Be Afraid: Horror, Trauma, and What Our Fears Are Discipling Us Into (Kutter Callaway)
Horror is one of the few genres that refuses to let you look away, and it is one of the few that got people back into theaters after COVID. Dr. Kutter Callaway of Fuller Theological Seminary joins Dr. James Spencer to talk about his new book, Be Afraid: What Horror Reveals About Facing the Darkness, and what happens when a self-described scaredy cat decides to study the genre like an anthropologist instead of writing it off.
The conversation moves from the difference between the best of horror and the tenth sequel, to the common Christian worry that watching a film exposes you to something spiritually dangerous, to the argument that fear itself is not the problem since the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Callaway makes the case that the real question is where our fears are pointed and which systems are training them. Along the way they discuss Stranger Things and the institutions that manufacture the monsters, the shift from defeating the monster to living with it as a picture of trauma, Albert Borgmann on the inconspicuous patterns that reshape a life, and why the slasher genre only works if we already believe bodies are sacred.
The episode closes where horror and artificial intelligence meet, on embodiment, and why a disembodied future should trouble Christians more than anything on the screen.
Go deeper: Dorothy Sayers, Film, and Christian Art
Thinking Christian is hosted by Dr. James Spencer, president of the D. L. Moody Center and author of Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Each conversation reads the Bible as the final authority for life and faith, questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don't settle for a narrower vision than God's word offers.
Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction.
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Find the book at beafraidbook.com.
Find more from Kutter at https://www.kuttercallaway.com.
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In addition to being a regular contributor to Christianity.com and Washingtontimes.com, James has published multiple works, including Christian Resistance: Learnign to Defy the World and Follow Christ, Useful to God: Eight Lessons from the Life of D.L. Moody, Thinking Christian: Essays on Testimony, Accountability, and the Christian Mind, and Trajectories: A Gospel-Centered Introduction to Old Testament Theology.
James currently serves as president of the D. L. Moody Center, an adjunct instructor at Wheaton College Graduate School, and faculty member at Right On Mission.
You can find out more about James at his personal website www.jamesspencer.com.
