the real Christ, whether he lived or was just stories, would be ashamed of most of the people on this planet who have the gall to call themselves christians. 

Those who are unfaithful, not just to their spouses, but to their friends, to their children, to their communities, to all who trust them. 

Christ would shame you. 

Those who cast out those who are different, who live their lives in a way that doesn’t align with what is the societal norm. Love thy neighbor much? 

Christ would shame you. 

Those who support what is wrong, who bury their heads in the sand because it’s easier than realizing the identity you made for yourself was a lie meant to control you. Try reading James 4:17 - “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is a sin for them.” 

Christ would shame you. 

Then what about me? My faith in America is practically gone, or so it would seem. What figure could I look to that is as infallible as Christ but for America (because despite what many people think, America is not a Christian nation. It is supposed to be a non-secular nation)? The founding fathers owed slaves, even our best presidents committed war crimes, and while there are good people in all branches of service, I went to high school with enough assholes who joined the military to know that they don’t get blanket absolution. Who can I turn to, then, as a representation of what America should be?

Next time you’re looking at the actions of Americans or whatever regime is ruling us, do what I do, and ask yourself this question: Would Captain America be ashamed of you?

Locking kids in cages? Ripping them away from their families because of the color of their skin or the place of their parent’s birth? Shipping them off to a private island to rape and murder them?

Captain America would shame you. 

Send an invading army against your own citizens to stamp down on their First Amendment rights like the stormtroopers of nazi Germany? 

Captain America would shame you. 

Use your position of power to steal and syphon the wealth of your people and your country for self enrichment, or elevate people who would, into a position where they can?

Captain America would shame you. 

This has actually helped me a great deal in justifying my desire to be a proud American again with the world as I actually see it. America is currently nothing to be proud of. The ideals we were taught to idolize in it, on the other hand, are. Michell acts in the way a good Christian should, and he is a reminder to me of how I need to act in my daily life: the shame is natural, and it is acceptable, because if I wasn’t feeling ashamed of what my country was doing, that would make me a monster or complicit with monsters. My shame is currently a badge of honor, because it means I want something greater for what was meant to bring me pride and strength. Mitchell seeks that same thing, and as the story continues to grow, I hope he finds it, because maybe then I’ll be able to find it for myself, as well.