Sunday Thoughts on Vampires and Christianity.

Posted by sarahsmiles on September 16th, 2007 filed in Uncategorized
4 Comments »

I enjoy reading http://groups.yahoo.com/group/real-vampires/ and I’ve been a member for a long time, though I tend to run and hide from it at times.

People post wonderful thoughts, such as

This is my feelings only, I do believe you can be Christian and Vampire. There are several reasons why I think this. I have been taught that once you are “saved” or give yourself to Christ you never lose that. As for the lusting part all of us are “lust” after something, food, blood; a new car. To me if it is something you NEED to function it is not lusting. This just how I feed about it. I am not saying I am right or wrong. Just putting the donor 2 cents worth in.

And I always enjoy the interesting thoughts that come to mind when reading these sort of posts. Here’s my thoughts on the topic… just thought I’d share, since I never post much and I miss you all.
Well, if you look at the vampire stories in medieval times, I mean before the first appearance of even early versions of the word vampire, the blood sucking revenants (sanguisuga as I’ve seen it called) were often priests, so there’s a point on your side. Of course the notion of when a christian is a christian would be worth exploring.

On another note, I’ve jokingly said that drinking the blood and eating of the body of christ makes you a vampire and a cannibal, though strangely enough vampires have better press than cannibals.

It is pretty obvious from the modern (i.e. in the last couple hundred years) research on the topic by academics that the vampire as it stems from the lord ruthven tradition (i.e. well dressed and cool vs covered in a cloth and rotting and smelling like shit) is an inverted christian motif, and anti-christian.

But on a personal spiritual level, I’ve always seen christianity as a religion that ‘on paper’ is about giving, not taking. Christianity is now a ‘pick and choose’ religion. You can borrow money and be homophobic in contradiction of ‘turn the other cheek’ and Christ’s little conflict with the money changers in the temple. You can be rich, not give to the poor and still be considered a christian.

So, why can you NOT assume the figure of the anti-christ who perverts the sacrament and desecrates holy objects can’t be a christian. Of course you can. (there is not an ounce of satire or irony in this) The Christian church, or at least some flavor of it, allows for this all embracingness.

The internal logical contradictions of stealing life (blood, energy, whatever) are no different than the other contradictions that are embraced in christianity. My fav is the Catholic tradition of priestly celibacy, which wasn’t invented until the 11th C by Pope Benedict VIII and Innocent II (I looked it up cause I always get the numbers confused).

So, despite my personal opinions on religion (I have two myself which is enough), there’s nothing logically problematic, since the notion of christianity as we have it has not problem with contradictions.

As for vampirism as a religion… Vampires, ex officio, cannot be a religion, just as a car or a bank manager can’t be a religion. But when you start playing with -isms things DO get messy. We’re all allowed our personal opinions. I call athiesm a religion, but one which has just lost its god. And many religions have no gods. Or -ism can refer to the verbishness of suckysucky.

Wikipedia’s definition’s as good as anyone else’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion): “A religion is a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people, often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term “religion” refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.”

So, vampirism may not be, but if you are part of any vampire related organization that has “common beliefs and practices” that are codified in some sort of ritual with both mythology/history and faith, son, you’re part of a set of religious beliefs. But that’s by definition of a bunch of scholars who’ve got a vested interest in everyone having the same meaning for the same set of terms. Who said you can’t just make up your own set of references, rules and meanings of words and just apply them holus-bolus on the rest of existence.

The wonderful beauty of people is that we can rationalize anything we want, and as long as we don’t get busted or get our nose rubbed in the contradictions, everything goes along just fine. I have no trouble believing anything, but I’m not so stupid as to make life altering choices and decisions based on my beliefs. Or confuse my beliefs about reality with the concrete reality before me.

It is sunday! Go to church and pray in the way that brings greater joy to life, even if the church is the cafe, the liturgy all jazz, and the bread and water only become espresso and pain au chocolate.