Is “Twilight” turning teens into wannabe vampires?

According to one father, “Twilight” inspires kids to dabble in sex, the occult, and home-style vampirism.

Just in time for the final Twilight movie to hit the theaters, we have a worried dad (and pastor) attempting to connect the films with a subculture that, frankly, has been around a lot longer than Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. He somehow stumbled across the various “vampire” communities on the Internet, began (as many parents do) casting his 15-year-old daughter in that scene, and got scared.

He writes:

There, girls the same age of my 15-year-old daughter are talking about “awakening,” which is their word for converting to paganism (like the Christian word “born again”). In a perverted twist on Communion, their sacraments include the giving of your own blood by becoming a “donor.” This is entirely pagan. These storylines offer eternality without God and salvation; in the place of Jesus’ shed blood, girls and boys shed their own blood to be awakened to their own salvation of a new spiritual way of life filled with sex and occult behavior.

We heard a lot of similar chatter around the Harry Potter books and films: that they would turn young children into occult-obsessed heathens, that their souls would be lost. Even the Vatican changed its mind about that theory once it became clear that millions of kids hadn’t taken up the wizarding life.

Here’s the thing about teens, paganism, sex, and “vampires.” When I grew up, teens were reading Anne Rice’s books and playing Vampire: The Masquerade. They played at being vampires, dressing in dark clothing and wearing faux fangs. Few, almost none, drank anyone’s blood. It was a game, a role play like any other. A chance to try on a different identity, one that’s more mysterious and powerful than, let’s face it, just about any drab-feeling 15-year-old.

What I’m saying is this: teens (and adults) have been playing with this trope for a while now; it didn’t start with Twilight. The fact that Twilight took off suggests that there’s something in the cultural zeitgeist right now that makes it a good fit. What we need to do is analyze what that is — actually talk to kids about why they love the books and why they may be imagining themselves in some of the roles — and go from there. It isn’t about the Devil or the Internet/Mormon authors luring them to their doom. It’s about something that’s part and parcel of adolescence — coupled with the way the world is right now, and has been for the past 30 or so years since Lestat emerged from Rice’s imagination and hit the pages of a book — that’s driving people’s interest.

Fortunately, the author of this piece more or less does the right thing with his own daughter:

I do not shelter my children from these sorts of things. Pop culture is too pervasive to hide from (on a recent trip to a Barnes & Noble with my daughter we noticed an entire section of books dedicated to “Teenage Vampire Romance”). My wife and I talk to my daughter about these things so that she can be discerning, informed, and safe.

I don’t agree with him that media is “a potential threat to her well-being,” and would encourage him to let his daughter use her own discernment to seek out what she needs, and keep the lines of communication open so they can talk when she’s pursuing something that gives him pause.

I don’t think he’s wrong to worry. That’s what parents do. They want their kids to grow up safe, healthy, and happy. And, because he’s a pastor, he enters that role with a pretty specific worldview, and maybe even an obligation to keep his kids on the straight and narrow. But it isn’t Twilight tempting them — or anyone’s kids — to role-play as vampires.

So what is it, then?

Why not ask them, instead of judging them?

Exactly how many kids has heavy metal sent to Hell?

Recently, someone calling themselves “April and Wayne Show” (it’s not clear whether that’s the name of a couple of the name of their show) began posting videos to YouTube purporting to expose metal bands as “Satanic Illuminati.” Although the dictionary says “illuminati” means “those who are enlightened,” many people colloquially use the term to refer to something cult-like.

As I’ve said before, while some metal bands use anti-Christian symbolism as a theater prop, very few are actually Satanic. Still, some people look at these bands and see nothing else. At first, it seems like April and Wayne Show’s videos might seem tongue-in-cheek, but the tone comes across as fairly serious and straightforward. Which means we’ve got some debunking to do.

Some of their claims include:

“Metal destroys the lives of many youth and leads millions of souls to Hell.”
“Metal has caused many youth to turn to drugs, become rebellious, and become sexually promiscuous (including bisexuality).”
“Metal promotes self-destruction (including suicide). Rock music gets millions of youth to experiment with drugs.”
“Metal artists have sold their souls to the devil and Satan uses metal bands to lead millions of souls to Hell.”
“Metal … promotes witchcraft and Satanism, demonic possession and rage, violence, blasphemy …”

Note that all of this is presented without a single shred of evidence. There’s no science backing their claims about drugs, sexuality, or even suicide. To say nothing of their more spiritual claims. Sure, it’s hard to prove whether “millions of souls” have gone to Hell, or that Satan’s using the music to lead them there, but you could at least try.

Let’s assume for the moment that these teens get to Hell by committing suicide. Roughly 4,400 teens a year succeed in killing themselves. Even if every single teen who committed suicide since 1970 — the year proto-metal band Black Sabbath released its first album — and we assume that every teen who commits suicide a) did so because of metal, and b) went to Hell because of it, it comes to 184,800. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of kids, but it’s by no means “millions.”

They go on:

“Metal artists are under demonic control during performances. These demons not only control artists’ performances, but enhances (sic) their skill.” (Quotes from artists ensue.)

Their example is a drummer they describe as “faceless,” who plays with his eyes closed (how does he have eyes if he doesn’t have a face?), but somehow plays perfectly, as shown in the video. Have these people never heard of dubbing? Or, you know, muscle memory? Many skilled musicians can play with eyes closed; it has nothing to do with demons. Also, since when are demons good at performing music?

