I sometimes think I am a strange phenomenon. I work in the area of theology and cultural studies on the one hand, and yet also have this interest in the fantastic and bizarre in popular culture, including horror, science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal. From time to time, however, I discover that there have been, and are, others like me.

In a previous interview Matt Cardin shared the strong connection between religious scholarship and the vampire, in particular the work of two Christian scholars who addressed this area. More recently another colleague of mine, Philip Johnson of Australia, introduced me to the work of a similar gentleman, 19th century Anglican clergyman Sabine Baring-Gould. He is best known for having written the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but many conservative Christians might be aghast by his interests in other areas, including folklore in some horrific expressions. In this arena he wrote about werewolves and similar phenomena. His best known work in this area was The Book of Werewolves published in 1865. It can be downloaded for free at the Internet Archive after entering a search for his name. The book is also available at Amazon.com.

So while some may find my interests in theology and culture, as well as the fantastic and bizarre in popular culture, peculiar if not allegedly incompatible, I would point them toward those in the past with similar interests, as well as those religion scholars in the present with such pursuits, including Antoine Favre and J. Gordon Melton on vampirism.

TheoFantastique Podcast 2.2 for 2011 is now available. In this edition my special guest is Peg Aloi, a religion scholar and film critic and who maintains her own blog at The Witching Hour, who engages me about the film Black Death directed by Christopher Smith. In this interview and dialogue, Peg and I discuss the film cinematically, as well as its religious elements (bringing together our different religious traditions, an idea I first suggested at The Wild Hunt), and how this film may, in the words of Smith, function as a dark parable for our times. TheoFantastique Podcast 2.2 can be listened to by clicking this link.

See the trailer below. This is a difficult film to find on DVD, but you can watch it on your computer through the TheoFantastique Store via Amazon.com Instant Video at this link.

Related post:

“Peg Aloi: Season of the Witch (2011)”

TheoFantastique: Avril, how did you come to a personal interest in science fiction and fantasy, and what expressions of them are most appealing to you and why?

Avril Hannah-Jones: It all began for me when a school teacher gave me a copy of The Hobbit when I was about eight. I remember that as the moment when I discovered science fiction and fantasy – but since I was born in the early seventies I’d also seen Star Wars when it was first released, and at some point I’d read C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series. Growing up I enjoyed very (stereo)-typical genre fiction by authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mary Stewart, Judith Tarr and David Eddings.

For a long time my interest was purely book-based; it wasn’t until Joss Whedon’s Buffy series that I really became obsessed with television-based fantasy. I try to limit myself to one television obsession at a time, so at the moment it’s Supernatural (with occasional forays into Doctor Who and Torchwood) and I’m trying to resist the friends who tell me I must watch True Blood.

Usually I read and watch stories that either explore and challenge gender stereotypes or ponder the nature of good and evil. Occasionally, as with Joss Whedon’s television series, I find something that does both.

TheoFantastique: How do you see or make a connection between the sacred and the fantastic, more specifically, between a Christian spirituality and theology and the fantastic?

Avril Hannah-Jones: I draw very heavily on the thoughts of The Inklings, the Oxford-based group that included C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. They were all very committed Christians who saw the fantastic as a way of exploring theological themes. Lewis was much more allegorical about it than Tolkien and Williams, but all of them were exploring good and evil and questions about the best way to live.

Tolkien also argued that the sort of “world-building” that authors of the fantastic do is a form of “sub-creation” that is part of being human, because humans are made in the image of God the Creator.

Sci-fi and fantasy are often accused of being forms of escapism, as opposed to more serious works, partly because they do often involve the ultimate triumph of good over evil. For me that triumph is at the heart of the Christian story, with the resurrection following the crucifixion, and the sort of fantasy and sci fi that I enjoy most reflects an affirmation by Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death; victory is ours through him who loves us.

TheoFantastique: At some point you decided to incorporate the fantastic into your church services among your congregation. How did this decision come about? What types of things did you do? And what was the response of the congregation as well as those outside the church?

Avril Hannah-Jones: It started as a joke! I was in the audience of a television program called Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight hosted by the very charming Australian comedian Adam Hills. One of the things that he did was get the audience to fill out surveys before coming to the taping, and to the question: “What is your guilty pleasure in life?” I answered: “Sci-fi television. I thanked Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my thesis acknowledgments.”

