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{"id":3921,"date":"2013-05-06T07:46:55","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T11:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/?p=3921"},"modified":"2013-05-07T10:51:17","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T14:51:17","slug":"zombies-are-us-2013-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2013\/05\/zombies-are-us-2013-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Zombies are US, 2013 edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It seems to happen whenever Steve Beard hangs out with friends \u2014 especially folks who don\u2019t go to church \u2014 talking about movies, television and whatever else is on their minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may take five minutes or it may take as long as 10, but sooner or later you\u2019re going to run into some kind zombie comment,\u201d said Beard, editor of Good News<\/em><\/a>, a magazine for United Methodist evangelicals. He is also known for writing about faith and popular culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone will say something like, \u2018When the zombie apocalypse occurs, we need to make sure we\u2019re all at so-and-so\u2019s house so we can stick together.\u2019 It\u2019s all a wink and a nod kind of deal, but the point is that this whole zombie thing has become a part of the language of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tales of the living dead began in Western Africa and Haiti and these movies have been around as long as Hollywood has been making B-grade flicks. However, the modern zombie era began with filmmaker George A. Romero\u2019s classic \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d in 1968, which led to his \u201cDawn of the Dead\u201d and \u201cDay of the Dead.\u201d Other directors followed suit, with hits such as \u201c28 Days Later,\u201d \u201cZombieland,\u201d \u201cThe Evil Dead\u201d and \u201cShaun of the Dead.\u201d Next up, Brad Pitt in the $170 million-dollar epic \u201cWorld War Z,\u201d due June 21, which could turn into a multi-movie franchise.<\/p>\n

In bookstores, classic literature lovers will encounter a series of postmodern volumes clustered under the title \u201cPride and Prejudice and Zombies.\u201d Also, videogame fans have purchased more than 50 million copies of the Resident Evil series and these games have inspired countless others.<\/p>\n

But anyone who is interested in the worldview \u2014 if not the theology \u2014 of zombie life must come to grips with the cable-television parables offered in the AMC series \u201cThe Walking Dead.\u201d This phenomenon, said Beard, has become so influential that it cannot be ignored by clergy, especially those interested in the kinds of spiritual questions that haunt people who avoid church pews.<\/p>\n

Truth is, \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d is not \u201cabout zombies. It\u2019s a show about people who are trying to figure out the difference between mere survival and truly living,\u201d he stressed, in a telephone interview. \u201cHow do you decide what is right and what is wrong? How do you stay sane, in a world that has gone crazy? \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is God in all of this? That\u2019s the unspoken question.\u201d <\/p>\n

In his classic book \u201cGospel of the Living Dead<\/a>,\u201d religious studies scholar Kim Paffenroth of Iona College argued that Romero\u2019s zombie movies borrowed from one of the key insights found in Dante\u2019s \u201cInferno\u201d \u2014 that hell\u2019s worst torments are those humanity creates on its own, such as boredom, loneliness, materialism and, ultimately, separation from God.<\/p>\n

As a final touch of primal spirituality, Romero \u2014 who was raised Catholic \u2014 added cannibalism to the zombie myth.<\/p>\n

\u201cZombies partially eat the living. But they actually only eat a small amount, thereby leaving the rest of the person intact to become a zombie, get up, and attack and kill more people, who then likewise become zombies,\u201d argued Paffenroth. Thus, the \u201cwhole theme of cannibalism seems added for its symbolism, showing what humans would degenerate into in their more primitive, zombie state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The point, he added, is that \u201cwe, humans, not just zombies, prey on each other, depend on each other for our pathetic and parasitic existence, and thrive on each others\u2019 misery.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is why, said Beard, far too many women and men seem to be staggering through life today like listless shoppers wandering in shopping malls, their eyes locked on their smartphones instead of the faces of loved ones. Far too often their lives are packed with stuff, but empty of meaning.<\/p>\n

Romero and his artistic disciples keep asking a brutal question: This is living?<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the big questions in zombie stories is the whole \u2018Do zombies have souls?\u2019 thing,\u201d said Beard. \u201cBut that kind of question only leads to more and more questions, which is what we keep seeing in \u2018The Walking Dead\u2019 and other zombie stories. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIf zombies no longer have souls, what does it mean for a human being to be soul-less? If you have a soul, how do you hang on to it? Why does it seem that so many people today seem to have lost their souls?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"