The word “apocalypse” is rooted deep in biblical texts, it is seen to be “The time leading up to the day of judgement when the Godly would be saved and the ungodly punished “(Cunningham, A and Grell, O.P 2001:19) The word itself is derived from the Greek word “apokalypsis” meaning a great revelation or unveiling, and not the end of the world as most people believe. Within the Bible, the last book of the new testament is known as The apocalypse of John, in this book it states that to make way for the dominant God terrible things will happen on the Earth; “I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty”. So how is it possible that in today’s modern day society zombies dominate our understanding of the apocalypse? The Walking Dead is a TV series that is based in a post-apocalyptic world which is overrun by zombies. It focuses on a sole group of people who band together in an effort to survive and more importantly, live in a post-apocalyptic world filled with flesh-eating zombies (“walkers”) and dangerous people as well as trying to keep the hope alive that a cure will be found eventually. Throughout the show we see numerous links to how the Bible perceived the Apocalypse and to the post-apocalyptic zombie infested Earth.
The Bible states that when the Apocalypse occurs there will be one political leader. This leader will reign for seven years and during the end days, they will aim bring all nations back together as one. It is believed that this leader figure will be seen as the Messiah, they will bring good to people and give them hope that everything happens for a reason, however they will soon be caught out and people will discover that they really are the anti-Christ in disguise. The Walking Dead can be seen to portray this political leader throughout the series in the form of a character known as the Governor. The Governor is the leader of “Woodbury” a community that is protecting people from the zombies on the outside. At the first instance he is seen to be protecting people and allowing other survivors into their community, in order to bring everyone back together and help overcome this horrific new world. However losing his daughter made him cold, severe and extremely paranoid about losing his community, and he executed any outsider groups he saw as a threat, making cover stories to keep the people of Woodbury in the dark, allowing them still to believe he was a good leader for their community. The Governor craves to be seen as the heroic saviour figure, doing all he can to retain his power.
One recurring character we see throughout the first 4 seasons of The Walking Dead is Hershel Greene, a devout Christian. Even though he has seen terrible things due to the zombie apocalypse, his Christian faith is something that allows him to get through everyday life and keep up his belief that this World will eventually change. Hershel gets his knowledge from the Bible, in which it states that the apocalypse will last for seven years, in this period the antichrist will reign, Hershel is certain that this is what the zombie infestation is. “He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven’. In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering” (Daniel 9:27) When we are near the end times Christians believe that the rapture will occur, allowing all God abiding people to be taken away from the Earth ensuring they don’t have to witness the Apocalypse. Hershel is unsure of why he and his family haven’t been taken away before the occurrence of the zombies, “The rapture has its origins in ancient apocalyptic narratives of the end of time and in human communion with other worlds, and it extends in contemporary popular imagination into stories about alien visitation and capture. The rapture is woven into the fabric of American culture, a part of the culture’s hopes, dreams, fears, and mythology.” (Johnson Frykholm, A 2004:11) In one scene when things are getting tough for the group, Hershel comes out with the statement “I can’t profess to understand God’s plan. Christ promised the resurrection of the dead. I just thought he had something a little different in mind.” Hershel here is reflecting on an obvious reality around them: The resurrection of the dead means something entirely different in the reality of a zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America than in the context of Biblical texts. Hershel does believe this is however the imminent coming of Christ, “Appearing as it did in an apocalyptic climate of fear and anxiety, the Bible came to be closely read, especially in the growing evangelical circles, for evidence that the many crises of war, famine, dieses and faith that people were experiencing, were indeed signs of the end and the coming of Christ.” (Cunningham, A and Grell, O.P 2001:3)
All through the Bible there is the recurring message of Hope. From the earliest Christians, they had faith. They had faith that Jesus would return soon to remake the earth a better place. These early Christians also had very apocalyptic views, believing that the world in which we were living in would soon pass by and be replaced with a brand new earth as well as a new heaven. They had abundances of faith and hope. It can be argued that faith and hope is deep rooted within The Walking Dead. Faith keeps the survivors going, without faith they would have nothing. The faith keeping the survivors going through this zombie apocalypse is the hope that the humanity they once knew will return, and the world will be good again. They hope that they can rebuild and restore the world to its former days, even with evil staring them in the face. The Greene Family are a good example of people keeping faith. As their loved ones turn into Walkers, they place them in a barn, still alive, in the hope that one day a cure will be discovered and their loved ones will be restored to their former selves. These wonderful, yet sometimes strange, bizarre and frightening narratives, such as The Walking Dead, are essentially based around faith and hope.