Adam and his writers thought that that was so funny, given my day job as a Uniting Church minister, that they created an ad for something they called The Church of Latter Day Geeks. Adam then got me to agree to wear a ‘geeky’ t-shirt to lead a worship service, which I did, and finally challenged me to get an entire congregation to dress up.

Since I’d already been thinking about using sci-fi and fantasy to explore theological themes for years, I agreed, and held what I called a “sci-fi and fantasy-friendly church service”. AHIGST promoted it and came along to film an item about it.

Before the service was held I explained to my four congregations what I was doing and why I believed that this particular genre could be used to explore Christian theology. As I told them: “I don’t just watch and read sci fi and fantasy books, films, comics and television programs. I analyse them and theologise about them. My library is full of books with titles like Holy Superheroes! Exploring the Sacred in Comics, Graphic Novels and Film and The Gospel according to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth and Hogwarts for Muggles: Harry Potter and Philosophy. I’ve even had a chapter on “Good and Evil in the World of Supernatural” published in a collection of essays on the television show Supernatural. Once they knew that there was something seriously spiritual behind the idea of the service their response was overwhelmingly positive.

I advertised the service by saying:

Impressed with the way the Doctor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter live out Jesus’ teaching, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”?

Intrigued by the themes of mercy, forgiveness and redemption in Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and the television series Angel?

Inspired to do good and resist evil by the example of Peter Parker, the crew of Serenity and the Winchester brothers?

Then come to a sci-fi and fantasy-friendly church service to be held at Romsey Uniting Church on the 10th of April at 4 pm.

(You’re welcome to come in a costume of your choice, but blasters, stakes and other weapons will have to be left at the church door.)

TheoFantastique: Has any of the reactions you’ve received surprised you, whether positively or negatively?

Avril Hannah-Jones: I found the fact that the story went global absolutely astounding! Every time I do something a little bit different in the churches, I let the local media know. So I emailed the local papers about this, and one came to Romsey to take photos of me holding a toy lightsaber. That story then got picked up by one of the state newspapers, the Herald-Sun, and the day they published the story I got phone calls at 6 am from two Melbourne radio stations asking me about the service and a film crew from a current affairs program on my doorstep at 7.30 am. After consulting with the Uniting Church’s state leaders I agreed to be interviewed by the current affairs’ program – and after that the story apparently went global. Utterly bizarre! For some reason countries starting with ‘I’ were particularly interested: I’ve seen stories in the Indian, Italian and Indonesian press.

I was strongly supported by members and ministers of the Uniting Church, which was wonderful, and I was criticised by some conservative Christians who assumed that I was replacing the Christian story with sci-fi and fantasy, rather than using the latter to reflect on the former. But that last didn’t surprise me at all. Conservative Christians seem to spend all their time criticising the rest of us.

TheoFantastique: What does the future hold for your interactions between Christian spirituality and the fantastic?

Avril Hannah-Jones: I think the service is going to have to become an annual one; this first one was such a success and I had so many comments from people who couldn’t make it and would like to come to the next one if it happens.

And I still have an idea for a book on ‘Theodicy in Fantastic Television’ in the back of my head. That would look at the way shows like Buffy and Angel and Charmed and Quantum Leap and Doctor Who and Supernatural present good and evil and answer questions about the meaning of life. I don’t really have any time to work on that while I’m working in congregational ministry, but if I ever get a sabbatical that will be what I spent it on.

TheoFantastique: Avril, thank you for taking the time to discuss this. I think this interaction with pop culture, and this expression of church is fascinating and I’d love to see something like this replicated in the United States. Perhaps a new kind of emergent church!

Picture: David Caird; Source: Herald Sun

I recently came across an interesting couple of news items related to a church in Australia that has scheduled a fantasy and science fiction service. The idea is the brainchild of the Uniting Church’s pastor, Avril Hannah-Jones, who is a fan of the fantastic in popular culture. From the Unsettled Christianity website:

What started as a joke on the Australian television program Adam Hills in Gordon St Tonight, is now an actual church. Uniting Church minister Rev Dr Avril Hannah-Jones will be leading the first service of the ‘Church of the Latter-Day Geek‘ at the Romsey Uniting Church, north of Melbourne, at 4:00pm on April 10, 2011. Rev Hannah-Jones is encouraging people to dress-up in sci-fi costumes, and Klinglons are welcome. Very inclusive … as the Uniting Church in Australia most definitely is. One suggestion on the program for a new set of commandments was “Thou shalt forget about The Phantom Menace”.

