Is Jesus the Monster? Horror & Theology with Ryan Duns, SJ

I’m not much of a fan of horror films. But I do love speculative storytelling — of which horror is a sub-genre. Even more, I love using stories of pop culture to dive deeper into faith, spirituality and the nuances of scripture. Which is how we’ve arrived at today’s horror-themed episode. Fr. Ryan Duns — a Jesuit priest and professor at Marquette University — has a new book out from the University of Notre Dame Press called “Theology of Horror: The Hidden Depths of Popular Films.” Throughout the book, Fr. Duns invites us to reflect more deeply on what horror reveals about our real world, our spiritual selves and the God who is present in all of it. There was one particularly stirring moment in this conversation that I’ve come back to again and again. Fr. Duns is reflecting on the role of the monster in these stories. Whatever the tale, the monster interrupts the status quo, business as usual, whatever constitutes normal and consequently leaves characters scrambling to put the pieces back in place. These sort of horror films are about killing the monster, killing the thing that disrupts our accepted understanding of how the world works so as to continue living as we always have. Now here’s the kicker: Jesus is the monster. Right? In the story of scripture — and in our world today — the ideas that Jesus represents, the Good News he comes to bring of hope and healing and compassion and mercy disrupt the status quo. What do the characters in the story do? They kill the monster. And they try to pretend the whole thing never happened, that what Jesus said and pointed to and called us to take on was a lie. I’m struck by this, particularly as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter. Because we know that Jesus isn’t dead, the new world he pointed to is real, and nothing can ever be the same again. And so, what will we do as a result? What part do we play in this proverbial horror story? If that idea piques your interest, then buckle up. Get the book: https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268208554/theology-of-horror/