Peanuts and Pagels · The MAGDALENE Network

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Peanuts and Pagels

This afternoon I went to a local community theater production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"

and I suddenly remembered that in December of 2024 I visited the Charles Shultz Museum in Santa Rosa and saw a copy of Elaine Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels on Charles Shultz's bookshelf. (This was on my way home from a retreat with Kayleen Asbo, a prominent spokesperson on Magdelene-related material.)

A bit less than half of the Shultz museum is the most popular Peanuts's cartoons with explanations of why they were important, and half is the life of Shultz. They have preserved Shultz's study exactly as it was when he died with all the books behind glass panels. Most of his books are either on the history of cartoons, animation, and general art. He had a few Bible commentaries, but right there is Elaine Pagels' book "The Gnostic Gospels". Schultz is generally believed to have been a fairly religious Christian when he was younger but got more agnostic when he was older. The animated Peanuts cartoon "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) is very overtly Christian. It came out at the same time as a very popular (but really not very good) book "The Gospel According to Peanuts".

This is my photo of Pagels on Charles Shultz's book shelf plus a photo from the front entrance to the museum

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