(upbeat music) - Podcast listener named Paul Kilpatrick writes in to ask this. Seriously, what would you do in a zombie apocalypse? Yes, Paul, very good question. We want to be prepared. We must be prepared. And for answers, we turn to zombie expert and associate professor of Old Testament at Briarcrest College and Seminary in Saskatchewan, Dr.

Eric Ortlund. Eric, thank you for joining us on such short notice to answer this urgent question. - Oh, absolutely. Thank you for having me. - So let's dive in. Of course, it's futile to try and prevent a zombie apocalypse. It will come upon us and with little warning. So how do we prepare for and survive a zombie apocalypse?

- Yeah, I think it's really just two things, a samurai sword and lots and lots of protein bars. That's pretty much all you need. And a fresh source of water and a lot of friends, but really it's just samurai sword and protein bars. That's it and you're set. You get your sword out and you get a protein bar ready just so you have enough energy to keep swinging.

That's it, that's my advice. - Yeah, so it's really about endurance and it's about getting to a rural area, right? - Yes, that's right. Or just head north. Most zombies don't wear clothes. They'll freeze eventually, though. - Of course, yeah. And that's why you live in Saskatchewan. - Basically, yeah, because I'm absolutely convinced the zombie apocalypse is coming soon, but I'm gonna be safe up here.

I just need to find enough wood to burn. - Okay, that was a real question from Paul in the APJ inbox, by the way. A little bit disturbing, but it is real. So Eric, you are the world's leading expert on the theology of the zombie apocalypse, or at least you're the closest I could find.

And that's because you published a zombie novel in 2013 titled Dead Petals, an Apocalypse. So seriously now, what drew you to the zombie apocalypse genre? - Well, there were two things, really. The first was, maybe I can admit this on the air, I actually do kind of like zombie movies.

First of all, because there are a number of reasons, but the main reason is they have a very low anthropology. Zombie movies seem to be asking, if the normal constraints of society are pulled away, how will human beings act? And for the most part, the answer is we will be horribly selfish and monstrous to each other.

So whenever I see a non-Christian, even if they're asking the question in a silly way, if they're asking a serious question and giving a thoughtful answer, I always wanna pay attention to that and respect that. Having said that, I think the idea of the zombie apocalypse, even though it's just so silly and ludicrous, of course, I can't help but think of what Paul says in Ephesians 2 about us being dead in trespasses and sin.

I can't help but wonder if there isn't a real insight in those movies. I have to ask why, there was a movie before the 1953 George Romero classic, but no one really remembers it. But it's been, I don't know, 50 years or so, and the genre is still going strong.

So why are these kinds of movies still around? Why, how do they speak to us? And I can't help but wonder if in a zombie movie, the reader is identifying both with the monster and with the survivors. I can't help but wonder if at some level, a zombie movie is an attempt to recognize what is monstrous about oneself.

If they're trying to recognize themselves in the monster and at some level trying to say, I am dead inside, I move around and I eat, but I'm dead inside, I'm not alive. I'm an endlessly hungry dead thing. And at the same time, I wonder if viewers are trying to identify with their survivors and ask, can I survive my own monstrosity?

And for the most part in zombie movies, the answer is no. For the most part, they end tragically and all the human survivors die. And you know, something inside me really likes that. I appreciate the fact that they have such gloomy endings. So I teach Old Testament and in the Old Testament, if you studied in the context of the ancient Middle East, they're rebelling against their cultural context in all kinds of ways.

Just the fact that you can't have idol statues, that was hugely counter-cultural. And yet God is using the genres and the forms of speech that are common in the ancient Middle East to speak to his people in a way that makes sense to them. He's speaking their cultural language.

Often he is hijacking genres to say, listen, the other gods out there, they're not the real God, I'm the real God. So it got me thinking, okay, if this is a theologically significant genre, is there a way I can hijack it to talk about the real God? And then the novel started writing itself, so.

- So what would you want readers to take away from "Dead Petals"? - It really is an apocalypse. It's about the transformation of reality. It's about the end, the absolute end of normal reality and the breaking in of a whole new reality. But our only access to that is through a death and a resurrection.

If Christians could read it and get a sense of the enormity and even the violence of apocalypse, and I'm using the word apocalypse in the biblical sense when I say that, then I'd be happy. I'd be so much happier. I'd be just thrilled if a non-Christian who likes zombie novels would pick it up and read it, have no idea what they're getting into and start asking some pretty deep questions as, start asking the right questions after reading it.

The book is intended to be mythic in the best sense of that word, in the sense of talking about gigantic realities that are hard to talk about reality except symbolizing them. I find that kind of literature, and I get criticized sometimes for talking about C.S. Lewis and Tolkien so much, but they did do that kind of thing so, so, so, so well.

So I'm trying to do that as well. So I don't suppose this needs to be said about a zombie novel, but people looking for realistic fiction, I'm gonna try to be as weird as I can get away with it. - Wonderful. That's Eric Ortlund, author of the novel "Dead Petals and Apocalypse" available right now at amazon.com.

On the phone from zombie-free safe zone Saskatchewan. Thank you, Eric. - Thanks very much for having me. (silence) (silence) (silence) you