Halloween, Horror, and Science Fiction

My wife and I are homeschooling the son of close friends of ours. The curriculum that his charter school asked us to use includes a language arts textbook with a unit on horror, which we were going to start this week. However, he said that he doesn’t want to read any horror stories, and I’m certainly not going to make him do so; we’ll just read some essays about horror and move on from there.

Not coincidentally, I’m sure, Halloween is just a day away, which has caused me to think even more about the horror genre, especially since the streaming service we subscribe to has been advertising such movies. I’ve written before about how old horror movies (up until the late ’70s) usually portrayed monsters as evil creatures that were, in the end, destroyed. In contrast, over the last 45 years or so, there has been an increasing tendency to portray monsters (especially vampires) as sympathetic, even attractive creatures; the Twilight series of movies (2008-2012) is a prominent example. Another difference is that the purpose of horror movies used to be to frighten people; in the last three decades or so, from what I’ve read, many seem at least as focused on grossing people out.

There is another genre of fiction which has been my favorite ever since I was a young boy: science fiction. While there have been some movies, TV series, and books that have incorporated horror elements (the Alien series of movies comes to mind), for the most part, sci-fi has not lost its original ability to impart a sense of wonder rather than fright. The best sci-fi sends one’s imagination soaring to other worlds–sometimes quite literally.

Another element of some of the best sci-fi which I eventually came to understand and love is heroism. I noticed this last summer when I watched the 12 Monkeys series; there are at least three primary characters that make the ultimate sacrifice. You can also see this in The Stand TV miniseries (1994), which portrays two groups of humanity after a virus wipes out most of the human race; one group is evil and led by a demon (in human form), while the other is not merely good, but is led by a godly character. For those who are familiar with Isaac Asimov (the greatest sci-fi writer ever!), you may recall that in his novel Second Foundation (part of a seven-book series), a group of 50 scientists make the ultimate sacrifice. As a final example, who could forget Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is killed by Darth Vader in the original Star Wars movie.

A third element of sci-fi which took me longer to appreciate was its poignancy, which is intertwined with the heroism in the four series (above). We also see this poignancy in different ways in Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past book trilogy, starting with the well-known The Three-Body Problem. That first book in the series has also been made into a popular Netflix series. If you want to “lose” yourself in a sci-fi trilogy that you’ll never forget, I strongly recommend Liu’s trilogy.

Sci-fi sometimes has elements of learning a new language. This applies to the setting (time and place), but also sometimes quite literally to the language. If you read the first book in Frank Herbert’s Dune series of six books, you will find a 22-page glossary to help you understand the book better!

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, this post is primarily about why sci-fi is the best genre ever! I’ve only touched on some of the best. I hadn’t even mentioned the original Star Trek TV series yet! There’s certainly bad sci-fi out there, too, but if you’re looking for something that will send your imagination soaring rather than frightening and grossing you out, I recommend sci-fi. (OK, sometimes sci-fi can be frightening, but in a different way.) One final TV series I’ll mention is Fringe; it has what reviewers commonly refer to as “disturbing images,” but Season 2, Episode 16 (“Peter”) is my favorite TV episode (of any series, any genre) of all time. It has at least two of the elements of sci-fi that make it such a great genre.

In closing, I’ve written in another post that on Halloween, my wife and I give trick-or-treaters candy with an attached message. This year, our church couple’s fellowship group has decided to do this together, and here is the message: “For many people, Halloween is a time to fear. Witches, ghosts, and the like may be fun, but at the same time they can cause fear. But the Lord says to those who know Him, ‘Don’t fear because I am with you and will guide you.’ Have a fun—and fearless—Halloween.”

Does Everyone Always Deserve the Truth?

There has long been a struggle within me about truth-telling, particularly in relation to a story in the book of Joshua in the Bible. Related to this are similar accounts I have read of Christians during World War II and their differing responses to Nazis who were searching for Jews. The dilemma for the Christians, of course, was whether they should tell the Nazis the truth about hidden Jews.

Maybe you’ve read about the ten Boom family, particularly Corrie. They hid approximately 800 Jews in their homes over the years, but not everyone agreed on what they should do when, inevitably, the Gestapo would come to question them about whether they were hiding any Jews. Similarly, Nazi soldiers would round up young non-Jewish men to fight in the war. Corrie believed that it was morally right to lie in order to save Jewish lives as well as to prevent non-Jews from having to fight for an evil regime. Her sisters Betsie and Nollie, however, believed lying was always wrong and that they should trust God for protection.

