More thoughts on "Christian Horror" (Updated)

Huh--many weeks after this post, Steve Biodrowski responds to it at Cinefantastique. My impression is that he didn't read what I had to say very carefully, because most of his "objections" are addressed in the post itself or at least in the comments. In fairness, I wrote that post a little too off-the-cuff and didn't make some points as clearly as I should have.

His main beef seems to come down to this:

[Purcell] seems to be writing not about genre material that includes Christian elements; for him, “Christian Horror” represents something more specific: a form of horror that hews so closely to fundamentalist doctrine that it would achieve approval even from the most conservative self-appointed guardian of public morals.

I find this argument to be a straw-man: basically, Purcell says that if you’re a Christian horror writer, you must do this, and this won’t work. But the reason that this won’t work is that Purcell has deliberately defined this in a way that won’t work. As logicians would say, he is begging the question.

John Morehead of TheoFantastique voices much the same complaint in the comments:

For my response, Curt’s argument hinges upon specific definitions of “Christianity,” “horror,” and “compatibility” that I do not accept, in addition to disagreein [sic] with the further arguments he advances in support of his thesis. As an interesting side note, in my view, the definitions Curt uses which lead to his incompatibility thesis are the same as those used by fundamentalist and many evangelical Christians who arrive at the same conclusion. Both do so erroneously in my view, as my specific essays on this topic as well as the overall thrust of TheoFantastique indicate.

I kind of thought that's what we were talking about--horror that could be shelved in the "Inspirational Fiction" section of Barnes & Noble, or sold in Family Bookstores, or reviewed in Christianity Today, or consumed by people with iPods full of Christian rock (or whatever genre of Christian music they listen to). Because when you're talking about "Christian _____," that's the market you're talking about. Because who else ever demands a specifically Christian version of whatever? I'd guess most "mainline" (i.e. non-evangelical Protestant) Christians don't particularly care if their entertainment caters to their religious worldview, so long as it doesn't blatantly offend their sensibilities. No, it's evangelicals who are so determined to filter the whole of their experience through their faith that they support entire industries devoted to supplying them with the Christian version of everything.

Morehead may chafe against the restrictiveness of evangelical culture, but I'd be very surprised if his desire for Christian horror isn't coming from a basically evangelical mindset. I know quite well, from my younger days, what it's like to want the Christian version of something, but to feel great frustration at the low quality and unchallenging nature of what that market produces. I know what it's like to imagine ideals of what "Christian ______" could be. Yet somehow those ideals never get realized, do they? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Coming back to Biodrowski's post, of course I'm not unaware of things like crosses in vampire fiction. I mean, come on--I wrote this. As for his claim that, "horror does not celebrate monsters, darkness, and chaos," I can only shake my head. His question about horror that uses the tropes and trappings of other religions is no can of worms--why shouldn't different cultures draw from their religious traditions for conceptions and images of supernatural horror, just as the West has with Christianity, just as I myself am doing (as I mentioned in my original post)?

So I guess we're off on another round of discussion here. Have at it!

By the way, here's something of related interest.

UPDATE: Looks like Morehead recently posted about Biodrowski's piece on his own blog. He says, "I see no incompatibility between my faith commitments and my appreciation for the fantastic, including horror," and to a certain extent I'd agree. Obviously, plenty of Christians, whatever that means to them, are fans of horror to varying degrees. That doesn't mean the notion of "Christian horror" makes a lot of sense. I'd be curious to see some examples that really get it right, in his estimation. Maybe I need to comb his blog a little more closely; I know he has a lot of examples of various Christian critical approaches to horror, but I can't recall any examples of the kind of "Christian horror" he's wishing for.