You just can\u2019t keep a bad demonic force down, I guess.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 45 years since William Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist<\/em>, and more than 40 since Blatty\u2019s work became one of the best-known, most-feared movies in history. Now, thanks to Fox, The Exorcist<\/em> is back, only with more installments and, hopefully, less pea soup.<\/p>\n The story is different this time around, but its dynamics are roughly the same: A young girl from an affluent family is involved. A doubting priest and a grizzled veteran exorcist are called in to help, if they can. And throughout the opening episode, there\u2019s a sense of skepticism that was very much a part of the original movie, too. Possession isn\u2019t, like, actually a thing, is it?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAngela, demons aren\u2019t real,\u201d young Father Tomas says to the worried mother. \u201cThey\u2019re an invention of the Church to explain addiction. Mental illness. \u2026 Demons are metaphors.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t think I don\u2019t know that?\u201d Angela says. \u201cI am telling you, something is going on. There is a presence, and I feel <\/em>it.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s too early to tell whether Fox\u2019s new show will be good, really, and way too early to say whether it\u2019ll be a success. But the network\u2019s decision to engage with an explicitly Christian story is something I find kind of remarkable. It\u2019s a rare thing to see, and according to some, it\u2019s getting more rare all the time.<\/p>\n In an essay for The Atlantic<\/em>, Nick Ripatrazone suggests that shows like The Exorcist<\/em> are a tough sell these days in an increasingly secular culture, and that the great tradition of Christian storytelling\u2014Catholic storytelling, specifically\u2014is fading into obscurity. Writes Ripatrazone:<\/p>\n The executive producer Jeremy Slater says the show \u201ctackles big questions about faith and redemption,\u201d and that it hopes to continue telling the story started in the iconic 1973 film, which still \u201chas a primal power.\u201d The contemporary audience for Catholic writing, though, is very different. Recently, research from Georgetown University found that only a quarter of Catholics attend weekly Mass, with more than half reporting they attend a few times a year, or less. Only 14 percent of millennial Catholics attend Mass every week. In contrast, over half of Catholics attended weekly Mass in 1965\u2014and over 60 percent attended in 1958.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But here\u2019s the thing: While religion may be on the wane, the questions that religion tries to answer are not. Why are we here? What makes us special? Why is there evil? What do we do about it?<\/em> If we try to answer those questions outside the realm of religion, the answers not only feel unsatisfying, they feel inadequate to explain much of anything. Just like Angela, most of us know there\u2019s more at work than meets the eye.<\/p>\n For me, storytelling has always been about those resonant mysteries. And even if a story doesn\u2019t address those mysteries in an explicitly religious way, there\u2019s still an implicit understanding that there\u2019s something more at work here\u2014more than physics or biology or chemistry can explain. Superhero stories are about universal good and evil, right and wrong. Rom-coms tell us that love is about more than a base, biological urge, but a mysterious, powerful force. Horror stories like The Exorcist ask questions that play on our hopes and fears and even ponder the nature of reality itself.<\/p>\n So many stories are about love. About courage. About faith in something<\/em>, even if it\u2019s not explicitly God. The impulses we have that we can\u2019t altogether explain. And if we ever were convinced that we were simply cosmic accidents, the byproducts of a mindless, moral-free universe\u2014it wouldn\u2019t be just religion that would die: It\u2019d be our stories, too.<\/p>\n In the first episode of The Exorcist<\/em>, Father Tomas\u2014the doubting priest\u2014tells his parishioners the story of Jesus walking on water. Peter, encouraged by Jesus, takes a few steps on the water himself \u2026 until he looks down, whereupon he sinks like a stone. And as the episode goes on it\u2019s clear that he is Peter. He wants to believe. He wants to follow. But it\u2019s hard for him. So very hard.<\/p>\n Sometimes I think that our culture is a little like that water. It\u2019s so easy to look down and see how hopeless it all looks. It\u2019s a wonder we don\u2019t all sink from the despair.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s our stories, in a way, that keep us above the waves. It\u2019s in those stories where we find our faith\u2014faith in ourselves, faith in our future, maybe even faith in God. They tell us that life has purpose. That we\u2019re special even when we don\u2019t feel so. That we have the potential to love and be loved. That we can make a difference. They might not be explicitly Christian stories, but many, I think, reflect\u2014however dimly\u2014Christian truth. The water indeed looks black and cold. But we see that truth ahead of us and it keeps us walking, step by shaky step.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You just can\u2019t keep a bad demonic force down, I guess. It\u2019s been 45 years since William Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist, and more than 40 since Blatty\u2019s work became one of the best-known, most-feared movies in history. Now, thanks to Fox, The Exorcist is back, only with more installments and, hopefully, less pea soup. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":1323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[52,66,65,454],"class_list":["post-1322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television","tag-christianity","tag-exorcist","tag-horror","tag-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n