When Archie Comics found Jesus: Strange artifacts from a once-Christian culture

Winn the barber ran a tidy, one-chair shop in an office park off Route 222. That meant a wait — especially since my mother usually brought my two younger brothers as well — but I didn’t mind.

Like Winn, who always wore a starched white coat and slicked his hair back with Brylcreem, I was a creature of habit, and I had a ritual for these bimonthly visits. I’d plop down into one of the vinyl-covered seats and catch up on the adventures of Archie Andrews and the rest of the Riverdale High gang.

In the 1970s, evangelical Christianity may not have been culturally dominant, but it was culturally permissible.

Normally, I stuck to more serious fare — “Batman,” “Daredevil,” maybe the odd “Sgt. Rock” if the spinner rack was looking particularly picked over. But Winn exclusively stocked his waiting room with Archie Comics.

Revival in Riverdale

Sophisticated cineastes will cry at “The Notebook” if they watch it on an airplane — something about the altitude. And something about Winn’s place — the fake wood paneling on the walls, the smell of Barbicide mingling with the eerie “easy listening” music wafting from a hidden speaker somewhere — lowered my critical defenses. I couldn’t get enough of these soothingly repetitive teenage misadventures.

Then, one afternoon I picked up an issue that seemed off. Entitled “Archie’s One Way,” the cover featured Archie and friends in his “jalopy” — comically overheating and leaking fluid everywhere — getting yelled at by a cop for ignoring the obvious street sign. “Do you know this is ONE WAY?”

So far, so good. Typical Archie setup. But instead of a wisecrack from Reggie or Jughead, we get Betty piping up from the back seat, arms raised in joyful celebration: “This is cool! The officer is WITNESSING to Archie!”

Huh.

A new creation

I opened the cover and read with a kind of dawning horror, like the lone survivor in a body snatchers movie. The art, the lettering, the bright colors were exactly the same, but somehow, when I wasn’t looking, the wholesome yet wholly secular teens I’d come to know and love had been swapped with evangelical Christian duplicates.

I had encountered one of the licensed line of Archie issues put out by Spire Christian Comics from 1973 to 1982.

The idea came from longtime Archie artist Al Hartley, who’d had a born-again experience in 1967 and thought Archie would make a great way to spread the gospel. Although he was Jewish, John Goldwater — who had created Archie along with partner Louis Silberkleit some 30 years earlier — agreed.

The regular Archie books continued unchanged. These proselytizing stories lived in their own lane, distributed through Christian bookstores and churches — although often making it out into the wider world, as I and other unsuspecting readers can confirm.

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Old Man in Prayer by Workshop of Rembrandt van Rijn, circa 1629. Barney Burstein/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images

‘Divorce Any Style’

The message wasn’t subtle: In that same issue, the gang ends up in what appears to be Riverdale’s never-before-seen version of Times Square, recoiling at marquees advertising movies like “Divorce Any Style” (rated X), “Crime Pays,” and “Sex Sex.”

In another, Betty helps an injured hippie classmate (a great kid, notes Archie, before she “got into the drug scene”) accept Christ into her heart after a bad car accident.

The idea of Archie Comics as Jack Chick tract seems strange now. But is it any stranger than the recent TV series “Riverdale,” the requisite “bold” and “subversive” take that turned its Anytown, U.S.A., into a hotbed of conspiracies, crime, and gothic melodrama?

What’s really strange to contemplate from today’s vantage point is that Archie’s conversion didn’t inspire any kind of national uproar. Granted, before the internet, it was much harder for outrage to spread; most people not in Spire’s audience probably didn’t know these comics existed.

But I think it was also something else.

Negative world

Writer Aaron Renn has described American culture as moving from a “Positive World,” in which Christianity carried social legitimacy, to a “Neutral World,” and now to a “Negative World,” where public Christian identity can carry reputational cost. However one draws the lines, the Archie–Spire experiment clearly belongs to an earlier era.

In the 1970s, evangelical Christianity may not have been culturally dominant, but it was culturally permissible. Just as even liberal Democrat Jimmy Carter could speak of committing adultery “in his heart” (in Playboy magazine, of all places) and still get elected, a mainstream publisher could allow its most recognizable teenager to kneel in prayer and trust that the sky would not fall.

The moment was not confined to Riverdale — or Protestantism. In the ’80s, Marvel produced comic book biographies of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa.

As late as the early ’90s, Marvel launched a joint venture with Christian publisher Thomas Nelson to publish the adventures of the Illuminator — a superhero with explicitly God-given powers — as well as adaptations of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” and C.S. Lewis’ classic “The Screwtape Letters.” The imprint was shut down after only two years.

‘Nuff said?

In 2000, Marvel founder Stan Lee approached Episcopal priest Peter Wallace about creating comics based on a “biblical worldview” for his new online venture Stan Lee Media. In a 2023 article, Wallace recalled his pitch:

This approach would promote belief in God, the example of Christ’s life, the reality of supernatural conflict, strong moral values, and an altruistic lifestyle. Our stories would be fully compatible with the Bible and religious tradition, but without painting ourselves into a corner theologically. The goal of this approach — a goal that’s urgently needed today — is to open young minds to the reality of God, to build a strong case for faith and morality by example, without being preachy or dogmatic. It can help launch youth of all ages on a quest for truth and a personal relationship with God.

When SLM went bust along with many other first-wave internet start-ups, the idea was forgotten.

Also in 2023, Archie Comics introduced its first transgender character, more than a decade after Riverdale’s first gay student made the scene. The “queering” of Archie was probably inevitable; comic books, like movies and TV, have embraced 21st-century America’s religious zeal for “LGBTQ representation,” among other modish concerns loosely falling under the category “woke.”

But in his 85-year history, Archie Andrews has seen a lot of trends come and go — from the jitterbug and acid rock, to MTV and even crypto. As the “peak woke” of the Trump/Biden/Trump era recedes, we’re apparently seeing a bit of a religious revival among the young. Who’s to say our favorite red-headed, perpetual 16-year-old won’t get caught up in the spirit too?