One day, soldiers came to the home of Nollie and her husband in order to round up young men to fight. When they questioned young Cocky, their daughter, about her three brothers, she truthfully replied that one of them was away. Regarding the other two, she laughed nervously and said that they were “under the table.” This was also true; there was a mat under the table, and there was a trap door to a cellar under that. One of the officers lifted the overhanging tablecloth, slapped Cocky, and shouted, “Don’t take us for fools!” The soldiers then stormed out of the house.

There was another time when Nollie and Annaliese, a young Jewish girl who had been living with Nollie’s family, were taken away by the Gestapo; Nollie had told the truth when questioned about whether Annaliesse was Jewish. Nollie was imprisoned, and Annaliese was taken to a holding facility for Jews. However, a few weeks (?) later, Annaliese and other Jews in that holding facility were rescued, and Nollie was released from prison.

Some Christians have pointed to those two stories (as well as some others) and said that it is always wrong to lie, that we need to have faith that the Lord will reward our honesty; others have said, like Corrie did, that sometimes we have a moral right to lie.

R.C. Sproul, that theological giant of the later 20th century and on into this one until the Lord took him home in 2017, tells a story in his book Pleasing God similar to that of Cocky, above. In that case (also in the Netherlands), when the Nazi soldiers asked a woman if she was hiding any boys in her home, she answered, “No, there are no boys here.” The soldiers shot up the floor, watching the woman’s face as they did so; her face remained impassive–even though her son was hiding under the floorboards in that same area of the living room! Eventually, the soldiers left, and “the mother rushed to the hiding place. Her son emerged unscathed. Her deception had saved him.” Sproul goes on to say that we are not pleasing God when we tell the truth to people who do not deserve it.

Sproul writes in the same chapter of his book about two women in the Bible: Rebekah (the mother of Jacob and Esau in the book of Genesis) and Rahab, a non-Jewish prostitute in Jericho in the book of Joshua. Rebekah helps Jacob deceive his father (Isaac) by pretending to be Esau, thus receiving the birthright that should have been Esau’s. Sproul calls Rebekah the “Mother of the lie,” rightly saying that “God does not require the sins of humans to accomplish His holy will.”

Rahab, on the other hand, was a prostitute in a situation similar to what the ten Boom family and others faced during World War II. Joshua had sent two men to spy out the land that the Israelites (who were God’s chosen people) were planning to invade, particularly the city of Jericho. Rahab hid the spies, and when she was questioned, she lied and sent the Jericho soldiers on a wild-goose chase. After that, here is what she told the spies, in part: “I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.” (Joshua 2:9) She goes on to ask the spies to spare her and her family when the Israelites attack Jericho, and that is what they do. And in Hebrews 11:31, we read, “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.”

Sproul says that some people put Rebekah and Rahab in the same category; in other words, they think that Rahab was blessed in spite of her lie, rather than because of it. They say that the reason she is mentioned in Hebrews 11 is because of her faith, which is certainly true. However, as with the Nazi soldiers, Sproul says that not everyone is entitled to the truth.

I do not claim to have always told the truth, even as a Christian; however, it is something that I have strived to do–and it is something which my wife and I instilled in our children. In my post about trusting the Lord when we have no control, I tell a story about when I was teaching in a Third World country almost forty years ago. I was in a situation where I had resolved in advance to tell the truth when I was questioned about two visitors to my campus–two men that I had told not to come! You can read what I said in response to the two specific questions that I was asked later–and how the Lord protected me and others. https://keithpetersenblog.com/2022/06/16/trusting-the-lord-when-you-have-no-control/

Was Corrie ten Boom right in not telling the truth to Nazi soldiers? Were Cocky and Nollie right in telling the truth to them? Was Rahab right in lying to the soldiers who came to question her about the Israelite spies? Should I have felt free to lie, if “necessary,” during the meeting with my school officials? Is R.C. right in saying that not everyone deserves the truth?

