"Friends in the Dark" - Episode 26

Halloween is upon us, check out "Friends in the Dark" a spooky ghost story by our very own, Trek-Talking Matt McKinney!!!!



You can listen to it on the Untold Podcast http://www.untoldpodcast.com/home/untold-podcast-26-friends-in-the-dark

Or at Christian Geek Central! http://www.christiangeekcentral.blogspot.com/2014/10/untold-podcast-26-friends-in-dark.html

Listened to it this morning on my way to work. Really liked this story.

Drew.Rub wrote:Listened to it this morning on my way to work.  Really liked this story.

Thanks for the encouragement Drew! I think it functions well as a horror story... so much of it seems like everyday life (even the bug bites) and then... oh no... it takes a turn for the worse!

Wait...horror? I thought this was a feel-good story....
Guy is plagued with fear, but finds friendship and purpose after undergoing a frightening experience.

I (vaguely) remember the first time I watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers and thinking...'So the people retain their thoughts and personality, they fundamentally change, they are reborn, they put aside their conflicts and work together... is this Christianity?' I was pretty young, but I remember thinking it had to be some kind of hidden story like that.
Zombie movies, likewise, tend to make me empathize with the zombies... look, people get infected with a "mind virus" which makes them dead (to this world) but in a way, more alive than ever. Any past disagreements they had with each other, before zombie-fication, are no longer important...even trying to kill one another is shrugged off. Plus, the zombies will do anything to try to bring the others, the non-zombies into the fold... even to the point of self-sacrifice. Now, it may look like an attack, it certainly will be unpleasant, losing the comfortable 'normalcy' of the un-changed life, but peace, lasting peace lies on the other side.

mikel.withers wrote:Wait...horror? I thought this was a feel-good story....
Guy is plagued with fear, but finds friendship and purpose after undergoing a frightening experience.

Hahaha! That's a twisted way to interpret it!

mikel.withers wrote: I (vaguely) remember the first time I watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers and thinking...'So the people retain their thoughts and personality, they fundamentally change, they are reborn, they put aside their conflicts and work together... is this Christianity?'  I was pretty young, but I remember thinking it had to be some kind of hidden story like that.
Zombie movies, likewise, tend to make me empathize with the zombies... look, people get infected with a "mind virus" which makes them dead (to this world) but in a way, more alive than ever. Any past disagreements they had with each other, before zombie-fication, are no longer important...even trying to kill one another is shrugged off. Plus, the zombies will do anything to try to bring the others, the non-zombies into the fold... even to the point of self-sacrifice. Now, it may look like an attack, it certainly will be unpleasant, losing the comfortable 'normalcy' of the un-changed life, but peace, lasting peace lies on the other side.

I think you're onto something there, but I'd still maintain that the event of this story, or zombie films is a perversion of the gospel. It seems like a sort of salvation - but it dehumanizes the person. There are no zombies creating art. There is no ascension (or bettering of the person) there is only a devolution to the lowest common denominator.
Christianity, however, affirms the person, and we don't see a loss of person-hood to the hive-mind, but a glorification of the person.

Nathan James Norman wrote:

I think you're onto something there, but I'd still maintain that the event of this story, or zombie films is a perversion of the gospel. It seems like a sort of salvation - but it dehumanizes the person. There are no zombies creating art. There is no ascension (or bettering of the person) there is only a devolution to the lowest common denominator.
Christianity, however, affirms the person, and we don't see a loss of person-hood to the hive-mind, but a glorification of the person.

Ah, true, but how does it look to the outsider?
Aren't we just "sheeple", blindly following what we are told by guys in funny hats, shut off from TRUE art and science, bringing nothing new to civilization, stuck in a barbaric semi-civilized state, lacking the spark of humanity? (not to mention the creepy trying to convert people with our "mind virus" that brings nothing but violence and dehumanization)
And, lest we forget, who do we follow but someone brought back from the dead? (Zombie-Jesus anyone?)

mikel.withers wrote:Ah, true, but how does it look to the outsider?
Aren't we just "sheeple", blindly following what we are told by guys in funny hats, shut off from TRUE art and science, bringing nothing new to civilization, stuck in a barbaric semi-civilized state, lacking the spark of humanity? (not to mention the creepy trying to convert people with our "mind virus" that brings nothing but violence and dehumanization)
And, lest we forget, who do we follow but someone brought back from the dead?  (Zombie-Jesus anyone?)

