According to a religious article I stumbled upon, vampire fans need to “step back and reassess their love of vampires and werewolves.” Why? Because they feel that vampires are corrupting our youth.
Sigh.
Before I continue let me make it very clear that I am a firm believer in “to each their own.” I may not be religious myself but that doesn’t mean I look down on those who are. However, some people take things too far and make themselves look like ignorant simpletons – like the folks behind this article.
According to publisher Thomas Horn, women are being seduced by damned creatures and are losing their innocence to books and films like Twilight.
Clearly he has never read Twilight, because it is the most vanilla of all vampire novels.
The article then goes off to list all of the vampire corrupted individuals that have been in the news recently, people that took their love for vampires too far and harmed others. I have ranted about this in the past – just because two or three people take the vampire obsession to a bad level doesn’t mean we ALL do. There are millions of vampire fans out there, but how many of them have committed horrible news-worthy acts? A small handful. I could point of the countless Christians that have done significantly worse deeds in the name of God, but that would take ages.
Horn continued his argument, scolding parents and pastors for not paying closer attention to what their children were “mentally and spiritually feeding on,” Horn hopes that Christians will begin to act to counter the dangers of pop culture’s fascination on occult practices before a generation was “lost to darkness.”
He added that, “Frankly, preachers need to care enough about those families and youth within their care to take a stand, or stand down; be gusty enough to use their pulpit for something eternally useful, or quit the ministry and become a car salesman.”
Many in the Christian world fell that Horn is going overboard and that current trends would eventually fade and no longer be relevant, but Horn said they are wrong.
It appears that Horn has done little to no research on vampires in pop culture. Vampires come in waves, every few decades they become incredibly popular in pop culture then they fade away for a couple more decades. It happens every time. Remember when Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976? It triggered a massive love for vampires. Eventually the hype died down and stayed down, until many years later. It comes and goes. Vampires are no threat to today’s youth or future generations. It’s an absolutely wonderful fad that comes and goes, it’s not a bomb of evil that drops down and destroys everyone’s soul.
Horn doesn’t buy it though, he has urged Christian leaders to use the month of October and the season of Halloween to address his issues, which he said are infecting everyone around the world. He’s not alone in this mission, popular Christian leaders like Chuck Missler, Gary Stearman, Noah Hutchings, Gary Bates and John McTernan also believe in the severity of the situation.
I could rant and rave about this for days. I have been in love with vampires and “the occult” since I was a child. I have loved horror stories since I could read, my first books weren’t Nancy Drew or The Babysitter’s Club, they were Goosebumps and a wide assortment of ghost stories. Have I been damaged by those stories? No. I am a fully functioning adult that can tell the difference between good and evil, fact and fiction. If someone reads a vampire book or watches a vampire film and then reenacts the bloody horrors in the story, then they are seriously screwed in the head. It has nothing to do with vampires, it’s about them and their mental issues.
What are your opinions on this issue? How do you feel about Horn attacking not only vampire fans, but parents and pastors as well?
– Moonlight
It’s stupid really. He might as well be trying to gather a lynch mob against real vampires. Yes, the vampire hype will die down, and if Horn really knew anything about the vampirefreak subculture, he would find that countless adults were affected by Anne Rice, and future adults will be affected by vampire authors like Darren Shan and Stephanie Meyer.
I wouldn’t be too hasty on him. There are those vampire fans who take their obsession too far and eventually take part in unhealthy activity. Yes, the number of people who have committed news-worthy acts of violence are few, but there’s a fairly large group of people who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are vampires, or would like to be vampires and thus engage in activity that they deem vampiric. Religious paranoia aside, such behavioral and lifestyle choices can ultimately be physically harmful, especially when it comes to young fans who engage in such activity without taking any safety precautions.
The fiction itself isn’t so much the bad influence here, but rather, it’s the actions of other people that we should be worried about. Spreading this image of “real vampires” to children in such an encouraging light can indeed be very harmful in the long run. Precautions should be taken to educate these younger fans whenever possible as to the boundaries of reality and fiction.
I love vampire and werewolf fiction. I’ve been reading it for years. But I know that there are no real vampires or werewolves, and I’m not about to break down the wall between fact and fiction for the sake of unhealthy roleplaying. It’s too convenient to look at this article as a poorly-researched religiously biased piece of anti-creative propaganda, which it basically is, but while his rantings about spiritual guidance may seem over-the-top and baseless, there is the POTENTIAL for a problem with the health, both physical and mental, of today’s youth, and the proper measures should be taken to educate them, so that they can take part in their enjoyment of the vampire and werewolf genres in a healthy environment and in a healthy manner.
Real vampyres have been and always will be. Some vampyres are even Christians. Unfortunately, vampyres have become the new scapegoat, thanks to the mentally deranged murderers of late claiming they are real vampyres.
Real vampyres have no need to kill or commit crimes – we have human donors who are happy to supply us with blood; animal blood can be used as well; and, alas, some vampyres know how to feed via psionics.
I agree that Horn has done little research on vampyres in modern culture. He needs to read Dr.Joseph Laycock’s book, Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampirism. http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Today-Modern-Vampirism-ebook/dp/B0030I1XGY/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1318560884&sr=8-2-spell
Of course, I am sure Horn would still blow a gasket…when he found that vampyres are real. Lol.
The point was well made. While there have been some ghastly crimes committed by the vampire obsessed; they’re but a punctuation mark compared to the pages of atrocities sanctioned by the great religions of the world. Was not 9-11 a well-executed faith-based initiative. And who can forget such popular family favorites as the Inquisition; the burning of heretics by Thomas Moore or Bloody Queen Mary. Were not the Crusades an exercise in religious intolerance writ large.
Like Moonlight, I have an abiding love of vampire fiction, horror and the macabre. Similar to her, my childhood favorites were Dracula and Frankenstein. But, I have always known that vampires don’t really exist and I’ve never had any problem recognizing the clear divide between fiction and reality. My pragmatism extends to a healthy mistrust of the pronouncements by all shamans, rabbis, priests, pastors and imams. The same clarity that tells me vampires don’t exist also tells me God is fictitious.
All this notwithstanding, everybody is entitled to their own spiritual beliefs. While I don’t agree with the opinions of Mr Horn on vampires, or anything probably, (I’m an atheist and have a hard time finding common ground with the faithful) I would never suggest he should be silenced. My only wish is that the pious would extend the same courtesy to me.
Bottom Line: The man is at best grossly ignorant and bigoted. At best!
I really do not want to bash anyones religious beliefs,but can Christian fundamentalists take a valium or something?The human psyche needs magical and mythical stories(like the Bible).Can you imagine a world where there are no legends except for the boring ones like that woman hating tale of magical fruit and a snake?Is this the same guy who thought letting your children watch Harry Potter would turn them into Devil worshippers?RIDICULOUS