In truth, I cannot answer these questions (except the one about me; the answer is an emphatic “No”). I think that in the end, it comes down to a matter of conscience. One thing I will say is that if someone came to my house asking, let’s say, for the location of my son, I would not necessarily reveal that location; it would depend on the reason(s) for the person’s asking for it. I probably wouldn’t lie, either, but would just say that I would have to ask my son about it. Now for a completely hypothetical extension: If someone pointed a gun at my head and asked for my son’s location, I would not reveal it; if someone pointed a gun at my wife’s head, I would lie about the location, at least the specifics of it. As I said, this last part is completely hypothetical, and my God-fearing son is not on the run! I’m trying to make a comparison, however poorly.

Here’s an example that is more germane to this post and not purely hypothetical. I have heard about Christians who think it would be OK to lie to ICE agents about harboring illegal immigrants; I think those Christians are wrong. I would not knowingly “harbor” an illegal; on the other hand, I would not deliberately direct ICE agents to someone I knew was an illegal unless I knew s/he was a “clear and present danger” to society.

I lean strongly in the direction of truth-telling; I think it can become far too easy to justify lying. May the Lord grant us wisdom in this!

Darwin’s View of Women

I’ve read plenty about evolution over the years, but last week, I came across something new (to me, at any rate) in Nancy Pearcey’s book The Toxic War on Masculinity: Charles Darwin’s view of women. His views were shared by at least some of his contemporary proponents of evolution as well.

Darwin made it very clear that he thought women were inferior to men. He wrote, for example, that man reaches “a higher eminence [position of superiority], in whatever he takes up, than can woman.” He added that “the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman.” Darwin explained that this supposed mental superiority of men came about because natural selection favors stronger, more courageous males, especially in regard to “winning”–and “retaining”–females. Darwin conceded that men no longer have to literally fight for a mate, “yet they generally have to undergo, during manhood, a severe struggle in order to maintain themselves and their families; and this will tend to keep up or even increase their mental powers.”

This should raise a red flag; how do physical strength and courage translate into mental superiority? During Darwin’s time, it was assumed that men pass on more of their traits to their sons; likewise, women do the same to their daughters. Therefore, in succeeding generations, males would get the stronger “mental genes” than females. Current evidence actually suggests the opposite may be true: that children (regardless of their sex) get intelligence genes primarily from their mothers. I’m not trying to come down on one side or the other, but simply trying to show that the common view of Darwin’s time regarding the passing on of traits seems to have been an assumption not based on any kind of evidence. Much more importantly, even though physical strength and courage are important, the idea that somehow they imply greater intelligence is, frankly, stupid.

Darwin acknowledged that women have “greater tenderness and less selfishness” than men as well as greater “powers of intuition, and rapid perception.” However, he denigrated these positive female traits as “characteristic of the lower races.” Racism, anyone?!According to Darwin, the primary goal of males was to pass on their genes to succeeding generations, so traits commonly associated with women, such as tenderness and intuition, didn’t have much value in his eyes.

It wasn’t only Darwin who had a lower view of women. Anthropologist James McGrigor Allan wrote in 1869 that “physically, mentally and morally, woman is a kind of adult child.” And then we have another contemporary of Darwin named Thomas Huxley, sometimes called “Darwin’s Bulldog,” who said that even education could not elevate women to intellectual equality with men. Because natural selection had endowed women with inferior abilities, that genetic inferiority was not “likely to be removed by even the most skillfully conducted educational selection.” In other words, women are stuck in their intellectual inferiority in comparison with men.

It’s hard to imagine anyone now espousing such nonsense about the supposed intellectual inferiority of women; it’s patently false as well as very insulting. However, while contemporary evolutionists ignore the supposed mental inequality of the sexes as expressed by Darwin and his contemporaries, they continue to stick firmly to a theory which continues to be discredited, including by scientists. I’m not a scientist, but if you are interested in some other posts I’ve written related to evolution, here are links to a few. Don’t worry; they are non-technical.

https://keithpetersenblog.com/2020/09/16/is-evolution-a-viable-theory/

This one discusses five major problems with evolution.

https://keithpetersenblog.com/2024/02/07/what-evolutionary-psychology-cant-explain/

This one gives examples of what evolutionary psychology can’t explain.

https://keithpetersenblog.com/2024/10/03/can-you-live-by-an-evolutionary-worldview/

This one gives examples of people who have not been able to live according to their own evolutionary worldview.

