How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Podcast listener named Paul Kilpatrick

00:00:06.480 | writes in to ask this.

00:00:07.920 | Seriously, what would you do in a zombie apocalypse?

00:00:11.920 | Yes, Paul, very good question.

00:00:13.080 | We want to be prepared.

00:00:14.520 | We must be prepared.

00:00:15.640 | And for answers, we turn to zombie expert

00:00:17.720 | and associate professor of Old Testament

00:00:19.460 | at Briarcrest College and Seminary in Saskatchewan,

00:00:22.040 | Dr. Eric Ortlund.

00:00:23.440 | Eric, thank you for joining us on such short notice

00:00:25.880 | to answer this urgent question.

00:00:27.640 | - Oh, absolutely.

00:00:28.640 | Thank you for having me.

00:00:29.840 | - So let's dive in.

00:00:30.760 | Of course, it's futile to try and prevent

00:00:32.680 | a zombie apocalypse.

00:00:33.600 | It will come upon us and with little warning.

00:00:36.120 | So how do we prepare for and survive a zombie apocalypse?

00:00:40.280 | - Yeah, I think it's really just two things,

00:00:42.240 | a samurai sword and lots and lots of protein bars.

00:00:45.720 | That's pretty much all you need.

00:00:47.520 | And a fresh source of water and a lot of friends,

00:00:50.520 | but really it's just samurai sword and protein bars.

00:00:52.600 | That's it and you're set.

00:00:53.680 | You get your sword out and you get a protein bar ready

00:00:56.080 | just so you have enough energy to keep swinging.

00:00:58.600 | That's it, that's my advice.

00:01:00.640 | - Yeah, so it's really about endurance

00:01:02.320 | and it's about getting to a rural area, right?

00:01:05.160 | - Yes, that's right.

00:01:06.320 | Or just head north.

00:01:07.640 | Most zombies don't wear clothes.

00:01:09.040 | They'll freeze eventually, though.

00:01:10.920 | - Of course, yeah.

00:01:11.760 | And that's why you live in Saskatchewan.

00:01:14.000 | - Basically, yeah, because I'm absolutely convinced

00:01:16.560 | the zombie apocalypse is coming soon,

00:01:18.120 | but I'm gonna be safe up here.

00:01:19.280 | I just need to find enough wood to burn.

00:01:21.280 | - Okay, that was a real question from Paul

00:01:22.960 | in the APJ inbox, by the way.

00:01:24.480 | A little bit disturbing, but it is real.

00:01:26.680 | So Eric, you are the world's leading expert

00:01:29.000 | on the theology of the zombie apocalypse,

00:01:31.440 | or at least you're the closest I could find.

00:01:33.600 | And that's because you published a zombie novel

00:01:35.560 | in 2013 titled Dead Petals, an Apocalypse.

00:01:40.000 | So seriously now, what drew you

00:01:41.840 | to the zombie apocalypse genre?

00:01:44.520 | - Well, there were two things, really.

00:01:46.440 | The first was, maybe I can admit this on the air,

00:01:50.560 | I actually do kind of like zombie movies.

00:01:52.920 | First of all, because there are a number of reasons,

00:01:55.440 | but the main reason is they have a very low anthropology.

00:01:59.400 | Zombie movies seem to be asking,

00:02:01.240 | if the normal constraints of society are pulled away,

00:02:03.680 | how will human beings act?

00:02:05.680 | And for the most part, the answer is

00:02:07.600 | we will be horribly selfish and monstrous to each other.

00:02:10.880 | So whenever I see a non-Christian,

00:02:13.960 | even if they're asking the question in a silly way,

00:02:16.920 | if they're asking a serious question

00:02:18.680 | and giving a thoughtful answer,

00:02:19.720 | I always wanna pay attention to that and respect that.

00:02:22.800 | Having said that, I think the idea of the zombie apocalypse,

00:02:26.000 | even though it's just so silly and ludicrous, of course,

00:02:29.360 | I can't help but think of what Paul says in Ephesians 2

00:02:32.240 | about us being dead in trespasses and sin.

00:02:35.840 | I can't help but wonder if there isn't a real insight

00:02:39.040 | in those movies.

00:02:40.960 | I have to ask why, there was a movie

00:02:45.320 | before the 1953 George Romero classic,

00:02:49.360 | but no one really remembers it.

00:02:50.760 | But it's been, I don't know, 50 years or so,

00:02:53.360 | and the genre is still going strong.

00:02:55.840 | So why are these kinds of movies still around?

00:02:59.200 | Why, how do they speak to us?

