What Horror Films Teach

John Trumby "The Anatomy of Genres" is a book that help us understand the human condition regarding the fear of death, as he lays out the building blocks for horror films. For the Christian family it serves as a reminder that teaching children about sin, death, hell and heaven are questions the soul demands to be answered. 

Transcript

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Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture

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Teaching children about sin, wrath, and hell are essential in the raising of a Christian family. These are heavy topics. Let me help you understand why they're important today. This is Raising Joyful Children in an Angry World. I am your host, Paul Osborne. I want to point to a writer named John Trumby. He is both a screenwriter and consultant for films. He has written a book called The Anatomy of Genres. And he explains what writers call the beats. These are the building blocks of any story and they're found in every genre. He explains these beats, these ways to understand a film and his explanation of horror films and the beats that are in them, the topics of sin and wrath and death and hell. Oh, there are very important. And these stories, Play a role in our fear of death. These stories are significant and they're popular and they keep being produced and have been even before there were films that were written stories like them from Edgar Allen Poe and on because they deal with the human psyche of the fear of death, of having to confront it. And it is interesting as you see these beats. They explain the films, but they also explain the human condition and these beats aren't new to the modern world. They have been around for a very long time. can't take Trumby's explanations though, without hearing some ancient approaches to death and to sin. And you have to understand that while some people become fearful and anxiety ridden by these films and unhappy, others get an adrenaline rush. And so I'm not so much concerned about whether these are appropriate or not appropriate or how old you should be. But what they point to us is the need for the human condition in our kids to understand and have the truth about sin, about God's wrath, about death, about heaven and Bart Swain pointed out in a recent article entitled, it's all evangelicals fault. I'm not really related to what I'm looking for out of it, but he points out that when societies try to answer spiritual questions by substituting things like political zealotry, you end up with a custom made spirituality and superstition and all sorts of crazy ideas. Those are the ones we see kind of floating around in American life today. I had a conversation here not too long ago with a relatively new friend of mine. He explained to me that in death, he believes you join this force for good in the universe. He had no basis for his belief, but he said it made sense to him. It's what Swaim calls bespoke spirituality. It's the same term bespoke of a custom made suit. It's just made for you. I can't imagine. Being on my deathbed and hoping that my lucky stars are going to welcome me into some sort of force. But this is what, this is what we end up with when we have not dealt with this issue. And this is why parents must explain death and wrath and heaven and hell to our kids because it is part of their psychological makeup. It is part of the nature of their the need to answer the questions regarding sin and death. The story of the human race reflects the need to know. From Genesis, throughout the Bible, which we believe to be the word of God, the real explanation. There are plenty of mythologies and stories throughout human history that deal with this. And I would suggest all of those are evidence of our need to deal with it. One of the things I often hear from parents is I sent my kid off to college and they came back with a set of values completely foreign to mine. think you can do everything right. And that can happen. So I'm not into the blame game, but I often wonder what was the young person taught? What was ingrained in their thinking before they were inserted into college life? Was faith simply, some sort of, You know, it's a list of virtues and good behavior. Did it deal with death, with wrath and mercy? Was heaven and hell a serious part of it? Because I think without it, then you become vulnerable things that we're seeing throughout our society of people getting into all kinds of spiritual things that are basically made up. And I think what can happen to us is we might tell a story of Jericho, right? And, but we forget about the story of a chain that follows his rebellion, his massive sin and the wrath of God that comes upon him. We see the same thing in Moses. We might talk about the 10 commandments and the golden calf, and then we might minimize the rebellion of Cora. Another story that reveals this wrath of God, the issues of God's wrath for the Christian church. I think is important because it first provides a sense of gratitude. We understand that we have been saved from that wrath. Hell also informs us that there is an eternal justice. Nobody gets away with anything. There's going to be a place in which this is going to have to be paid. And therefore in this kind of, explanation, God's mercy then can be truly understood and appreciated. And this is why, I mean, I think the Bible says in Proverbs that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. If we don't get our kids for whatever reasons, if we dismiss the issues of death and fear and of sin and of hell. Amen. They're going to be vulnerable to the filmmaker, the novel writer, the spiritualist, all these people that come along with all sorts of explanations because that thing, that fear of death, it, it doesn't go away unless we get the truth that comes from God to deal with it. I mean, you will be vulnerable to all sorts of political zealotry to all kinds of blame games and it is not something that we want to have in our home. The prophet Isaiah, let me sum it up the way he says it in chapter 30. We follow a plan, but it's not God's plan. We take directions, but they're not his directions. We seek the protection of political kings, but not King Jesus. We seek the false prophet, the soothsayer, instead of God's word. And even when we see the wrath of God in full display, with things crashing around us, like a potter smashing plates and cups and vases, We are like a horror film movie. We flee from it. We run from it. We jump on horses trying to avoid the destruction. And then the prophet tells us, yeah, God waits for us. He waits for us to be gracious to us, to show us mercy, and then promises us when we finally wake up, that we'll dwell in the house of the Lord. We'll dwell in the house of Zion, and we will be blessed when we wait on him Death and hell and heaven help us see the reality of our condition. They give us hope for true justice. They give us gratitude for God's mercy. These topics are heavy, but the child that has been taught to no longer fear death because God has defeated death becomes an adult who walks without fear. Receives mercy for their flaws because the ultimate question of what happens to me when I die and what is the payment for my sin is answered in the death and resurrection of Christ and his gospel. The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong. Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.