As might be expected, this has led to criticism and controversy as conservative Christians react to what they see as an inappropriate combination of Christianity and popular culture. According to the Herald Sun:

But traditionalists have slammed the service’s irreverence and lack of emphasis on scripture. Sources close to the church told the Herald Sun the plan had split locals.

“There are some that aren’t very happy about it, especially because it just sort of happened out of the blue,” a parishioner said.

Other church leaders said it was blasphemous and could encourage witchcraft and supernatural ideas.

“I don’t have a problem with people enjoying sci-fi, but church isn’t the place to encourage escapism and fancy dress,” Mentone Baptist minister Murray Campbell said.

This church service, and the resulting controversy, are fascinating on a number of levels, from the impact of fantastic fiction on religion, to reactions of traditional religions to such interactions.

Pastor Hannah-Jones will be interviewed here in the near future.

1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
2. Vampyr
3. The Exorcist
4. Nosferatu
5. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1922)
6. Let Me In (2010)/Let the Right One In (2008)
7. Psycho
8. Night of the Living Dead
9. The Fly (1986)
10. Frankenstein

While I disagree with some of the entries on this list as well as their ranking, and would include others that aren’t listed, there area some great films here. Beyond this I appreciate that a website and publication dedicated to religious perspectives on the arts and faith were willing to not only consider horror, but recognize some of the leading examples of horror cinema and their contributions in the area of both art and faith. For those concerned about why horror and these films were considered, Jeffrey Overstreet provides some thoughts on the Arts & Faith blog. Given that this publication is influential in Protestant evangelicalism, I hope it opens doors for further consideration of this genre within this segment of America’s religious population.

Related post:

“Christianity and Horror Redux: From Knee-Jerk Revulsion to Critical Engagement”

Following from this, Haight would affirm that the resurrection was not an historical event that happened physically and empirically in the space-time continuum. When Christians bury a loved one, they put the body in the ground with the faith/hope that the person is resurrected in a way that does not deny the historicity of the physical burial. Haight would state that Jesus’ body did not go anywhere; it is not the resuscitation of a corpse. There was no zombie Jesus.

This is the first time that I have seen reference to “zombie Jesus” in an academic context. It is quite extensive as a pop-culture phenomenon, as any Google search will confirm, surfacing on t-shirts, Internet images, as a character at some of the zombie walks that have taken place internationally, a Facebook page, an Uncyclopedia entry, a website devoted to Zombie Jesus Day, and even as a comedy horror film.

A few thoughts come to mind as a result of this topic.

First, I believe that one of the issues lurking beneath the concept of “zombie Jesus” are postmodern concepts of the body. Without an awareness of Christendom’s teachings on the resurrection body as a transformed and immortal physical body, it is understandable how one could read the resurrection of Jesus in zombie-like fashion. The Zombie Jesus Day website argues, “Everything that rises from the dead is a zombie. Easter is touted as the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So let’s call a spade a spade, eat lots of chocolate, and celebrate Zombie Jesus Day.” In addition, the Zombie Jesus on Facebook website goes further in connecting New Testament texts to the concept, arguing that Jesus came back from the dead in keeping with Acts 2:24, and that Jesus “encourages zombie like behavior,” referencing John 6:53: “Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’” A study of postmodern conceptions of the body might shed light on the “zombie Jesus” phenomenon in its satire and parody of Christianity as well as other meanings, perhaps even hint at a critique of the frequent Christian emphasis on the soul/spirit to the neglect of the physical body and material creation, and help provide another face of understanding in the continued popularity of zombie films.

Second, Haight and other theologians miss an opportunity to engage contemporary concerns with a practical theology when they do not explore the zombie Jesus concept in popular culture. This is especially surprising in Haight’s case since the essay in RD states that “Haight’s project was intended for a current intellectual context” that addresses “the postmodern critiques of Christianity.” Rather than simply invoking the term “zombie Jesus,” Haight and other theologians might consider exploring the concept in more depth, unpacking its various meanings, engaging in self-critical theological reflection where appropriate, and then engaging those who enjoy the figure of “zombie Jesus.”

