30 June 2011

A Simple Zombie Credo

The following was just posted in response to a comment on ZombieTheology.  I invite you to read the post here, and then to continue reading this one.

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Dear Sonny ~

You said,
“Zombie Theology isn’t about finding cool walking dead references in the Scriptures (we’ll have fun with some of that, who can resist?), it’s about the disease. How it’s contracted,how it’s spread from host to host. How they can be stopped (got to shoot them in the Soul, their head) and the most important question of all, how do we cure ourselves once we are bitten by the overwhelming Zombie Army?”
Here, dear one, is the gospel: we don’t have the cure. God does. The cure came in the form of Jesus Christ and is being distributed by the Holy Spirit breathed into the world as Jesus breathed His last. Jesus came to resurrect our imaginations, to give our brain-dead appetites something other than each other to gnaw on. One day, all of creation and all of humanity will remember the goodness and freedom it was crafted with. We look forward to that day.

You are right when you say that many Christians are acting in ways that resemble zombies. We are part of a world that is infected with the virus, (or the toxin, or the radiation, whatever imagery we find in zombie literature can be applied). We’re born into it, we’re raised by infected beings, and we’re exposed to it every day. The zombie infection is everywhere. It’s what gives all humans (and other animals, for that matter) a tendency towards violence, self-preservation, destruction of others and other behaviors that are not conducive to societal uplifting.

Zombie theology is not about pointing fingers at someone else and claiming that they are worse off than we are. It’s about embracing the reality that we are all equally undead – Christian and non-Christian alike. Zombie theology for Christians, though, points to the cure and has hope and confidence that Jesus can and will remove the infection from all creatures, from all humans and from all of creation.

It sounds, from your post, like you have had some negative experiences with my Extended Family in the Church. I am sorry for whatever has happened to you. I assure you that not all Christ-followers desire to destroy philosophy and deep thinking with toxic theology. Some of us are trying hard to fight the infection within (and without!) and doing everything we can to help our fellow zombies remember that we were once humans created in the image of God. I do hope that you will experience the grace that flows through the Holy Spirit at work in we who are trying to overcome.

~ Trista, a fellow theological zombie and follower of Christ ~

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