Nothing helps you rework the doctrine of original sin like zombies!
My most amazing high schoolers at church and I have been developing a theology of Zombies. Out of our undead fun came an article in the Immerse Journal and a sermon. NOW you can get them both for free right here! To get the article just click on the sweet Zombie logo below!
Deacon Stephen Keating and I wrote the article together. He not only a friend, zombie lover, and scholar but he has been working with youth the past couple years so we hashed it all out over some delicious SoCal dinner food and coffee.
The Immerse Journal is THE BEST youth ministry journal by far. I have been asked to write, review, and assist four different youth ministry resources but this is the only I could really support. It is always top quality and packed full of ideas that will get your ministerial imagination brewing. If you are a youth worker SUBSCRIBE NOW. If you do, send me a picture with your first issue and I will mail you a Homebrewed goodie bag!
You can read two different youth ministers interact with the article here and here. They are both decidedly more conservative theologically. I really appreciated Ben’s response but both Ben and Patti wanted to make the Zombie account of sin more a means to an established theological end.
Download the Article HERE!!!!!
Ben ends by asking “So, where are the thin places in culture where you can find common ground with culture and Scripture so students can engage Scripture in a way that is meaningful to them?” When thinking theologically about culture the issue is not the identification of ‘thin places’ where scripture and culture can work together but the deep structures erupting in both. My assumption is that humanity has its deep structures and its plaguing questions. These questions get themselves asked in culture because humans can’t help but be disturbed, ask and create. Sometimes culture’s lack of dogmatism enables the question to be asked in a more robust way. That is why zombies are so interesting for me. Zombies are one way late-modern industrial capitalists wrestle with the nature of humanity, our perverse relationship to nature, our predilection towards self-deconstructive power and our seeming inability to rise above our brokenness.
That’s enough for now. The Walking Dead group with my youth will be starting up again soon so more Zombie-ness will be coming your way. Thanks to Immerse Journal, Ben, Patti, and North Raleigh Community Church. The audio file in the post is my sermon from NRCC. If you are a North Raleigh local then you should check the church out. Doug, their senior minister who introduces me before the sermon, is awesome and not just because he came to the emergent village theological conversation on Process theology! If you are Homebrewed Deacon then there is a high probability you will love some NRCC.
Here’s a recent Theology Nerd Throwdown episode where Bo and I discuss Zombies!