I should add that there are theistic evolutionists out there; in fact, I have a good friend who is one. They believe that God guided the process of evolution. However, the first chapter of the Bible says nine times that God created various vegetation and animals “according to their kinds/its kind.” This repeated phrase indicates that guided evolution was not part of God’s plan.

I hope the lower view of women that Darwin and some of his contemporaries had will also cause you to question evolution if you haven’t already. If you are not a Christian, and especially if you believe in evolution, I hope that you will continue to investigate. Maybe you will come to the same conclusion that I and so many others have come to: Evolution is a debunked theory that you should not put your faith in, but if you put your faith in Jesus Christ, He will give you the peace and joy you long for.

Is Hostility toward American Christians Increasing?

Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, seems to have become almost a household name in the wake of his murder last week. I had heard of him before then but didn’t know much about him. I have since learned especially about his strong faith in Christ and of his debating and dialoguing with students on high school, college, and university campuses. I am so grateful to learn this about him, and I very much look forward to meeting him in heaven.

Much has already been written about the motives of the “alleged” shooter, Tyler Robinson. What’s obvious from the released transcript of his conversation with his lover is that he thought Kirk was hateful and that he hated him in return. That doesn’t surprise me, but what has surprised me is so much vitriol, and even celebration, from some people on the left. There used to be an unwritten rule not to speak evil of the dead, but in our day and age, that has been thrown out the window. MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd suggested that it was Kirk’s hateful rhetoric that led to his murder; to their credit, MSNBC fired him. CA state Sen. Scott Wiener wrote earlier this week that Kirk was a “vile bigot” and that he normalized “dehumanization.” Unfortunately, Wiener cannot be fired. There have been other employees of various companies that have also been fired because of hateful comments about Kirk. Thankfully, there have been other kinds of voices as well. One of those voices is country artist Gavin Adcock, who said, “If you live in the life of the Lord and believe in Jesus, you shouldn’t be scared to leave this world, and Charlie Kirk was a great example of that.”

Most of what I have seen in the wake of Kirk’s death is framed in political terms. However, I believe that there is something else, something much deeper, going on. For many years now, American Christians have been marginalized as unthinking, reactive bigots (among other things), but other words targeting Christians have entered the attacks as well, including “evil.” One of the people using that word is evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins; he skirts using it to describe Christians directly, but he has called Christianity “an evil religion.” Isaiah 5:20 comes to mind: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

If you live in the U.S. and are not in a Christian “bubble,” it’s not hard to see how the U.S. has become increasingly hostile toward Christians; that hostility can quickly morph into hate, and the ultimate expression of that is murder. In that regard, I decided to research mass shootings at churches and Christian schools in the U.S. Since 1980, there have been 11 at churches:

1980: 1

1999: 1

2000-2009: 2

2010-2019: 4

2020-present: 3

I have included shootings where multiple people were shot but “only” one person died. It should be obvious that the number of shootings at American churches has skyrocketed in comparative terms; this is even more obvious when you consider this: 9 of these mass shootings have been since 2007–and 7 of those 9 have been since 2015. This is approaching an exponential increase.

When I looked at Christian schools (K-12), I found “only” three mass shootings, but note this: one was in 2023, and two were in 2024. One clarification: the Annunciation shooting was at a school-wide Mass at the Church of the Annunciation being attended by students and faculty of the Annunciation Catholic School; I included this shooting as a church shooting.

Regardless of how mass shootings are defined (is it a minimum of three deaths or four?), there have been hundreds of them in the U.S. since 2000, perhaps even thousands. At schools (including colleges/universities) alone, there were 461 from 2000-2024. You could say that the number of mass shootings targeted at churches (11) and Christian K-12 schools (3) is very small, but again, when we look at the fact that 12 of those 14 have occurred in a single generation, and 10 of them since 2015, I believe that tells us something.

In John 15:18-19, Jesus tells His disciples, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” When we who are Christians share our faith, we can expect resistance because the foundation of our message is that people are sinful and they need Christ. In our contemporary society, we can expect hostility, even hate. However, as one of my sisters in Christ and fellow bloggers (who goes by seekingdivineperspective) recently wrote, “There’s still time to speak. Even if they shoot.”

