This was written and submitted for publication in Luther Seminary's student newspaper, The Concord.
At the time of submission, Halloween is upon us. Hay rides and pumpkin carvings delight children and families. Target tempts our bellies with an impressive variety of candies. The abandoned space once occupied by Circuit City now inhabits numerous goblins, princesses, and spooky props. A variety of fans don the costumes of their particular favorite characters from video games and literary or cinematic works. For those unimpressed by the sparkling day-walking vampires of the Twilight series, costumes of deteriorated corpses and bloody flesh allow children and adults to personify zombies from their favorite movies or video games. The fictional and mythological presence of vampires and zombies is rather prevalent. We find them in the Twilight series, the Resident Evil series, Dracula, Night of the Living Dead, True Blood, etc. Max Brooks wrote a book instructing readers on how to survive in the event of a zombie apocalypse. AMC will soon be televising a show about a zombie infested world entitled, The Walking Dead. If we are to imagine a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by vampires, zombies, or other varieties of the undead, it is hard to believe that their presence could possibly be more unavoidable than it is already.
Beneath the jovial merriment of Halloween’s festivities, beneath the shiny crinkle of delectable treats, this season betrays our cultures preoccupation with death. Vampires and zombies, whether we find them attractive for their shock value or out of mere guilty pleasure, embody our societal and cultural preoccupation with death, eternal life, and the human soul. For the most part, both are classified as undead and are popular particularly because of how they draw us into an imaginative universe of existence that is beyond death. These fictional undead do more than speak of our cultural preoccupation with whether life exists beyond death, they also speak of the nature of that ‘semi-resurrected life.’
In the realm of vampire lore, we can see a preoccupation with consumption. Whether a vampire is of the more ‘noble’ sort and only feeds on wild animals or it ravages local villages biting into the jugular of any passing unfortunate soul, it is impossible to speak of vampires without talk of feeding. More often than not, fictional portrays of these immortal blood-suckers are done in the context of a grand castle or lavish lifestyle. Consumption is not just portrayed in the drinking of platelets but also in the expensive surroundings of Dracula and his ilk. Moreover when vampire fiction attends to relationship (or lack thereof), there is an unspoken message of consuming and owning the life of another. Perhaps what vampire-lore says about our human condition is that, whether in property or relationship, we wish that the finality of death could not prevent our quest to acquire things or people. Perhaps the allure of death in vampire fiction has to do what the things or the people we wish we could hold onto and the tension that arises when that desire is faced with the unavoidable finality of human existence.
Zombie-lore, with its mobs of undead prowling the streets looking to feed on brraainns, would seem to be about consumption as well. For goodness sake, there’s even a Cake Boss episode wherein the bakery constructs a monstrous (no pun intended) zombie cake for a party.
Although we’ve witnessed many a horror movie or pub-crawl with zombies seeking to consume human flesh or alcohol, more often than not the depiction of the zombie ‘life’ is at the end of a shotgun. The whole point of numerous zombie movies or video games is to eradicate the
zombie infestation before the hero is eaten alive. Video games and cinematic representations love to highlight the variety of ways in which this ‘acceptable killing’ can be done; by shotgun, chainsaw, sporting equipment, or even hedge trimmer. Zombie-lore, with its fascination on killing the all-consuming mob, may actually be a critique against capitalistic consumerism. It may perhaps, be a reflection of the human desire to exert will over another, or to fight
the unceasing onslaught of death with everything we have.
So what is the Christian response to this cultural preoccupation with death? We must realize that scripture is not without its similarity to the popularity of undead fiction. Lazarus walks out from the tomb, stinking to high heaven. The resurrected Christ allows for so-called doubting Thomas to place his hands directly into His flesh. But in contrast to popular culture’s portrayal of life after death, the Christian message must be particularly distinct. The resurrected Christ is more than just some sparkling transfigured deity. The resurrected Christ is not solely about the business of consumption. The resurrected Christ is no longer concerned with holding death off at the end of a pitchfork. The theology of the cross informs us to look for the glory of Christ, not in the sparkling glow on the mountain side, but in the suffering, weakness of death itself. The resurrected Christ, having conquered death, is about the business of consumption but only consuming the sin, suffering, and filth of our fallen humanity. The resurrected Christ is in the business of declaring the unworthy righteous and offering His benefits unto humanity. The resurrected Christ needs no shotgun, pitchfork, or garlic to fight off death. He has already conquered the entirety of
death, taking nails and spear into himself.
The resurrected life, although we do not yet see it in our flesh, is one we confess and hope for in faith. This resurrected life, which we have through Christ alone, is not one of consumption or destruction. It does not seek its own ends through the exertion of will over another. Rather it waits in patient hope, willingly receiving daily bread and all that is needed for this life from the gracious hand of God. Death holds sway over our physical and temporal life. Although we may suffer and grieve under its finite realm, we need not retreat into the fictional illusion of ‘undead comfort.’ Instead through water and Word, bread and wine, we are to taste in see that the Lord who has conquered death in order to make us His own, is indeed good.
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