Third, Haight might reconsider the dichotomy he makes between those Christians who bury lost loved ones in faith/hope and the possibility of a bodily resurrection of Jesus as a “historical event that happened physically and empirically in the space-time continuum.” It is possible that the resurrection was “a transcendent reality that is a matter of faith and hope” as well as a historical event. Scholars like N.T. Wright have argued in this way, and it is a view at least worth considering before rejecting it outright in relation to a postmodern critique of Christianity. (For an interesting read that looks at very different interpretations of Jesus, including the resurrection, by two good scholars see The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, 2nd ed. (HarperOne, 2007) by Marcus T. Borg and N. T. Wright.)

This case provides yet another example of the connection between horror and religion, in particular between the zombie and theology, indicating that even zombies can function as suitable objects for theological reflection for those daring theologians willing to explore this territory.

Related posts:

“Philly Zombie Crawl and ‘Zombie Jesus’”

“Reflections on a Zombie Supper”

“Religion Dispatches: Toward a Zombie Theology”

“Italian Zombie Cinema and the Subversion of Catholicism”

“Kim Paffenroth: Zombies, Religion and Popular Culture”

Anne Rice made news this week with an announcement that she had left Christianity. At least that’s how it was originally reported. Rice was raised as a Roman Catholic, but embraced atheism for much of her life, but eventually returned to Roman Catholicism, even as she gave up writing vampire fiction in favor of fiction that resonated with her Catholicism. Rice’s recent announcement of a departure from Christianity caught the attention of the media in general, and the atheist subculture in particular:

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

But the most recent reporting from examiner.com clarifies Rice’s views from Facebook comments where she has issues with the political and social stances of Catholicism but still embraces Christ:

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

Moving from Rice’s issues with institutional Catholicism to the troubling reactions of a Protestant fundamentalist church, the Westborough Church, infamous for its picketing of soldiers’ funerals with signs like “God hates fags,” also has issues with comic fans and culture. According to The Celebrity Cafe.com, at the recent Comic-Con in San Diego members of the church picketed and accused attendees of idolatry. A video of the protest can be seen below.

These incidents are interesting as they illustrate some of the reactions of those intersecting the worlds of both Christianity and the fantastic.

This article, by Charlie Jane Anders, introduces the subject matter with reference to three separate articles, the first by StephanieP, a Catholic, who argues in keeping with the title of her article that “Science fiction goes with the Christian life.” But if this is the case then why can’t more science fiction titles be found in Christian bookstores? Two other articles attempt to answer this question, both by Mike Duran, including his thoughts at Novel Journey as well as his personal blog.

In my supplement to their thoughts and this ongoing discussion we must first consider that science fiction is indeed “under represented” if not largely absent in the Christian subculture. This was driven home most dramatically for me in an article by James Herrick in Christianity Today magazine, arguable the flagship periodical for Protestant evangelicalism. The article was titled “Sci-Fi’s Brave New World,” which is largely a summary of Herrick’s book Scientific Mythologies (InterVarsity Press, 2008). The article, like the book, rightly recognizes the mythic significance of science fiction in Western culture today, but takes an unfortunately defensive posture for Christianity in response. As a result, Herrick misses the opportunity to have a deeper appreciation of the significance of myth and science fiction (as well as the related genres of fantasy and horror).

But why this reaction against science fiction? Several possibilities are possible. In 2007 Publishers Weekly commented on this subject stating:

“While mainstream fantasy and science fiction fill shelves in general-interest bookstores, the genre has yet to really take off in the Christian market industry…Suspicion of the books as too dark or occult, combined with a primary demographic that isn’t drawn to the edgy—white, evangelical American women of childbearing-to-empty-nest ages—make the books less than attractive to many Christian publishers and booksellers…”

I think PW recognizes the dynamics at work. At heart is a fear of foreign worldviews that are incompatible with Christianity, an emphasis of Herrick in his CT article mentioned above. But perhaps of more concern for many evangelicals is the alleged influence of “the occult” or Western esotericism. Fear of this element is even more blatant in evangelical concerns over fantasy and horror in popular culture. If we recall the flap over alleged Witchcraft in the Harry Potter books and films, and the current concern in some evangelical quarters over the alleged “Darkness of Twilight,” then we get a feel for the almost palpable evil and fear of spiritual contamination that evangelicals have for the fantastic in popular culture. These fears prevalent in the subculture account for the lack of science fiction in Christian circles to satisfy the small number of sci-fi enthusiasts, surely an aberrational comunity in the evangelical movement.

