Horror and the Bible: A Commentary
In our deeply divided country, Mike Duran is one of the few who can challenge our culture without being inflammatory or divisive. In reading his latest book, Christian Horror: On the Compatibility of a Biblical Worldview and the Horror Genre, the book goes beyond surface arguments and shows us how the church should embrace the horror genre.
The book delves into various horrific details of Bible stories, art history, and how some don’t believe a devil exists. The book also presents a compelling argument how Christians have white washed everything. “Thus, Christian art became an alternative to ‘worldly’ fare, often defined as much by what it didn’t have, as what it did,” the book says on page 53. My favorite story shared in the book was about Christopher Hitchen’s brother, Peter, who became a believer when he viewed Roger Van Der Weyden’s painting, Last Judgement.
The horrific images portrayed in the painting caused, “Peter to see himself, ‘among the damned.'” Peter Hitchens became a believer because a painter didn’t hold back about heaven or hell. The book is a think-outside-the-box kind of thought process that inspires a Christian like myself to not put such narrow boundaries on how to reach the unreached, the unloved, and the unchurched. The book makes a strong case how horror should be an accepted genre among Christians.