A Religion Dracula Would Appreciate

Watching old movies or reading old books, one might get the idea that there’s something unexplainable about religion. Take, for example, the priests in horror movies. Part of the priestly caricature is his dealings in the unexplained and mysterious spiritual realms. He consults his good spirits in defeating the nearly undefeatable evil forces, often culminating in a blurry battle of sights and sound.

My experience has been that little is mysterious about religion. God can be explained, the scriptures are rationally written and interpreted, and Christians are, if nothing else, logical people rationally following God. Even unexplainable concepts like omniscience and eternity are rationally explained with a simple statement like “That is beyond human conception”, which leaves me with little desire to imagine or to wander outside rational thought. Plus, most of that wonder and mystery I see in the movies is missing and frequently dismissed as mere fantasy. Sure, there’s the whole resurrection thing and the miracles that Jesus and his early followers performed, but that was a long time ago.¹

But is that how it should be? Shouldn’t there be some wonder that follows our religion? Shouldn’t we be awestruck by God and Jesus and scripture? More than that, is it that bad or wrong to expect Christians to be a superhuman in some way? Maybe we won’t be defanging Dracula anytime soon, but can’t we at least comfort a new widow in a way that cigarettes can’t? I think so. I find myself frequently returning what Jesus says about people born of Spirit (John 3:8, ESV):

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

By comparing the believer (someone “born of the Spirit”) with the wind, he’s saying there’s something unexplainable about a believer. You can see the effects of the believer, you can feel when he/she is there, and you can feel when he is no longer there, but you can’t really see explain how he does what he does. Believers are mysterious, working and effecting change in ways that are hard, almost impossible, to explain.