It will come as no surprise to my regular readers that I find such views troubling. In my opinion they result not only out of fear, but also as a result of a stunted theological imagination all too frequently found among evangelicals in regards to speculative fiction in literature, television, and film. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien are evangelical heroes of science fiction and fantasy, but few are willing to go where they went in drawing upon aspects of “pagan” cultures in order to tell tales that capture the imagination and provide windows into transcendence. Surely this negative stance toward the fantastic will not inspire the next generation of Inklings to engage the West in its current journey toward re-enchantment.

As might be expected in a film that draws upon characters taken from a religious tradition, in this case Judeo-Christianity, there are plenty of religious elements here for reflection beyond the obvious in terms of the angelic figures of Michael and Gabriel. This includes symbolism such as a cross-shaped hole that forms after an explosion in the door of a building from which Michael takes his weapons for battle, as well as one of the victims from the diner who dies while hanging in an inverted cross position, the same way in which Christian tradition says the Apostle Peter was martyred. Other religious elements include the name of the diner, Paradise Falls, and the inclusion of a child who somehow is desired by both of the archangels, one desiring to save the life of the child and the other wanting to kill it. The meaning of the child is never fully developed in this film, which is depicted more as possessing prophetic significance in terms of telling future humanity how to live rather than in messianic terms of deliverance. But this failure to flesh out an important element of the story, and one with religious significance, is a problem throughout this film. Numerous religious elements are included but they presented without much significance, indicating that perhaps they are intended to do little more than tap into the viewers lingering sense of cultural religious memory rather than being part of a new coherent framework for storytelling or a re-envisioning of traditional religious elements for late modernity.

I believe this post shows great merit for further reflection for religious studies and popular culture studies scholars, but I would add my disagreement with statements from two quotations in this piece. When discussing the ideas of Christianity related to the body and resurrection, we find the following:

As Stephen Thrower writes in Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci, “for Christians, the body is a mere waste product, excreted by the passage of the soul into heaven.”

I would agree that on a popular level in Western Christianity the body is de-emphasized in favor of an emphasis on the soul’s escape at death into a heavenly afterlife. This view unfortunately leads to a lack of appreciation for the value of the body both in this life and the next, as well as a denigration of the value of material creation in general. In this way popular Western Christianity seems to represent a pseudo-Gnosticism. But the Christian tradition in general has always valued the body, both in its mortal expression, as well as in its anticipated resurrected and immortal state. With this thought in mind perhaps Fulci’s zombie films subvert Christian misunderstandings and practice of their own tradition rather than the essence of the tradition itself.

A little later in this piece in a discussion of death and the afterlife we read;

“These films,” writes Jamie Russell in Book of the Dead, “ask us to confront the unspoken truth of our existence: that we are, in material terms, nothing more than a collection of organs, blood and messy slop.”

I find it interesting that in light of developments in the neurosciences, some Christians are beginning to rethink the traditional concept of human nature as a duality of body and immaterial spirit or soul. In works like Whatever Happened to the Soul?: Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature, edited by Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Maloney (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1998), a group of scholars from various disciplines argue scientifically as well as theologically for an emphasis on a holistic understanding of human nature that they call “non-reductive physicalism.” In this view the properties once attributed to the soul or spirit are recognized as taking place in the brain and human consciousness without the need to posit an immaterial property or substance, but even so, this need not mean that human beings are “nothing but” organic material with no transcendent significance. So while Italian zombie films do indeed serve as a grim reminder of our physicality and mortality as they are envisioned in a nihilistic universe, it is possible to value our fallible flesh with some hope of possible transcendence.

The Vault of Horror is to be commended for helping horror fans probe Italian zombie films in more depth. This is an example of the best kind of cultural, religious, and cinematic analysis that the horror subculture needs more of.