Some Kind of Zombie

Warning: Slight spoilers for the movie Warm Bodies ahead. Furthermore, towards the end of the post, I unapologetically draw some slightly cheesy parallels between zombie-ism and life.

Living in the Land of the Dead

Let it be known that I am a fan of zombie movies and television shows. Everyone has a dirty little secret and this is one of mine: despite all of the blood and gore, the zombie genre never fails to fascinate me. It does not matter if the approach to zombies is serious or comedic. I am equally enthralled by 28 Days Later and Zombieland, "The Walking Dead" and Shaun of the Dead. Maybe it stems from this idea that a world of zombies would be simpler, that life would suddenly be free of the rat race. You get the idea that, in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, you either live together or die alone. Never mind the fact that debating the best zombie contingency plan provides hours of fun discussion of young men in their twenties.

So, obviously, when I heard that Hollywood was producing a zombie romantic comedy, it was love at first bite for me (sorry but I am obligated to make puns when available). I recent watched this movie (Warm Bodies) and, while it was not a perfect movie, it did make me think. Now, the zombie world Warm Bodies that is more Dawn of the Dead/Shaun of the Dead than 28 Days Later. This means that the main character, a zombie by the name of R, can moan a word or two. In the film, R comes across a girl named Julie and his world begins to change. As odd as it may seem, I found myself identifying with R. Sadly, R and I possess a similar vocabulary when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex. But, the ways in which I identify with R do not stop there.

Bring Me to Life

Once R encounters Julie, he slowly starts to come back to life. His heart starts to beat again. He begins to dream again. His body begins to warm from the chill of death. He regains his ability to speak. He starts to become truly human once again. In this film, the budding love between Julie and R is enough to resurrect not only R but all of zombie-kind.

I watched this process on the silver screen and thought to myself, "I see the Christian life in this." I thought of the divine love story in which humanity is involved. I thought back to my own portion of this story. I thought of how I first came to Christ and how that was like the first beat of my spiritual heart. God gives us His vision and causes us to dream dreams truer than reality. Our hearts are warmed with the compassion that Jesus had for the lost, broken, trampled, and abused. We find our voice as we go to share the Truth that we have encountered. In time, we become truly alive. And, one day, we will possess in fullness the same resurrection life that Christ has.

The most beautiful parallel here is that the transformation for R is not instantaneous. And, it is the same with us. This process is a long one--one that takes each of us the remainder of our lives to undergo. In the movie, R still blundered and fumbled things even after he began his process of being exhumed. Yet, life was still coming to his corpse. So it is with us--we are in the process of being revived but we still fumble with the dead parts of us from time to time. We are being sanctified through it all. We just have to remember that, in the end, we will possess the very Life that God had planned for us all along.

Embrace the Change

There is a second metaphor for us to gleam from this film (though we will have to consider it to be a different analogy from the first, lest we push the first metaphor to the point where it becomes dis-analogous with the truth). As in all zombie scenarios, there is a small band of survivors who are holed up and holding on to the precious life within them. The harshness of the world outside their walls has pushed them to the point where they are more inclined to shoot than to listen to reason (there is one scene in Warm Bodies that I am thinking of specifically that demonstrates this). But, in the end, it is not until they embrace the potential for life within the zombies outside their walls that this life can come to these corpses.

I find this to be a sad analogy for parts of the church today. There are some out there that view the world outside the church with such distrust that they forget the potential for life that these people have. We treat the outside world like bonafide zombies--we dehumanize them. We treat them like the shell of a person we used to know. When we paint someone as a zombie within our minds, we give ourselves permission to deal with them as a subhuman--as someone without feelings and as someone deserving of violence (be it verbal or emotional).

Yet, the lesson of Warm Bodies is that the corpses came to life once they were embraced by the humans. So it is with the Church. When we extend the love of Jesus out beyond the four walls of our churches, the lost are found, the blind see, and the dead live. If we leave them alone, they will remain zombies. We have to step out, take the risk, and embrace them. 

Life among the zombies can be dangerous. There is potential for us to be hurt. Someone might bite your head off. Someone might rip into you. You might find yourself broken down and wounded. But, the reward of the dead come back to true life is worth the risk.