Do all zombies go to heaven?

There is a reason we laugh so eagerly at zombies, as audiences have been gleefully doing with the horror comedy “Zombieland.”

Is there a more fitting symbol for our own inescapable mortality than zombies - decaying, dismembered figures that relentlessly pursue the living? Zombies have officially haunted us since 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead,” but the basic concept has been around in movies at least since 1920’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” We’re fascinated by the awful prospect of something even worse than death: never-ending dying.

And what do we often do in the face of such ugliness? Laugh. Horror comedies exist precisely because laughter can serve as a release valve – a way to deflect or delay a terrible truth. When the hero of “Zombieland,” a hypochondriac (Jesse Eisenberg) whose isolation has helped him survive a zombie apocalypse, offers hand sanitizer to fellow survivors, the gag makes light of – sanitizes – the appalling situation. For a moment, we find it easier to breathe.

For Christians, zombies shouldn’t be all that scary. Stumbling about in search of human flesh isn’t in our picture of the afterlife. Yet the fatalism that is so essential to the zombie genre speaks directly to our understanding of life on earth as a temporary existence – a blip in our eternal journey.

We don’t like to think about that, of course. Instead of acknowledging our expiration dates, we waste time in this life scrounging around for short-lived treasures and experiences. But zombies are as good a reminder as anything that you can’t cheat death – and that you had better be ready for what happens after.

That’s just my take, but it’s hardly a definitive interpretation. Another great thing about these movies is that they can mean many things to many people. Zombie auteur George A. Romero has used them to make statements on everything from race relations (“Night of the Living Dead”) to consumerism (“Dawn of the Dead”).

Maybe some Christians see zombies as sympathetic figures, wallowing in sin and awaiting redemption. Maybe others think they’re symbols of what life would be like without God – devoid of meaning, full of violence. So I’m curious: What do zombies mean to you?

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Comments (8)

I think you really make a good point here; I've often pondered the same thing. I think that for some people, experiencing a death is such a serious, saddening thing that they need some kind of cathartic release.
About the film: I'm a huge Romero fan, and I'm easily wooed by anything zombie related. However, I didn't watch Zombieland because I usually avoid rated-R movies and spiritually filthy feeling I usually get after watching one.
I think some zombie movies do the opposite of what you are saying, because the "heros" don't die, there is a sense that they never will. This is something most movies subtly try to convince us of.

My psuedo-name from my early punk days was Flesheater, which I referred to the last supper to explain, and later even would talk about, how I preaching the gospel would eat away at peoples flesh, giving them truth.

Scriptures like Romans 8:10
"But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness."
Show, how Christians actually have a zombie like thing going on.

We were once dead but are now made alive, of course, we aren't slow and stupid zombies (well, we act that way sometimes) but we are more like the fast moving strong zombies off Resident Evil or something. haha.
I've seen a couple of theological stances on zombies--in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies there are many references to the idea that all zombies go straight to eternal fire, but that was the first I'd heard of it. I always had the impression zombiedom was just a waystation that didn't affect one's afterlife status at all, other than delaying it a bit and being difficult for the other people who are not zombies.

I always figured zombies were like vampires and werewolves and frankensteins and other monsters that we can turn into (supposedly)--they serve as explorations of what happens when you lose some aspect of your humanity. But I'm more familiar with zombies from books than movies--World War Z, P&P&Z, and the Anita Blake series, are some of the recent spate of books that include zombies as part of the framework, without focusing on their horror the way Dawn of the Dead or Shawn of the Dead did. (Though Shawn of the Dead is my favorite zombie movie of all time... ;)
There is a pharmacological process, which is actually used in Haiti, and apparently came from somewhere in the Congo River valley, by which people can be put into a catatonic state, mistaken for dead, buried, dug up, and enslaved. They can also be rescued from this state. Apparently salt deprivation is part of the control process, and giving SMALL quantities of salt, bringing them back up to normal metabolism, is part of the cure. I doubt that what is done TO someone like this affects their chance of salvation. As to figments of warped imagination, do we really need to care about whether their nonexistent souls go to a nonexistent afterlife (nonexistent for their nonexistent selves).
Yeah, there is a reason we laugh so eagerly at Zombie movies. It’s because we are de-sensitized to violence and gore. We feed on a steady diet of misery and violence in video games and movies. Outrageous violence has become amusing. The end result is kids think its cool to whack someone with a 2X4 then jump on his head till he dies like the murder in Chicago. Or commit unspeakable mayhem like the rapper Richard McCrosky did in Virginia. Or imitate Columbine.

We can appreciate these bloody Zombie movies, laugh and even enjoy them because we are intellectuals. They're funny. Evil is entertaining, good things are so boring.

As it says in Isaiah 5:20: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.

Don’t you respect your eyes? I refuse to see that crap.
I suspect that flesh-eating zombies and blood-drinking vampires were always intended to mock the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in one sense we Christians might be called the living dead. Dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11).
Just a thought---one can whack a zombie because they are no longer really a human anymore, right?  a sublimated form of homicide, perhaps? 
Just thinking (too hard)---
The Zombie myth may also be related to Jewish mythology relating to the creation of the Golem of Prague in the 1500s through a process called Blood Libel which brought up many elements Kashrut Law considered crimes against God and nature.

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