May we who are Christians be courageous, winsome, and loving as we speak and demonstrate the truth about the Truth Himself: Jesus Christ.

Future Shock and Life Change

When I was 12, my family moved from a very small town in northwest Washington to a less-small town in central Iowa. That was when I entered my first bookstore, and one book that I remember seeing that first time (as well as many times thereafter) was Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, which had been published two years before. That fact alone gives you some idea of its staying power and influence. Although an avid reader, I had little interest at that time in non-fiction, but 53 years later (i.e. this year), I finally read it. Toffler’s basic thesis is that when there is too much of an accelerating rate of change in a society in a short period of time, it has negative psychological and societal effects.

Included in Toffler’s book is the concept of life-change units, which I first learned about circa 1980. I know this will sound “nerdy” to some (most?!), but I found myself fascinated with the concept as much this year as I was back then! A pair of psychologists named Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe had developed a scale (in 1967) for measuring how much change a person has experienced over a period of time; the more change someone has experienced over the previous year, the more stress and accompanying health issues he or she is likely to have.

The scale (formally known as The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory) has 43 “life events,” with a point value assigned to each. At the top of the list is “death of spouse,” which is 100 points; at the bottom is “minor violations of the law” (e.g. traffic tickets), which is 11 points. You can see the scale here: https://www.stress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Holmes-Rahe-Stress-inventory.pdf One thing that is so ingenious about the scale is that it includes positive events (e.g. “marital reconciliation with mate” and “outstanding personal achievement”) as well as negative events. Others are more neutral, such as “changes in residence.” I found myself thinking back to a period of time from May 2020 to August 2021, spanning 16 months. There were at least five major life events during that time for me: retirement from work (45 points), death of a close family member (63 X 3), and major change in social activities (18, because of COVID lockdowns). The bottom of the scale notes that a score of 150-300 points over the previous year means that you have about a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next two years. My score over 16 months was 252; if I disregard the first 45 points, I still have a score of 207. Thankfully, I did not have a major health breakdown over the following two years, but I remember that after the death of my third sibling in about ten months, I was sometimes feeling overcome by grief. Thankfully, after the second death a large portion of my extended family was able to gather together for a memorial service as well as several days of just being together, including with the sibling who went to heaven about two months later; the value of that time together is impossible to quantify.

I think that if the COVID pandemic had happened during their lifetimes, Holmes and Rahe would have added another kind of life event, maybe something like “extended restriction of activities due to enforced lockdowns.” Because of the long-lasting and far-reaching effects of lockdowns on the social development of kids, family finances, and the changes in work and school for millions (to name just a few), maybe Holmes and Rahe would revise their scale upward so that the highest point value is more than 100. Although we’re all aware of at least some of the damage caused by the lockdowns, it will be decades before the effects on entire generations are better understood.

One limitation of Holmes and Rahe’s scale is that it was obviously developed for adults. Another, of course, is that society has changed a great deal since then, especially for kids. Other measurements of stress have been developed since then, including those specifically for kids, such as the Coddington’s Life Events Scale for Adolescents (CLES-A); it includes events such as “sibling was born,” “parents were divorced,” “parent remarried,” and “family moved to a new city.” You can see about half of the events if you click here and scroll down to page 4: https://cms.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Child_Trends-2010_10_05_RB_AssessingStress.pdf

Regardless of the limitations of the Holmes-Rahe life-change units scale, I think that its ingenuity and simplicity give it amazing explanatory power. If you’ve been feeling stressed out, taking a look at this scale may very well help you understand why. And understanding can bring ways to cope and ultimately help with healing.

Along those lines: Since this blog is focused on Biblical answers to questions and issues, I should add that becoming a Christian is a major life change; giving up sinful habits, for example, can be stressful! I think that’s one reason, among many others, that more people don’t come to faith in Jesus Christ. However, if you do not yet know Him, but you turn to Him in genuine, saving faith, you will find that He gives peace, which is the ultimate antidote to stress.

One final note: at the outset, I mentioned Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock (1970), which continues to endure. One of the reasons for that is he includes a good number of predictions about the future; while some have not come to pass, others have. Perhaps in another post, I will include some of those predictions.