Friday the 13th, Zombies, and the Church

Posted by Alan Knox on May 13, 2011 in blog links, books | 2 comments

In honor of Friday the 13th (which is today), my friend Dan at “The Ekklesia in Southern Maine” has a special announcement in his post “Physician, Heal Thyself – an excerpt from And the Dead Shall Rise First.”

As you might guess from the title of his post, Dan is publishing an excerpt from a zombie novel that he’s writing. The working title of the novel is And the Dead Shall Rise First.

Here’s part of the description of the novel from Dan’s post:

The dead are reanimating and have one single drive: consume all life. Is this the End, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, those things foretold in prophecy throughout Scripture and history? Will the church be able to overcome her division to help bring relief and hope to the world in the midst of all this devastation, or will she simply wither and die in a fractured irrelevant self-induced coma?

Now, I don’t know much about zombies. In fact, besides watching a few movies, I learned the little that I do know about the zombie genre from Dan. For example, he taught me this very important lesson: Bats don’t run out of bullets. (Good to know, huh?)

But, I enjoyed reading the excerpt from his novel. It is interesting to think about how the church would respond to a zombie apocalypse. I’m guessing (as with other issues) different sectors of the church would deal with the problem in different ways.

In the excerpt, we read about how a rural southern church deals with zombies. Here’s a short snippet:

At this point in the evening the room was ablaze with heat and noise. It was more than enough to make anyone feel a little confused and delusional. The people praying in tongues had grown in numbers as well as volume. The moans and groans of the EPV victims was increasing as they were agitated by the close proximity of so much living flesh containing the energy they instinctively craved; yet their restraints kept them from being able to access that energy despite all efforts. They seemed unaffected by their limitations and continued to moan and fight against their loved ones who were hoping to save them. The organist, all frail and old, was wailing away on the keys of the electric organ now, producing an off-key soundtrack to the event.

If you want to read more of Dan’s story, you can read it here: “Physician, Heal Thyself!”

So, here’s a question. Do you think that works in the fantasy genres (including the zombie genre) can help people think about God and faith? Why or why not?