Living in the Age of Vampires

I believe we are moving into a new Romantic Age.  People are focusing more and more on feelings and less on logic and rationality.  People are becoming more and more interested in things beyond work - money is less and less important.  People are demanding something more comfortable than the "cold hard facts" -- why did anyone ever want to sit upon something cold and hard to begin with?  And even so-called traditional church is becoming less attractive to people.  But this does not mean the end of religion.  In fact, I suspect the Age of Reason was a much bigger threat to religion.  But churches have spent so much time and effort trying to make religion fit into the straight jacket of reason that there is going to be quite a lot of adjusting to do.  And we aren't going to throw out logic and reason - we are just going to push it back from it's recent attempts to take over all aspects of our lives.  Since we're not throwing logic and reason out, churches will have to find ways to speak to our romantic inclinations while not abandoning logic and reason.

I believe a good example of this might be the blossoming interest in vampires.  And more importantly, how vampires are being portrayed.  My first real introduction to vampires in any big sense was the Ann Rice books.  But note how her books are really an in depth exploration of the psychology of what to us would in the Rational Age be simply deemed purely evil creatures.  And in the Rational Age we wouldn't really go all that deep in our analysis of vampires.  They would simply be painted as evil albeit somewhat intelligent animals - really they were more a vehicle for a story about a hero who triumphs over nature.  But then came along the Ann Rice books.  And I've never seen vampires the same way since.

Then, Kara really pushed me into watching the Buffy series.  Given how campy and low budget the show was, it is amazing how popular the show was. I was really put off at first by the low budget campy portrayal of vampires.   But I quickly learned that there were two sets of vampires in the show.  There were the weak nondescript vampires who were simply something for our hero to fight.  But then there were the fleshed out vampires - with personalities and histories - whose stories we were allowed to learn.  So we had both the Age of Reason vampires, and the Romantic Age vampires, all in one show.             

More recently, for example the Twilight take on vampires.  (Kara wanted to go - so we went to the first two movies - I never read the books but I think Kara might have.  So that's the extent of my understanding of Twilight - I'm no expert - but ...).  In Twilight - vampires are not nearly as easy to kill as they are in many earlier portrayals.  They don't, most notably, need to avoid all sun light.  In fact, they (mostly?) avoid sun light to avoid standing out.  They shimmer in the light.  I find the Twilight take on vampires (my superficial understanding of it) to be interesting as it opens up a lot of possibilities - and it really is more believable.  If vampires are evil and not just misunderstood "others" - or for that matter even if they are just misunderstood "others" who are very powerful but only exist in limited numbers - then it doesn't seem likely that sunlight would be deadly to them.  That seems more like a perspective of the Age of Reason - more like a metaphor for knowledge (light) overcoming all ignorance (darkness) - so much so that even a small light beam can instantly kill an otherwise nearly indestructible creature.  (funny that i've now read Exodus 34:29-35 -- where Moses' face become radiant from speaking with God -- not that I think Moses is supposed to be a vampire of course -- but an interesting coincidence ) 

So, what does this all have to do with church?  Well, if they want to be relevant, churches have to introduce church goers to vampires.  Ok - not literally - but I have to say as I'm reading through the Bible I'm finding all kinds of romantic things that churches seem to just ignore or gloss over.

Take the Nephilim for example.  I've mentioned them to a few people - and I think every time I do they just think I'm joking or that I'm focusing on the wrong thing.  But I think those who just dismiss the Nephilim are the ones not focusing on the right thing.  If you want to hook people today - you need to talk about the supernatural - you need to talk about the miraculous - you need to explain why the Nephilim are in there.  And don't explain it by saying God is mysterious - that's a dismissal not an explanation.  Why did Jesus just say "Is it not written in your Law, "I have said you are gods"?  If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came - and Scripture cannot be set aside..."  (John 10:34-35)  Who did he call gods?!?!  And more importantly, why are no churches talking about this???  And if they do decide to talk about it, I highly recommend not simply dismissing it all with some rational logical argument that in effect actually throws it out.  It is not only in the OT, but Christ himself is citing it and using it to support his position.  So there must be something to it.

But the big big question, remember the end of my first paragraph! -- the really big question will be how to reconcile the mystical with the rational?  I believe that is the age we are moving into.  I believe we will not simply fall back into a dark age - but rather we are moving forward into an age where logic and rationality are married to magic and mysticism.  

Apropos of this being election day -- I just realized that the difference between conservatives and liberals is often due to a difference in their approach to the romantic.  I've often heard liberals complain about conservatives having an uninformed attachment to the past.  They often complain that conservatives want to live in a yesterday that never was.  Conservatives, however, often complain that liberals have a pie-in-the sky desire for a utopia that will never come.  Both, it seems, are using similar logical arguments to fight against the particular brand of romanticism of the other.  Maybe that's why politics seems so personal these days - it reflects the transition to romanticism - but everyone is holding onto some of their logical approach while embracing just some of romanticism.  Maybe as we progress further on the road to romanticism we'll be able to reconcile the love with the past and the love of the future and thus make politics less viscerally frightening.  (Remember - whenever we see anger - look for the fear - it is always there somewhere).