00:03:01.200 | And I can't help but wonder if in a zombie movie,

00:03:04.880 | the reader is identifying both with the monster

00:03:08.240 | and with the survivors.

00:03:10.040 | I can't help but wonder if at some level,

00:03:12.560 | a zombie movie is an attempt to recognize

00:03:15.200 | what is monstrous about oneself.

00:03:17.800 | If they're trying to recognize themselves in the monster

00:03:20.720 | and at some level trying to say, I am dead inside,

00:03:25.240 | I move around and I eat, but I'm dead inside, I'm not alive.

00:03:30.240 | I'm an endlessly hungry dead thing.

00:03:35.760 | And at the same time, I wonder if viewers are trying

00:03:38.760 | to identify with their survivors and ask,

00:03:41.680 | can I survive my own monstrosity?

00:03:45.160 | And for the most part in zombie movies, the answer is no.

00:03:48.360 | For the most part, they end tragically

00:03:50.720 | and all the human survivors die.

00:03:53.520 | And you know, something inside me really likes that.

00:03:56.200 | I appreciate the fact that they have such gloomy endings.

00:04:00.600 | So I teach Old Testament and in the Old Testament,

00:04:04.080 | if you studied in the context of the ancient Middle East,

00:04:06.400 | they're rebelling against their cultural context

00:04:08.840 | in all kinds of ways.

00:04:10.800 | Just the fact that you can't have idol statues,

00:04:13.160 | that was hugely counter-cultural.

00:04:15.400 | And yet God is using the genres and the forms of speech

00:04:20.200 | that are common in the ancient Middle East

00:04:21.920 | to speak to his people in a way that makes sense to them.

00:04:25.440 | He's speaking their cultural language.

00:04:27.720 | Often he is hijacking genres to say,

00:04:31.040 | listen, the other gods out there, they're not the real God,

00:04:33.880 | I'm the real God.

00:04:35.040 | So it got me thinking, okay,

00:04:36.840 | if this is a theologically significant genre,

00:04:39.280 | is there a way I can hijack it to talk about the real God?

00:04:42.360 | And then the novel started writing itself, so.

00:04:45.960 | - So what would you want readers

00:04:46.840 | to take away from "Dead Petals"?

00:04:48.960 | - It really is an apocalypse.

00:04:51.200 | It's about the transformation of reality.

00:04:55.040 | It's about the end, the absolute end of normal reality

00:04:59.840 | and the breaking in of a whole new reality.

00:05:03.200 | But our only access to that

00:05:05.720 | is through a death and a resurrection.

00:05:07.840 | If Christians could read it and get a sense of the enormity

00:05:12.360 | and even the violence of apocalypse,

00:05:14.640 | and I'm using the word apocalypse

00:05:16.160 | in the biblical sense when I say that,

00:05:17.720 | then I'd be happy.

00:05:18.800 | I'd be so much happier.

00:05:20.480 | I'd be just thrilled if a non-Christian

00:05:23.200 | who likes zombie novels would pick it up and read it,

00:05:26.680 | have no idea what they're getting into

00:05:28.520 | and start asking some pretty deep questions as,

00:05:32.680 | start asking the right questions after reading it.

00:05:35.200 | The book is intended to be mythic

00:05:37.160 | in the best sense of that word,

00:05:38.800 | in the sense of talking about gigantic realities

00:05:42.040 | that are hard to talk about reality

00:05:43.720 | except symbolizing them.

00:05:45.640 | I find that kind of literature,

00:05:47.600 | and I get criticized sometimes

00:05:49.240 | for talking about C.S. Lewis and Tolkien so much,

00:05:52.520 | but they did do that kind of thing so, so, so, so well.

00:05:55.960 | So I'm trying to do that as well.

00:05:59.640 | So I don't suppose this needs to be said

00:06:01.320 | about a zombie novel,

00:06:02.240 | but people looking for realistic fiction,

00:06:04.640 | I'm gonna try to be as weird as I can get away with it.

00:06:07.840 | - Wonderful.

00:06:09.280 | That's Eric Ortlund, author of the novel

00:06:11.040 | "Dead Petals and Apocalypse" available right now

00:06:13.400 | at amazon.com.

00:06:14.960 | On the phone from zombie-free safe zone Saskatchewan.

00:06:18.160 | Thank you, Eric.

00:06:19.360 | - Thanks very much for having me.

00:06:21.200 | (silence)

00:06:23.360 | (silence)

00:06:25.520 | (silence)

00:06:27.680 | you

How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Chapters