Zombies?

This post is pretty self-explanatory: why I think zombies are so popular right now. (I'm not the biggest zombie fan in the world, but I do get my kicks from watching them on TV and killing them in video games. So this is really the three reasons why I like zombies).

1. Adventure.

This is a softball answer. The idea of being on your own, running through a city with a shotgun and blasting zombies is kinda fun and it appeals to the American fascination with adventure and intrigue.

2. Desire for a carefree existence.

I think one reason why we love zombies so much is because we all really just want to escape our everyday mundane existence full of stress, responsibility, and tough decisions. (See here). Life can be excruciating sometimes. Not to mention that it's full of hard decisions and tough days. One wrong choice at one point could mean disaster for the rest of your life. A world infested by zombies, on the other hand, alleviates us of the tough decisions we have to make. Instead of deciding how to raise children or how to balance the weekly budget, life's complexities are reduced to two: kill zombies and survive. While this can of course be tough, it's actually a lot easier than real life. Notwithstanding the hard calls one has to make in ensuring survival, living in a zombie world makes life's choices easier. It's kind of like the classic superhero paradigm. It's easier to win a girl's love by saving her from Dr. Octopus or an oncoming train than by dying to self in the little things every day for the rest of your life. Much easier to trap a bad guy in a web than provide for a family.

3. Chance for new beginnings.

Here I think the zombie craze speaks most clearly to our need for the gospel. A zombie apocalypse supposes that the apocalypse has occurred. This means that the survivors (and we always assume that we'd be the survivors and not the victims) live in a world where everything you know has changed. No more corporations, no more governments, no more religions, and no more institutions. Because of these things, one's past is no longer relevant either. The new world order is characterized by a kind of freedom. It gives the survivor a chance to imagine a world where all mistakes have been wiped away and the only thing that exists now is a clean slate. For me this has always been the funnest part to think about. How do we rebuild a world after the apocalypse?

I think zombie fans are on to something here. Everybody yearns for a world where all the bad stuff is gone and we get a fresh start. This is a real and legitimate desire of the human heart. What everybody fails to realize is that this world doesn't get that through brain eating reanimated flesh. Not to say that the zombie craze is morally reprehensible or wrong, but just that it points to a more ultimate need in the human heart. What it points to is fulfilled through Christ and His redemption of the world. Through this, Christ in fact wipes away everything bad and gives us a new world of peace and love:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Rev. 21:1-4, ESV

What you and I and everyone else has always longed for is simply a chance to start over, forgiveness, and restoration. This is what Jesus gives us through His birth, death, and resurrection. Our love of zombies only points to this greater need. We would do well to remember that.