Are vampire movies really harmless?

Playing with Darkness
the danger of taking evil lightly

"A pure heart is one to which all that is not of God is strange and jarring." -Tauler

Everybody is aware of the recent fascination with the movie, Twilight, mostly among young girls. But, even guys and older women are seemingly obsessed with it. But, is there really even such a thing as a wholesome, God-honoring, harmless vampire movie? There is lots of speculation and debate over the movie, even among Christians. There are also multiple shows, books, and other movies about vampires. It is an extremely popular movement right now. I even saw something on 20/20 a couple nights ago about people that truly think they are vampires! The real question we need to ask though, is what does God think about it? It truly doesn't matter what we think in light of that. Is it worth it to separate ourselves from Him for a couple of hours of entertainment? It is so easy to be sucked into the culture's agenda and be bamboozled by whatever it tells us. Something about the dark and dangerours vampire figure attracts us. But, Proverbs 4:23 instructs us: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." This Scripture has been embedded upon my heart and mind this past week. When engaging in the movies, music, books, magazines, and other sources of entertainment, are we guarding our hearts? It is so crucial because it is the most delicate part of us...It is the wellspring of life! And it is the hardest thing to heal and restore. That's why the Lord wants to protect us and tells us to guard our hearts. He knows what He's talking about, so let's listen to Him!

I have been pondering and thinking about this movie quite a lot lately, as well as other entertainment choices in my own life. It's hard not to think about this movie, considering it comes up in practically every other sentence in nearly every conversation. So, take some time to read the following excerpt from Leslie Ludy's online magazine and let me know what you think about the topic. I recommend reading the entire article, but I've included the parts that talk about Twilight specifically. I definitely think it's something that deserves to be thought about and discussed, especially for those that are claiming to want to live for Christ. Everything we allow into our eyegates and eargates will impact us. So, let's put aside our own thoughts about it and get down to what Twilight really is and whether or not it's God honoring. That's all that matters...





Leslie Ludy's Online Magazine

"I believe the majority of American Christians today are far too careless toward darkness and evil. Pop-culture floods our minds and senses with things that are not of God. But for most of us, the glamorized sin that surrounds us is not strange and jarring. It’s normal and accepted. In fact, we go out of our way to enjoy and participate in it. We spend a huge amount of our time and money on it. We allow it to capture our mind, emotions, and attention; then we wonder why our lives are filled with fear, anxiety, defeat, and depression.

Take, for instance, the recent vampire movie, Twilight.

Countless Christian young women have claimed this movie as a healthy, God-honoring form of entertainment. “It’s such a pure and beautiful love story!” proclaim the throngs of Christ-professing girls who flocked to the movie on opening night and snatched up the DVD as soon as it hit the video stores.

Loads of Christian movie review websites praise Twilight as a wholesome love story. Youth pastors and Christian influencers alike have lauded it as a harmless and even edifying flick. Twilight (from all I’ve heard) is a sweet and artistically portrayed love story that doesn’t show graphic images of the vampires “doing their vampire thing.” So it doesn’t surprise me that Christian young women are falling for it left and right.

But here is the question that no one seems to be asking. . .is there really such a thing as a pure, wholesome and God-honoring vampire movie? Pop-culture has been obsessed with vampire movies for the past decade or so. Some are bloody and gory, some, like Twilight, are far more subtle. Movies like Twilight make the idea of vampires seem hip and harmless. But are vampire movies really harmless?

I recently got a little history lesson on the origin of vampires. What I found out was nothing short of utterly repulsive.

The very first vampire story (Dracula) was originally inspired by the real-life demonic antics of a man named Vlad the Impaler – a Romanian ruler in the 1400’s.

Wikipedia says,

The atrocities commited by Vlad in the German stories include impaling, torturing, burning, skinning, roasting, and boiling people, feeding people the flesh of their friends or relatives, cutting off limbs, drowning, and nailing people's hats to their heads. Also in these stories, his victims included men and women of all ages, religions, and social classes, children and babies. One German account includes the following sentence: "He caused so much pain and suffering that even the most bloodthirstiest persecutors of Christianity like Herodes, Nero, Diocletian and all other pagans combined hadn't even thought of."