I've been known to indulge in some creative literary interpretation, but even I think this is an uphill battle. Plus, most zombies aren't trying to infect people, they're trying to eat them. Audio Adrenaline makes a good case for Christians as zombies, but they don't try to extend the metaphor very far.

Audio Adrenaline wrote:I stand up straight / I look through the haze.
I begin to walk / through the maze.
Here they come now / they're all around me.
But I'm dead to sin like / some kind of zombie.

The zombie-Jesus thing gets trotted out every so often, usually by well-meaning people who are trying to make the Bible "culturally relevant". It's a thing that's been around since long before zombie movies were a thing, and was until recently used as proof that Christianity is a religion of necromancy and other "black arts". I just don't think it's a very good fit. Of all the people in the Bible who came back from the dead, none of them craved brains.

You may find Clay Morgan's book "Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn" of interest.

I wouldn't tend to take it too far, myself...after all, zombies are what their authors write them to be and certainly not every zombie tale is going to come close to working.
Also, I don't think of Christians as zombies, so much as wondering if zombies are Christians... again, from an outsider's viewpoint.
As to zombie-Jesus being about cultural relevance...I've only ever heard it as a means of mocking Christians.

mikel.withers wrote:I wouldn't tend to take it too far, myself...after all, zombies are what their authors write them to be and certainly not every zombie tale is going to come close to working.
Also, I don't think of Christians as zombies, so much as wondering if zombies are Christians... again, from an outsider's viewpoint.
As to zombie-Jesus being about cultural relevance...I've only ever heard it as a means of mocking Christians.

This is a great distinction.

I do think from many outsiders' perspectives the church is a bunch of zombies. (There was a scene in season 1 of the Walking Dead where Rick and the gang enter a baptist church - which contained a crucifix - and there were zombies sitting in the pews in their church clothes.)

mindspike wrote:

I've been known to indulge in some creative literary interpretation, but even I think this is an uphill battle. Plus, most zombies aren't trying to infect people, they're trying to eat them. Audio Adrenaline makes a good case for Christians as zombies, but they don't try to extend the metaphor very far.

That Audio Adrenaline album turned me off to AudioA for a few albums. Only the zombie song was really any good.

It was a pretty nuanced metaphor, though. It wasn't talking about the whole Christian experience, just the "being dead to sin" aspect.

I agree with you, there it worked fairly well because they didn't push the metaphor too far.

Nathan James Norman wrote:

mikel.withers wrote:I wouldn't tend to take it too far, myself...after all, zombies are what their authors write them to be and certainly not every zombie tale is going to come close to working.
Also, I don't think of Christians as zombies, so much as wondering if zombies are Christians... again, from an outsider's viewpoint.
As to zombie-Jesus being about cultural relevance...I've only ever heard it as a means of mocking Christians.

This is a great distinction.

I do think from many outsiders' perspectives the church is a bunch of zombies. (There was a scene in season 1 of the Walking Dead where Rick and the gang enter a baptist church - which contained a crucifix - and there were zombies sitting in the pews in their church clothes.)

Wait, a Baptist church with a Crucifix?! Roman Catholics have crucifixs, not Protestants ( at least as far as I'm aware). So these guys would be like Roman Baptists. WHen you abbreviate Roman Baptist it becomes RB. The only RBs I know are Reformed Baptists.


...I'm going to have so much fun trolling the Reformed Pubcast's FB page!

mindspike wrote: Audio Adrenaline makes a good case for Christians as zombies, but they don't try to extend the metaphor very far.

Audio Adrenaline wrote:I stand up straight / I look through the haze.
I begin to walk / through the maze.
Here they come now / they're all around me.
But I'm dead to sin like / some kind of zombie.

I heard this other song once doing a metaphor of the bodily resurrection of believers using a kind of zombie metaphor. The lyrics were kinda hard to understand 'cuz the guy used this like robot voice thing and they came really fast, but it was something like:

Necromancy sanctified, full reversal homicide, ripping out the pain inside
Annihilation override, turning over genocide, immortal life and death defied.



Okay, that was pretty shameless self-promotion, wasn't it?

Wait, self-promotion? What was it?
I am a fan of Christian hard rock/metal...and that sounded kind of metal.

mikel.withers wrote:Wait, self-promotion? What was it?
I am a fan of Christian hard rock/metal...and that sounded kind of metal.

LOL. Those are some of the lyrics to "Necromancy" from Spirit Blade 2: Dark Ritual.

mindspike wrote:

LOL. Those are some of the lyrics to "Necromancy" from Spirit Blade 2: Dark Ritual.

Paeter has a rather soft-touch when it comes to "self promotion"