Dante in the 21st Century

     Can The Divine Comedy, written around 1320, be relevant today? I was listening to a YouTuber go through The Inferno and he kept saying how certain standards have changed. In 2012, an NGO threatened to try to ban reading Dante in schools because it was offensive and discriminatory and that in  the "Divine Comedy is racist, Islamophobic, and antisemitic content.” Fortunately, they were ignored. Some in our day have a problem with the concept of Hell and sin. A chart posted by the Twitter account The World Maps showed that in Germany  only 15% of people believed in Hell, with the rates in Scandinavia being even lower. Can someone who doesn't even believe in Hell learn something from an epic poem about Hell and the afterlife? Would they feel sympathy for the Devil himself?  Would they consider Paradisio boring and anti-climatic? 

    I read The Divine Comedy a decade ago in a book with English and Italian side by side and also read a book about the historical context. I think in reading it as a historical curiosity, I missed out on the deeper spiritual meaning. Listening to a YouTuber talk about it helped me to see that there was something more spiritual and psychological about it. I don't think it was meant to be taken literally. I realize it is a personal spiritual journey. It is for us who get lost on our way in the dark forest to find ourselves back on the straight and narrow path to the love of God. 

    Humans of the 21st Century aren't much different from those in the 14th. We still have weaknesses and struggle with sin and pride. The journey of Dante can help each of us become stronger and wiser. First we must recognize what sin is and the reality of what sin does to a person and so we go down into the depths of Hell. We must travel down to rise again in Purgatorio where we cleanse ourselves through our weaknesses. Finally, we reach paradise where we learn about virtue until we reach peace in the light of God again. Even if you don't believe in God you can believe in the light of hope. It is still relevant today, even in our modern Godless world.