Within The Walking Dead we see a variation of different characters including Gabriel, who was- and still tries to be- a priest. Gabriel was discovered in his Church where he had been for up to 18 months. Due to his strong beliefs Gabriel would kill nothing, be it a walker or human, threat or not, this is how he had come to been hidden in his one safe haven, the Church. “Apocalyptic prophecies typically assure the faithful that only God’s people will survive the coming crisis; the rest of the world is controlled by dark forces whose ultimate defeat will be accompanied by warfare and convulsions of the natural order.” (Thompson, D 2005: 2) He believes that Rick and the group of survivors have been sent by God to punish him for not helping others in time of need. In Religion it is seen that you should help all those around you, and this is something Gabriel neglected to do “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (John 3:17) Throughout the series’ Gabriel seems to be holding his religious beliefs in numerous ways, such as the baptism of baby Judith. He sees Judith as a miracle within this nightmare, a ray of hope, just as Jesus is within the Bible. He also carries out funerals for the lost loved ones, to show that humanity is still intact and that no matter how bad things get people will always have feelings and that it isn’t natural for people to kill. He quotes from the Bible that every life is precious, and no life is seen as more important than another. When Gabriel eventually has to kill a walker in a life or death situation it results in him taking off his clerical collar and throwing it in the fire, while saying “Sorry my Lord”. This shows the first signs of people losing faith, Gabriel believes he has disobeyed God and wonders what the point of continuing this life is.
Other survivors of the zombie apocalypse relate Rick and the survivors to Satan. He tells the story of how Satan disguised himself as the angel of the light, he believes Rick and the rest of the survivors reflect this as they’ve done they’ve done terrible things and they don’t deserve paradise because of this, stating that they are dangerous. When you are given a situation that is alien to all those involved, it forces you to do things you would never imagine yourself doing. Rick and the rest of the survivors have to protect themselves from the flesh-eating zombies, which involves killing them. This could be seen in a negative light as they are protecting only themselves but as the TV series develops we see them accept a number of other people in their group. By them accepting other people in to their group it shows they still have faith in society and although they have done bad things it does not make them bad people. If people knew the apocalypse was about to occur then most non-religious people would think only about themselves, so it could be said that the survivors are still thinking and believing religiously as they would put each other in front of themselves. “At the outer reaches of fictional survival, albeit with the support of some of sciences most august minds, we find the kind of narrative that does not accept the possibility of global annihilation but relocates left over humanity.” (Lisboa, M.M 2011:86)
With all that has been said on The Walking Dead and religion, more specifically Christianity, should people who follow that religion watch the programme to get an insight of how the apocalypse might occur? Although there is significant links between the two, Christians think they should not watch a programme with content like this, they see it as a sin as it is not how the bible portrays the apocalypse. Many believe programmes like this are fuelling our distrust and mistreatment for one another, it’s seen as acceptable to hurt one another in order to protect yourself and those close to you. In reality we should treat everyone with equal amounts of respect, accepting that everyone’s life is precious in the eyes of Jesus Christ. In the bible, there is one quote that many see applicable to this type of scenario “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. (Matthew 18:3), this means if you would not allow a small child to watch this then nobody should watch it, it is not what the bible intended human kind to be like and to associate with. “It is not true that comic strips are a harmless amusement, which though created for children, can also appeal to adults, seated in their easy-chairs after dinner, a bit of escapism to be enjoyed without harm and without gain.” (Eco, U 1994:37) On the contraire Atheists see The Walking Dead from a different perspective, some believe the walkers represent Christians and the survivors are humankind trying to progress forward, facing many challenges of how to deal with an outdated theology holding all of mankind hostage. This represents that Christians are trying to sway all of society into their way of life, just as the walkers try to kill/eat all of the survivors to continue their way of living.
In conclusion, we can see there are a number of similarities within popular culture and religion, especially within the TV programme The Walking Dead. The apocalypse is something both religious and non-religious believers believe will happen at one time, be that in our lifetime or not. Although people have different views of how the apocalypse will occur, it can be seen that there are aspects from religion that overlap with current day culture. At the minute that culture is The Walking Dead and zombies, however many years ago aliens were seen to symbolise the impending apocalypse and how knows what it will be in years to come. Religion will always play a key role in the society we live in, and although we don’t think it impacts our life and how we view things, we are subconsciously including religion in these things such as the apocalypse.
Bibliography
biblehub.com/Luke/17-34.htm (Accessed: 9 November 2015).
biblehub.com/Daniel/9-27.htm (Accessed: 9 November 2015).
Eco, U., Edited and Lumley, R. (1994) Apocalypse postponed. Bloomington: British Film Institute Pub.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18%3a3%version=niv (Accessed: 9 November 2015).
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3a17%version=esv (Accessed: 9 November 2015).
Johnson frykholm, A. (2004) ‘Rapture culture: Left behind in evangelical America’, Raptures culture, 42(04),
Lisboa, M.M (2011) ‘The end of the world: Apocalypse and its aftermath in Western culture’, Open Book publishers
Thompson, D. (2007) ‘Waiting for Antichrist: Charisma and apocalypse in a Pentecostal church, Oxford university press,
Grell, O. P. and Cunningham, A. (2001) The Four horsemen of the apocalypse: Religion, war, famine and death in reformation Europe. 1st edn. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Religious Fictions 