What might your typical London tourist have been doing earlier this January? Visiting Buckingham Palace? Wandering the British Museum? Taking in the Paddington Bear Experience? Probably she would not have expected to be overshadowed by a 15-foot bloody and maniacal Ralph Fiennes surrounded by columns of human skulls plastered on the side of a passing London bus. This was part of the advertising campaign for the fourth installment of the postapocalyptic horror film franchise 28 Days Later. Next to the gruesome scene was the film’s tagline: “Fear is the new faith.” The movie, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, is a study in human evil. Set in a United Kingdom still ravaged by the “infected” (not zombies, lest the geeks devour me!), the film follows 12-year-old Spike as he is inducted into a sadistic, satanic cult led by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal. Along the way, Spike encounters the “humane” and humanistic Dr. Ian Kelson (played by Fiennes), who works from a vast ossuary on a cure for the disease. On one level, the tagline isn’t too difficult to explain or to empathize with. As with all “good” films in this genre (as some define them), the real monsters to be studied aren’t the infected or zombies but the humans that remain. In the 28 Days Later world, a world of chaos and meaninglessness, fear isn’t something to be avoided; it’s the glue that can hold fractured people together. The vulnerable are looking for leaders who do indeed terrify the monsters but who also protect and deliver us from other threats—perceived or real. For the powerful and charismatic, fear can be weaponized for control, serving as a substitute for religious belief, driving cultish behavior and extreme violence. More interesting than the film’s trope of fear-as-control, though, is what it reveals about us as viewers: that we willingly submit to fear and pay to have it managed for our pleasure. In our late-modern culture, described by Paul Virilio as an “administration of fear”—a world where terrors and horrors are legion, where we feel “bewitched, bothered, and bewildered”—you’d expect us to seek distraction from all that. So why are we drawn all the more to films like Bone Temple? One might think we want to escape all this horror—not pay good money to be entertained by it. And yet the horror genre is having its moment in the sun. Films like Sinners and Weapons are being recognized during awards season, which historically has been rare for the genre. When it comes to horror, there’s always more going on than just pure entertainment. Horror is a fallen echo of the fear of God. We crave terror because we were made for awe, and horror gives us a counterfeit version we can try to control. Psychology of Horror From a psychological perspective, the horror genre has been explored for some time. The well-known author (and expert on the genre) Stephen King has reflected on the nature and need of horror. He notes that “the best horror films, like the best fairy tales, manage to be reactionary, anarchistic, and revolutionary all at the same time.” Horror is a fallen echo of the fear of God. We crave terror because we were made for awe, and horror gives us a counterfeit version we can try to control. Although it can be used glibly, there is a catharsis in horror. “The answer seems to be that we make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones. With the endless inventiveness of humankind, we grasp the very elements which are so divisive and destructive and try to turn them into tools—to dismantle themselves.” Elsewhere, King notes the need to exercise (rather than exorcise) our fears not just for our sake but for the sake of society: The mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized . . . and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark. . . . For myself, I like to see the most aggressive of them . . . as lifting a trap door in the civilized forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath. Why bother? Because it keeps them from getting out, man. It keeps them down there and me up here. Horror movies are great examples of what the psychologist Paul Rozin calls “benign masochism,” the realization “that the body has been fooled, and that there is no real danger, leads to pleasure derived from ‘mind over body.’” Some have commented on how the zombie postapocalyptic genre indulges our apocalyptic fantasy, especially in young men: violence without guilt (because zombies are dead already); “free” stuff without the drudgery of work (because you can take what you want); freedom from the normal moral constraints; a simplicity to living that contrasts with the multiple demands of daily life suffocating us; and, because you’ve prepared yourself for this moment, the possibility of being in control and “top dog,” when maybe in real life you’ve been the runt of the litter. Summing up this apocalyptic fantasy, James Crooke writes, This is our simultaneous fear and fantasy. Why are we so afraid? Because we know that people can behave badly. Yet why are we so attracted? Because we know that people can behave badly. While we are afraid of an apocalypse and the consequent breakdown of law and order, because we know this will permit human beings to behave wickedly, we fantasize about the same because we secretly wish to be wicked with impunity. If this is correct, then the fantasy seems to massage or realize this longing by enabling the reader to live it vicariously—to “get one’s fix,” however temporary. All these reasons have merit but only seem like parts of a larger puzzle. Do these explanations exhaust the reasons for our fascination with horror and our craving for fear? I believe we can go deeper—and darker. What we popularly call “horror” covers a hierarchy of fears that King breaks down into three categories. The first is terror (“It’s coming!”). Terror is the dread of what might happen, the fear of the unknown. Terror is about sustained anticipation and imagination. Second, there is horror (“It’s here!”). Horror is the revelation itself, the shock of the now known. Finally, there is the gross out (“It’s revolting!”). Here, the