A ‘pandemic of fear’: Gun sales, demand for gold, antidepressant use on the rise
March 13, 2009
Peggy Noonan, WSJ (HT: Rod Dreher)
I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:4
What should Christians do on ‘Friday the 13th’?
February 13, 2009
By Josh Larsen
Do slasher flicks have anything to offer Christian moviegoers?
I believe that movies, even secular ones, are often holy experiences – God-directed expressions of the human experience, much like prayer. But where do bloody, exploitative horror films fit within this philosophy?
I ask because this weekend marks a new era in the “Friday the 13th” horror franchise. On Friday – yes, the 13th – Warner Bros. Pictures delivers a remake of the original 1980 fright fest (which has already spawned 10 sequels).
The irony is that these movies have a puritanical sense of morality. In the “Friday the 13th” pictures – and also in “Halloween,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and other movies of the era – the victims are almost always promiscuous, pot-smoking teens who are punished for their partying ways by a deranged madman. Put together, the films comprise a demented scare campaign that demonizes drugs and promotes abstinence.
