Recently I finished reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the first time. I was surprised by the novel’s intensity, but I enjoyed the hearty, impassioned characters who slog to victory over the monster. Dr. Van Helsing shows his allies how to use crucifixes to ward off vampires and lines the doorways of tombs with the Host to keep the undead from rising from their graves and feeding on children. Unholy creatures are apprehended and repelled by a holy symbol.
Many stories about metaphysical darkness and fantastical evil feature Christian symbols that have entered the popular visual vocabulary. For example, the hit TV series Supernatural’s fictional version of Lucifer is burned by crosses and Bibles. In this year’s Dracula-sourced horror film, Last Voyage of the Demeter, a ship captain tries to use a rosary to ward off the vampire, but to no effect.
Movies and other modern visual arts employ such symbolism, often in ways that make Christian viewers uncomfortable. How come? Because when a story’s hero (or the world itself) does not reflect a Christian worldview, a rosary or Bible in the hands of an anxious hero feels like blasphemy. Similarly, otherwise nonreligious characters spouting Scripture to fight dark creatures seems a little convenient. It feels like story creators treat the words and symbols of Christianity as a buffet from which to choose when it suits their narrative. Those who believe in sacred Christian symbols may recoil at such contrivances—like the vampire administering a tainted Eucharist in Netflix’s gothic horror series Midnight Mass (2021).
Sometimes righteous indignation feels like the only appropriate response to this habit of horror. Christian believers have delivered volumes of newspaper columns and social media posts condemning everything from Jesus Christ: Superstar and one infamous photograph to Constantine and many things Disney.
But might our indignation betray unearned sentimentality about the symbols of our faith—a sentimentality that hides uncertainty about those symbols’ true meaning?
Read full article in Lorehaven.