The article goes on to describe Vlad’s preferred means of torture and execution (impalement) in shocking and deeply disturbing detail. Vlad’s Romanian surname "Drăculea" means "Son of the Dragon" and is derived from his father's title, Vlad the Devil. The word "Dracul" means "the Devil" in modern Romanian and the suffix "-lea" can be translated as "son of".

In other words, Vlad, the original vampire, in name and in deed, was “the son of the devil.”

Fiction writers and Hollywood have morphed and modified vampire stories to include all kinds of variations from the original Dracula. But the bottom line is that vampires stories glorify evil and darkness. They originated from something horribly perverse and demonic. And no matter how a movie like Twilight might try to gloss over the demonic side – it’s still there. No matter how pure the love story may be, a vampire movie cannot be God-honoring.

Most of us who have grown up in church don’t consider ourselves vulnerable to witchcraft or Satan-worship. But sometimes we overlook things that seem “harmless” but are, in reality, associated with the kingdom of darkness. Anything that we allow into our lives that is associated with witchcraft or the occult opens a wide door for the enemy to gain access to our hearts, minds, and bodies, and to block the spiritual blessings Christ has for us. Something as seemingly innocent as reading your horoscope in the newspaper is actually not innocent at all – it is participating in the occult practice of fortune telling. Movies about séances, vampires, or communicating with dead people might seem like no big deal – especially if you “don’t really believe in it”. But watching those movies is, in essence, participating in the occult practice of “calling up the dead” or the demonic practice of brutal torture and blood-drinking.

The Bible makes it clear that there can be no fellowship between light and darkness. (see 2 Cor 6:14) In the book of Acts when the Gospel of Christ was preached, those who believed “came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly.” (Acts 19:18-19 NKJV)

If there is any object or activity in our life that is associated with darkness, the appropriate way to deal with it is to destroy it completely, as they did in Acts. Here’s the rule of thumb that works best for me: “when in doubt, don’t mess with it.”

God provides amazing strength, blessings, and freedom for each of us. But in order for us to walk in His light, He requires His sons and daughters to live by a sacred decorum; to come out from the world and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing. We are to ruthlessly remove all uncleanness, all darkness (no matter how small) from our lives. As set-apart young women, there is not even to be a hint of these things in our daily existence.

How do we live this kind of holy, upright, God-honoring life? Not by instigating rules and formulas for ourselves. Not by joining a nunnery or becoming a back-woods hermit. Rather, by yielding to the transforming, supernaturally enabling power of Christ in us. By allowing Him to completely re-make us from the inside out. By submitting ourselves fully and completely to His transforming work. By taking every thought captive and meditating upon the things of light rather than the things of darkness.

When we yield our bodies to become the holy, undefiled dwelling place of the Most High God, He comes and makes His home within us. When we allow Him to remove everything carnal, dark, sinful and selfish that stands in the way, that’s when He enables us to live a strong, fortified, victorious life; unharmed and unhampered by the enemy."

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"He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly.. who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from seeing evil, he will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water will be sure." -Isaiah 33:15-16

"Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." -Luke 10:19

"Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things." -Philippians 4:8

• "By filling her mind with darkness, she was leaving herself wide open for the prince of darkness to wreak havoc upon her soul and subconscious."

• "And when we bathe our thoughts in evil instead of good, we might as well hang a sign over the door of our mind that says, “Darkness welcome here!”

• "I asked God to overtake my mind and govern my thought life, granting me the grace to “take every thought captive.” And I made a focused effort to fill my mind with light instead of darkness every moment of the day moment of the day or night. This meant a purification process of the music I listened to, the movies I watched, the conversations I participated in, and the books I read. Anything that caused my mind to think about evil, darkness, tragedy or death – no matter how “mild” it seemed – was to be ruthlessly removed from my life."

• "I discovered the secret to fearless, peaceful, victorious living when I learned how to meditate upon light rather than darkness.

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I also recommend reading the blog Vampire Craze-True Woman. It's worth the read, so go check it out! We need to be aware of and ready to discuss this with others. Let me know your thoughts on it!!

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