With the latest Twilight movie packing theaters, a raft of experts are busy spotting religious threads in the girl-vampire-werewolf love triangle tales. While groups root for Team Edward or Team Jacob, rivals for Bella's love, experts are saying the spiritual winner is Team Mormon.

Joel Campbell at the Mormon Times, sees Mormon themes influenced the "Twilight" series of books and the subsequent movies although the author, Stephenie Meyer, is a member the Latter Day Saints (LDS and Mormons prefer to be called) says she "hasn't consciously inserted her faith's themes into her books."

Jana Reiss, blogging at Beliefnet, sees a critical concept in the Book of Mormon, Meyer's favorite book, underlying the whole Twilight structure:

That issue is overcoming the "natural man." Edward Cullen (the vampire)is literally carnal. He has to make the decision every day to overcome his nature and be selfless and good--what the Book of Mormon argues is the challenge of every person. The natural "man" (or woman, or hottie vampire) is an enemy to God and has to be put off in favor of struggling for holiness.

Edward's journey is made possible through exercising his agency, another key doctrine that, while hardly unique to Mormonism, is fully developed there. Agency is a radical freedom, the ability to choose one's eternal destiny and not be defined by whatever path seems laid out by circumstance...

And Reiss, in turn, tips her hat to Religion News Service's analysis by Angela Aleiss, who teaches film and religion at University of California, Los Angeles.

Aleiss did a point by point comparison of heroine Bella and the boys' actions as enactments of Mormon beliefs and culture, right down to how much housekeeping industry Bella is always doing. But most of her points deal with doctrine

One example:

Mormons believe angels are resurrected beings of flesh and bone. The most familiar is Moroni, who stands high atop Mormon temples, trumpet in hand. The Book of Mormon says Moroni was a fifth-century prophet who visited founder Joseph Smith in 1823. Smith described Moroni as radiating light and "glorious beyond description."

Bella describes her vampire boyfriend Edward as an angel whom she can't imagine "any more glorious." Edward's skin sparkles in the sunlight, and he visits Bella's bedroom at night. But Mormon angels don't have wings; in the "Twilight" film, Edward sits in the science lab, the outstretched wings of a stuffed white owl just over his shoulders.

At University of Southern California's Media and Religion Blog, Jennifer Hahn has been tuned in to Twilight's LDS religiosity since the first film in 2008, pointing out that while film critics may not be up on Mormon beliefs, they should be able to grasp its celebration of abstinence and the idea that,

...teenage girls might love this franchise just as much for its thoughtful treatment of the existential and religious dilemmas with which they struggle?

Hahn revisits the topic for the latest movie, and puts Twilight's appeal in a larger context, saying,

...an increasing number of spiritual-but-not-religious Americans feel that traditional religious organizations are failing to satisfy their spiritual needs. If this trend continues, we will likely see more pop culture offerings that address spiritual needs through supernatural storytelling.

But my colleague Maria Puente in today's look at Twilight films and books, says teens roll their eyes at the very mention of moral lessons in the saga.

Do you see a spiritual subtext in the supernatural tales? Is it part of Twilight's appeal to you or irrelevant?