fear is one of disgust and revulsion. As King famously states, “Terror [is] the finest emotion. . . . So I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find I cannot terrify him/her, I will try to horrify; and if I find I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.” Hallowed Ground When describing and experiencing terror in films, and particularly those dealing with supernatural elements where we encounter something unknown, we are entering onto hallowed ground. I’m using that term not metaphorically but literally. In his influential book The Idea of the Holy, scholar of religion Rudolf Otto spoke of the numinous (from the Latin numen, meaning “power”), the nonrational encountering with Otherness (the “holy”) that can’t be reduced to any other category. Otto realized that to put such a visceral encounter into words is extremely difficult, but he famously described it as “mysterium tremendum et fascinans”—a tremendous and fascinating mystery. The “mystery” is both the shock and stupor of encountering the wholly Other and our inability to categorize that encounter with our experience. The “tremendous” is the awfulness, terror, and dread of this encountering, which is overpowering and overwhelming, and reveals our nothingness and the Other’s infinite greatness. We experience what Otto calls the “creature feeling”: a recognition of how small, fragile, and insignificant we are. Finally, there is the “fascination.” Despite the fear and the terror, we are irresistibly attracted to the numinous. It’s an intoxicating, joyful ecstasy that we desire and yearn for and that is our highest good. Isn’t this a great description of what we experience in watching quality horror, where there is genuine terror? The problem, though, is that the numinous is vague; undefined; impersonal; and, in terms of going to watch a horror film, under the controlled conditions of a laboratory (theater). Fear of the Lord Let’s return to the notion of the “creature feeling” but put it through a distinctively Christian lens. As creatures, we’re hardwired with fear—most importantly fear of our Creator, God himself. The “fear of the Lord” is a significant theme in the Bible, often associated with wisdom (Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7; 9:10). It’s a fear rooted in awe, trust of One who is wholly Other as uncreated, in a category of his own: mysterious, tremendous, and fascinating. As creatures, we’re hardwired with fear—most importantly fear of our Creator, God himself. However, in our rebellion against God, fear is suppressed and substituted for other fears in the natural and supernatural world (Rom. 1:18). Thus, our proper fear for God is dulled, even though deep down we’re still fearful of the terrible consequences of turning from the One who made us. Fear isn’t a pleasant feeling. This framework starts to explain our love of horror, for it expresses, in twisted and perverted forms, what J. H. Bavinck describes as the human condition—our running away from God and our running to him at the same time—under the controlled conditions of the movie theater. Professor and cinephile Grant Horner describes this well: For a believer, fearing God is a sublime, deep pleasure. That is what the ultimate fear is—pleasurable. It is not supposed to be negative, uncomfortable or debilitating, but rather edifying by showing us who we are in terms of an almighty and infinite being. . . . Because we are wired to gain pleasure from the fear of God, yet as a race we do not fear him, we find ourselves in the rather perverse position of experiencing certain pleasure coming to us in the form of highly manufactured and densely controlled fears packaged as entertainment. . . . Fearing God cannot be bounded, yet we trust his care and love for us, his promise that he will not harm us. The precise opposite is the case in horror films: the evil entity wants to harm us—but we can control it because we know it isn’t real. Our problem is that in our grievously foolish and fallen nature, we don’t think God is real either. We need to recognize that fear is a many-splendored thing. As I’ve written elsewhere, for the Christian still tempted to live in fear, there’s a sense in which our relationship with Jesus Christ means our earthly fears are relativized, removed, and repurposed. But what about those who don’t think this God is real? Monstrous Christ In 1866, English poet and playwright Algernon Charles Swinburne published what some believe was his most famous work, Hymn to Proserpine. The poem’s epigraph is Vicisti Galilaee (“You have conquered, O Galilean”), the alleged last words of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate (AD 331–63), who opposed Christianity and supported the traditional Roman pantheon. (Proserpine is the goddess of the underworld.) Although ascribed to Julian, the poem reflects Swinburne’s regret on the rise of Christianity and a lament for the cruel but vibrant gods of the past: Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death. Swinburne’s Jesus Christ isn’t someone to fear. He’s someone to pity. But compare that to the reaction of those first eyewitnesses that Easter morning: “They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). Notice they were trembling, bewildered, and dumbstruck, not by what they saw but by what they didn’t see. This was something properly terrifying. As Ryan Duns argues, The film critic Robin Wood famously observed that “normality is threatened by the monster.” In his words, deeds, and resurrection, Christ is monstrous because he threatens a normality that preserves and perpetuates sin. In a world accustomed to a sinful status quo, Christ is monstrous because he reveals that we are living in the horror story of history. So here’s the challenge: Yes, we can settle for this status quo, which includes trying to tame our fears in the controlled conditions of the movie theater. Or we could be brave and, maybe for the first time, explore the mysterious, tremendous, and fascinating person of Jesus Christ, the One who couldn’t be controlled even by what we believe to be our greatest fear: death. He truly is the conquering Galilean.

