Ok, ok, so all this talk about literature got me thinking about vampires. Hm, so why would a priest think about vampires? Ahh, you can’t guess? From where do vampires come, according to the original Dracula tale? Dracula lives in Transylvania in today’s Romania. What is the largest faith in Romania? Why Orthodox, of course! So, why would an Eastern Orthodox priest ever write about a tale set in a mainly Orthodox country? [Ok, maybe I am being just a little ironic.]
Well, just recently one of my members voiced a complaint about the current set of vampire tales. Now, if you are not aware, the current set of vampire tales includes the Twilight series [book 1 was made into a movie] and the Southern Vampire series [that is being made into the HBO series True Blood]. In both vampire series, Christianity has no power whatsoever. In fact, in the True Blood series, what Christianity is pictured is a narrow bigoted Christianity. Let me mention that the book series from which the True Blood series is drawn is not as negative towards Christianity as the cable TV series. But, unlike the original Dracula book, none of the clearly Christian items have any power whatsoever. Holy water is useless. The Eucharist is useless. The interior of a church is useless. Holy things are useless.
The complaint by my church member was that it was Hollywood’s fault that Christianity had been written out. But, as I thought about it, I came to the opinion that it was not only Hollywood’s fault. Why would I say that? Well, the background of the USA is a set of immigrants from a highly Anabaptist background. What does that have to do with vampires? Well, you see, Anabaptists do not believe in the efficacy of anything physical, at least in the spiritual area. And, that opinion has permeated American culture. Add to that the negativity towards the “supernatural” that is found in modern science and it has formed a perfect storm. On the one side, in reaction to the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church, many Protestants overreacted and denied that physical things could carry God’s blessing. On the other side, the inability to reliably measure the “spiritual” side of existence led to a skepticism with regards to the possibility of the presence of God in conjunction with something as physical as a cross, or Holy Water, or the Eucharist, etc.
So, here is the odd thing. The Anabaptist viewpoint actually links with the “scientific” viewpoint to assume that God does not really work with physical things. Another way to put it is that both the Anabaptist viewpoint and the “scientific” viewpoint refuse to believe that God could work through the medium of physical things. The Anabaptist viewpoint assumes that God will only work in a very spiritual way. The “scientific” viewpoint refuses to believe that such a thing is even possible, or, at least, measurable.
So, it is no surprise that Hollywood and book authors would slowly change the definition of a vampire from what was originally published to what we see today. The original Dracula tale was written in a country and during a time when people still believed that physical things could carry God’s blessing. Once that was gone, it should not be surprising that the tales were slowly changed to reflect the more modern American viewpoint. So, whose fault is it that modern Hollywood movies assume that the Church is powerless? Well, the first fault belongs to those in the Radical Reformation who denied that God could work in the physical world, except in some rather obvious miracles. And, yes, I agree that the second fault belongs to a modern “scientism” that rejects spiritual explanations of any type. But, the insistence by the Radical Reformation that God could only work in miracles not-related to physical objects set us up to lose the possibility of God using physical objects to counteract evil.
And, so, it is no surprise that modern vampire books and movies discount the possibility of physical things being blessed by God in such a way that they are efficacious against evil. But, here is the problem for us Orthodox. If we disbelieve or discount the possibility of God working through physical things, we end up weakening our understanding of icons, holy water, and even the Eucharist. But worse, when Satan attacks, we end up finding out that we have thrown away some of the very tools that would allow us to send him away.
I see you've been in the spiked brownies. Going to be an interesting sermon today! Congregation…let's talk…about…Dracula?
I like the vampire analogy. While the really, really radical Radical Reformers like the Quakers would argue that all of life is potentially sacramental, it does seem that most of those coming out of the Anabaptist tradition have slipped into a form of gnosticism, which, in the great melting pot of America, has spread to other Protestant denominations which traditionally held on to more of their liturgical past. Good post.
…CONFESSION:…i didnt really even know what gnosticism was until this year…my theology has been greatly influenced in the past by pentecostalism…i have just recently realized that much of what i believe doctrinaly is gnostic teaching…
Gnosticism has made a big comeback in much of Evangelicalism, particularly of the Calvinist variety.
I actually did talk about vampires in the sermon.
I actually did talk about vampires in the sermon.