An Undead-ly Fascination

Humanity has a love-hate obsession that just won’t die.

We hate to contemplate our own death. Can you recall ever thinking, “I can’t wait to go to the funeral home to make my final arrangements”? Probably not. And we buy life insurance – just in case – all the while hoping we’ll somehow become the exception and kick the Grim Reaper in the bottom when he comes calling.

At the same time, death offers a strange attraction. Some people scan the obits the first thing every morning, reasoning if they’re not in them, then it’s okay to proceed with the day’s plans. TV news usually opens its first minutes with the daily body count – murders, accidents, natural disasters and other calamities.

One of movie director Woody Allen’s most famous lines is, “I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” (I second that motion.)

But in recent years, death has ascended to unprecedented heights of popularity. More accurately, “un-death.”

We have a morbid
fascination with zombies,
vampires and such.

For the life of me, I can’t understand the current fascination with the “undead” – vampires and zombies, fictional but very profitable entities of literary and film fancy. When I was a boy, Bela Lugosi became a film legend portraying the vampire, Dracula. Boris Karloff also rose to movie stardom as Frankenstein’s monster (comprised of recycled body parts), and the Mummy. A late-night horror movie hostess was named Vampira. But there was never the obsession we see today.

Anne Rice perhaps started things off, crafting a lucrative career writing best-selling vampire novels. Author Stephenie Meyer trumped that success with her four-book Twilight series aimed at young adult readers, featuring vampires, werewolves and other such things. Film adaptations of her books have scored big at the box office.

“The Mummy” was resurrected, so to speak, in films from 1999 to 2008. Currently, “The Walking Dead” is a popular cable TV series. And the film, “World War Z,” starring Brad Pitt, recently opened, depicting yet another zombie apocalypse. There’s even a horror film director named Rob Zombie.

So what’s the deal? Why, if we fear the specter of death, do we find it so difficult to look away?

I think there’s a spiritual root to this contradiction. The Bible states we were “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). In other words, without the saving life of Jesus Christ, people are like spiritual zombies – walking around physically, but being dead spiritually, disconnected from God their Creator.

The good news is we don’t have to remain that way. The passage goes on to say, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…” (Ephesians 2:4). Another passage declares much the same: “When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive in Christ” (Colossians 2:13).

Without Christ, the Scriptures proclaim, we are the real “walking dead” – breathing, hearts beating – but totally separated from God. Jesus, Himself resurrected from the dead, is the only one that can rescue us from spiritual death. “For it by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Once this spiritual transaction has taken place, we can appropriate the new life given to us. “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).

So when you hear about the next zombie film or vampire novel, remember the true “walking dead,” an apt description of humankind apart from the saving grace of Christ. I didn’t say that – God did. 

Doing the Halloween Thing

Saturday marks our annual Halloween observance – a rather peculiar holiday, if you ask me. On one level it’s simple fun, children wearing costumes of princesses, scarecrows, animals and cartoon characters visiting the homes of friends, collecting candy in response to an innocent “Trick or Treat.” Even adults join the frivolity, going to Halloween parties dressed as favorite politicians, entertainers or historical figures.

On another level, Halloween has a more sinister side populated by “denizens of the dark.” Historians report the event has both pagan and religious roots, but it’s hardly considered a Christian celebration in any sense. Viewed by some as a “festival of the dead,” according to various web sources, days leading up to Halloween emphasize the occult, feeding off America’s strange fascination with the supernatural, as evidenced by Harry Potter books, the Twilight vampire series, and any number of films about vampires, ghosts and zombies.

(Even everyday traditions, like Ohio State’s “O-H-I-O,” can take a Halloween twist, as the photo I borrowed from the Columbus Dispatch shows.)

Our preoccupation with death, I suppose, is merely a part of life. Everyone has a beginning – and an end. For many people, the uncertainty – and anxiety – concerns the part at the end. That’s why murder mysteries sell so well, why forensics dramas dominate TV…and why we read the daily obituaries. Rich or poor, male or female, young or old, death is our unavoidable common denominator.

This is one reason I find great comfort in Bible passages like the following:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).