Critics have been largely silent about religious reasoning toward progressive causes, despite politicians like Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia arguing for expanding abortion access on religious grounds and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico claiming there’s no conflict between his politically progressive views and Christianity. Meanwhile, publishers have pumped out dozens of books critiquing the Religious Right for bringing their first principles into politics. In The Religious Left: What It Does and How It Can Do Better, Robert Wuthnow, professor emeritus of sociology at Princeton University, examines the history of religiously motivated political progressivism in the United States. Though he makes some references to Jewish and Muslim progressives, his primary focus is to cast a positive light on Christians on the political left and to offer suggestions that can strengthen the movement in the future. Wuthnow has invested much of his career tracing the influence of religion in American culture. Like his previous works, this book has an academic tone. However, he’s openly cheerleading for progressive political causes in what is likely to be his final project. As he analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the Religious Left, Wuthnow unintentionally offers a clear picture of the ways our culture’s dominant narratives can drive Christians to reshape their doctrine to justify political advocacy. It’s a helpful window into the way political power can become idolatrous. Theology of the Religious Left In 1917, Walter Rauschenbusch warned, “If theology stops growing or is unable to adjust itself to its modern environment and meet its present tasks, it will die.” The opposite seems to be the case. He thought that progressives could hold on to Christian ethics without distinctly Christian theology. When the Social Gospel abandoned historical Christian theology, it also lost its discernibly Christian ethics and the vitality that inspired numerical growth. Though the Religious Left often uses biblical language to support their policy proposals, the link between the text of Scripture and the policy in view is often tenuous. For example, arguments to cancel international debts at the end of the 20th century relied on “the biblical concept of jubilee [which] was grounded in [an] understanding of the Bible’s prophetic calls for righteousness and concern for the oppressed” (35). As a foreign policy, international debt forgiveness might have made political sense, but that’s a faulty interpretation of Leviticus 25, which has to do with establishing terms of loans rather than revising them post hoc. The hermeneutic of the Religious Left relies on critical reinterpretation of Scripture according to contemporary ideologies. According to Wuthnow, such “historicized views of biblical authority in progressive statements have stressed that scriptural passages traditionally taken as condemnations of homosexuality [need] to be reinterpreted” just like “customs about animal sacrifice, mass slaughter, and slavery” (186–87). Animal sacrifice is out because history has advanced, but somehow the year of Jubilee is back in when it supports a preferred political cause. The motivated reasoning is obvious. The hermeneutic of the Religious Left relies on critical reinterpretation of Scripture according to contemporary ideologies. Though he’s intending to celebrate the faithfulness of leaders on the Religious Left, Wuthnow more clearly highlights ways those leaders are willing to misuse Scripture for their own ends. It’s clarifying to see the revisionist methodology laid bare by an advocate. As he makes his case, he demonstrates that the gap between most Christians and the Religious Left isn’t just partisan; it’s often deeply theological. Progressive Social Dominance According to Wuthnow, “The Religious Left is in many ways vulnerable” (viii). He sees the overturning of Roe v. Wade and “the lack of any effective passage of gun control legislation” as evidence that “the Religious Left today is a mere shadow of what it once was” (9–10). His complaints about decline mirror those often issued by the Religious Right. Yet Wuthnow’s complaints ring hollow, especially as he admits the ways that progressivism dominates American institutions. He observes, “The Religious Left has had the advantage that many of its progressive views are either embraced implicitly by the public or are built into the norms of existing institutions, at least to a point” (11). They may have lost a few battles in recent years, but the overwhelming cultural tide still seems to be flowing toward progressivism. Establishing progressive