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Vampires, werewolves, and the very real evil stalking our souls
Since the dawn of October, I’ve found myself thinking often about two iconic monsters — the bloodthirsty vampire and the shapeshifting werewolf.Perhaps it’s the Halloween decorations everywhere, the pop-up costume shops on every corner, or the horror films Netflix keeps recommending to me.The vampiric spirit of bloodlust is easy enough to see in the widespread demand for unfettered abortion.It could also be my recent discovery of “Haunted Cosmos” — a podcast for the highly curious that examines myth, legend, and the paranormal through the lens of Christian doctrine. The creators of the series, Ben Garrett and Brian Sauve, make the case that much of what Christians dismiss as superstition is either true, partially true, or, at bare minimum, inspired by something true. They take seriously the notion of aliens, dragons, Bigfoot, faeries, monsters, and the like. Using scripture as their decoder, they ask: Does the Bible offer support for the existence of these creatures? Mask offWhether or not stories about vampires and werewolves refer to actual creatures in the world (Garrett and Sauve have devoted fantastic episodes to this topic), one thing seems undeniably true to me. The evil depicted by these legends is real — as real as the ground beneath our feet. I’ve also been connecting the dots between this primordial evil and two of the most alarming modern issues contributing to the decline of the West. While these concepts may seem worlds apart, I sense a sinister connection between them. The vampire and werewolf must be regarded in earnest because they pervade history. Every culture across time has some version of these evil entities. And when a thread of thought weaves through time and place, surely it hides a deeper truth. But what? As a Christian, my answer to that question is that supernatural forces that crave human blood and revel in the idea of shapeshifting exist. They are demonic in nature and very powerful. The anti-gospelA vampire is a being who lives by taking the life force (the blood) of others. Is that not the antithesis of the gospel message? The vampire says, "Your blood for my life," whereas Jesus gave his blood so that we might live.Vampirism is an anti-gospel. It expresses the rebellion of the original fallen angel — that great foil to Yahweh, Satan. That’s not to say vampires with fangs who sleep in coffins exist but rather that the entity that gave birth to such a myth exists. The same goes for the spirit or entity that inspired the werewolf archetype. A werewolf is a man who, infected by evil, is forced to reject his nature and become a grotesque version of who he was intended to be. Again, we see an obvious perversion of God’s design. The rejection of our own nature is a rejection of our creator, who made us in his own image. This is also an anti-gospel.Perhaps it’s a stretch to say that the same demonic entities that inspired vampires and werewolves are currently terrorizing the West, but I don’t think so. Not when I look closely at two of the biggest evils facing us today — evils directly caused by the rejection of our Judeo-Christian heritage. What are abortion and transgenderism, after all, but the return of those iconic creatures of death, the vampire and the werewolf.Shout Your AbortionThe vampiric spirit of bloodlust is easy enough to see in the widespread demand for unfettered abortion — especially on the furthest flank of the left, which openly relishes the slaughter of the unborn. One particular attendee at a pro-choice rally comes to mind. On her rotund, third-trimester belly were painted the words “NOT A BABY.” The image still haunts me. There’s also the Shout Your Abortion organization, which quite literally encourages women to celebrate their abortions and share their “success stories.” SYA’s mission statement outlines its intentions to create a society where “abortion is free, de-stigmatized, and accessible in every community across the country.” In other words, these people really love the idea of boundless bloodshed. Consider the murderous zeal of Minnesota governor — and Kamala Harris' running mate — Tim Walz, who signed a statute repealing the law that required babies who survive botched abortions to receive life-saving care. Even those whose lives have been miraculously spared cannot escape doom under the Walz regime. Father of liesHowever, not everyone is so candid about their desire to facilitate a genocide against the unborn. There are vampires who employ seduction to achieve their twisted desires. Like the serpent who used language to ensnare Eve in the garden, these cunning bloodsuckers deceive their victims with poetic discourse. In Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” the titular count tells his quarry, “Mina, to walk with me you must die to your breathing life and be reborn to mine.” That’s a very polite way of expressing your intentions to gorge on someone’s blood and turn them into a fellow wraith. Pro-choicers of this kind speak in euphemisms. They make abortion — the bloody disruption of the holy process during which God knits a soul into being — sound practical, moral, even benevolent: Women’s health care, reproductive rights, life-saving interventions. Having been wooed and deceived, the vampire’s victim walks willingly to her — and it’s almost always a her — death. Similarly, young women are seduced by euphemistic pro-choice language and agree to not their own death but something even worse — the death of their innocent child. We see the common thread: Young women, deceived by language, make a decision that results in a bloody death. Unleashing the beast withinAs for the demonic entity that inspired the shapeshifting werewolf, I see its handiwork primarily in the transgender movement. An ideology that is capable of subverting language, butchering healthy bodies, removing children from loving homes, and obliterating the guardrails that have long protected women is a demonic ideology.At its root is Satan’s original sin: He thought he was better than God. Transgenderism shares the same core belief — the same pride-filled ideation that we supersede the King of kings. A man who believes he is a woman and attempts to reshape himself in accordance with this belief sins in three ways: He rejects himself, thereby rejecting the one in whose image he was created; he rejects God, purporting to know better than his own creator; and he imitates the deceiver, who is also a shapeshifter. The same goes for a woman who attempts to shed her God-given form and become a man. Like the werewolf who is both destroyed and inflicts destruction, so, too, the transgender individual destroys his or her own body and/or psyche and perpetuates a destructive, demonic creed. The darkness remainsI do not believe that the millions of people foaming at the mouth demanding abortion access for all just have a different perspective than me. I do not think that the doctors sterilizing children and cutting off their healthy body parts merely grew up differently than I did. That’s an oversimplification of the problem at hand. Of course, we need to speak out and fight back against the organizations pushing these causes, the politicians working to enshrine them in law, the billionaires funding them, and the protesters storming the streets chanting for abortion access and trans rights. At the same time, however, we need to look beyond these flesh-and-blood adversaries in order to see the true author of these evils. It is not man. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). As Halloween approaches, my neighbors are quite literally pulling skeletons out of their closets, adorning their porches and lawns with all varieties of dark paraphernalia. Two doors down from me, one couple has turned their entire front yard into a haunted graveyard featuring every monstrous creature imaginable, including — you guessed it — a vampire and a werewolf. Although I find myself averting my eyes when I walk by, their celebration of darkness has set me down a path of considering how society at large celebrates darkness — the abortion and trans issues being just two on the long list of ideologies poisoning the West. When October passes and the plastic monsters and tombstones are banished to dusty attics until next year, the darkness they represent will remain, and it will continue to erode society. I wonder if the evil associated with Halloween, which many Christians rightfully avoid, might actually present an opportunity for us to consider how darkness — vampires and bloodlust, werewolves and shapeshifting — doesn’t ever go away. It merely puts on a new mask.
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