political dominance is paramount for the Religious Left: “Much of what it has accomplished has been done through government funding and with the support of favorable legislation and court decisions. A regime that cuts off these resources seriously weakens its efforts” (viii). This helps explain why national politics in the United States so often eclipses the local issues that affect our daily lives more significantly. “The Religious Left has had to function without wide support in the pews” (11). Thus, the movement often relies on financial support from sources more interested in national issues than local ones. As Wuthnow argues, the mission of the Religious Left is to use political advocacy to bring about “something resembling the ‘Kingdom of God’” on earth, even if achieving those ends requires revising traditional Christian theology to match dominant cultural narratives (217). Cultural Narratives A careful study of the Religious Left quickly reveals how cultural narratives shape the movement. For example, Wuthnow writes, Progressive faith leaders in recent years have emphasized a view of human personhood that foregrounds expressivity and fulfillment. . . . Behind this view of personhood is an optimistic assumption about human nature that focuses less on sin and more on releasing individuals from false understandings of themselves and other barriers that limit their capacity to achieve their desires. (182) I’ve rarely seen a clearer description of expressive individualism stated by a proponent. One central lesson from this book is that countercultural catechesis is vital if we’re going to shift the cultural tide against the celebration of abortion, sexual immorality, and other injustices. Countercultural catechesis is vital if we’re going to shift the cultural tide against the celebration of abortion, sexual immorality, and other injustices. It’s not enough to say that the Religious Left’s arguments are unbiblical. Church leaders have to teach people to recognize the underlying cultural narratives that often enable the Religious Left’s use of scriptural language to advocate for sin. If churches are to guard against politics becoming idolatrous, they need to ensure their discipleship exalts the gospel of Christ, not an updated version of the Social Gospel. Whatever one makes of Wuthnow’s conclusions, his careful survey of the Religious Left fills a gap in the sociology of religion. The Religious Left offers a clear view into the reasoning behind and tactics of a movement that misuses Scripture for its own ends. That view can help leaders equip church members to resist conformity to the world as they pursue a renewed mind (Rom. 12:2).

Courtney Doctor talks with Rory Shiner and Kyle Worley about the difference the doctrine of union with Christ makes in how we understand our relationship to God and how we live our lives day to day. They provide analogies to help us understand this seemingly abstract concept as well as examples of the practical difference this truth makes in their own lives. If you’ve struggled to understand why union with Christ is a big deal, or struggled with doubts about your relationship with God, this conversation is for you. Resource Mentioned: One Forever: The Transforming Power of Being in Christ by Rory Shiner Home with God: Our Union with Christ by Kyle Worley Related Resources:  Union with Christ (overview essay) Union with Christ Fills Our Deepest Longings Union with Christ: A Key Doctrine for Global Partnerships Discussion Questions: 1. Before listening to this episode, how would you have explained what it means to be “in Christ”? Has your understanding changed? 2. What are you most tempted to find your identity in besides Christ (accomplishments, relationships, struggles, failures, etc.)? 3. Why do you think Scripture so often describes believers as being “in Christ”? What does that communicate about salvation? 4. How does knowing that your union with Christ is secure change the way you approach communion with God through prayer, worship, or confession? 5. How might the truth of union with Christ encourage someone struggling with shame, anxiety, or depression? 6. Union with Christ means we’re united not only to Christ but also to his people. How should that shape the way we view the church and other believers? 7. In what area of your life or current struggle do you most need to be reminded of your union with Christ? How can your discussion partners pray for you?

No matter what experiences you’ve had, no matter how wonderful they were, they were just a glimpse of what is still ahead.

Explains the fig tree episode as a lesson about genuine faith, spiritual fruitfulness, and judgment.