Then there’s a narrative from a “regional bride of Satan,” named “Elaine,” who claims that numerous musicians told her that they sold their souls to the Devil, and that she attended “numerous ceremonies” in recording studios to place “Satanic blessings” on the music recorded there. And that the demons appeared on the records, especially in the “backmasked messages.”

I think it’s worth saying that we probably shouldn’t trust a woman who believes she was married to Satan. Even if you get beyond the idea that Satan is a real being who can get married, it’s not like such a marriage would be legally recognized anywhere. At this point, it’s safe to assume that “Elaine” was imagining or hallucinating pretty much everything she claims. The red herring is the “backmasked messages” comment, considering that the metal bands accused of backmasking messages were exonerated in court, after it was found that the “subliminal messages” were imagined, not intentional.

Part 2 of the video series gets into the idea of a “secret society.” “What secret society?” “The Illuminati!” — mostly old, rich guys. Who, as we know, are serious and hardcore metalheads:

I won’t go through the whole thing line-by-line, but needless to say these videos are not worth trusting. I hope parents who come across them while searching for information about their kids’ interests don’t give them too much credence. If anyone has questions about what they’re seeing in these videos, please ask in comments.

Or, if you see something in one of these videos you’d like to debunk, please do. Cite your sources!

Is 7 years in jail enough for stomping a goth’s face?

Melody McDermott, right, and Stephen Stafford, outside the court where their attackers were sentenced this week.

Just how much jail time is enough to punish someone for pushing a stranger to the ground, kicking her, and stomping on her face?

Less than seven years, apparently.

That was the sentence for Kenneth Kelsall, the 47-year-old UK man who attacked Melody McDermott and Stephen Stafford last year on a Greater Manchester tram. His accomplice, 43-year-old Gareth Farrar, was sentenced to two years and two months.

The sentences came after a judge witnessed the attack via closed-circuit television; video has since leaked to the press. The attack comes out of nowhere, and begins and ends so quickly you’re left wondering what happened. Judge Elliot Knopf called it an “explosion of violence.” (The man who gets on the tram during the attack, and then gets off: Did he go for help? I wonder.)

McDermott survived, fortunately; other young goth women, such as Sophie Lancaster, weren’t so lucky. But McDermott’s face was so badly damaged she says she can no longer smile. Long after the attack, she suffered panic attacks on crowded trams at night.

Not having covered many UK trials, I can’t comment on how Kelsall and Farrar’s sentences compare to those in similar crimes. They both pleaded guilty, so I’m assuming the sentences were reduced. Although McDermott believes she was attacked for her goth appearance, such attacks are not considered “hate crimes” and aren’t met with enhanced punishments.

So, how much jail time is enough? Is it enough to get these men off the streets (and trams) for a few years? Will jail make them better, or worse? Will it heal McDermott’s trauma? Will it prevent other young women from being brutalized?

I don’t know the answers. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.

That said, prejudice against goths appears to be alive and well in other parts of England. Also this week, I read a post by a goth woman titled “An open letter to the Church of England,” in which she describes the discrimination she experienced recently when she went to church. She writes:

My experience has not been one of welcome but of whispering, pointing, and people generally wondering how I dared to come into their church – a recent experience involved being shaken warmly by the hand by a welcoming committee member who then turned to her neighbour, without bothering to lower her voice as I walked away, and asked “we won’t get more like that, will we?”

…

More than anything else, I would implore churches not to call themselves inclusive, and not to claim to be welcoming to all people and all demographics, until they have considered whether they are actually capable and willing to welcome the individuals who may then walk through the door.

I can — to some extent — not feeling wholly safe on public transit. But not feeling safe and welcome in church? Yes, church is a place where ideals and reality can be pretty different. But something seems very wrong with this picture.

How can we fix it?

Are Cornwall schools teaching kids paganism?

Schools in Cornwall, home to some of the most beloved stone circles in Britain, may soon start teaching students about paganism. Or will they? Photo by Flickr user iknow-uk.

The ever-sensationalistic Daily Mail ran a story this week claiming that teachers in Cornwall will now be required to teach paganism in religious education classes.

They write:

Paganism has been included in an official school religious education syllabus for the first time.

Cornwall Council has told its schools that pagan beliefs, which include witchcraft, druidism and the worship of ancient gods such as Thor, should be taught alongside Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

The requirements are spelled out in an agreed syllabus drawn up by Cornwall’s religious-education advisory group.

They add that the council’s advice has made Cornish Christians unhappy that the school system would give attention to what they call “a fringe eccentricity.”

Jason Pitzl-Waters already vetted this story over on his blog, The Wild Hunt, and brought some of the Mail’s claims into alignment with reality:

1. This isn’t a mandate; the recommendations of the religious-education advisory council are non-binding.

2. The syllabus maintains that 60% of religious education should be devoted to Christianity. The other 40% would be devoted to all other religions — Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, paganism, etc. Pitzl-Waters wrote, “I would be surprised if this lead to even a full day in any British school on modern Paganism.”

The only other item the new syllabus recommends is some coverage of Cornwall’s pre-Christian sites, such as stone circles and their importance for modern-day pagans. I certainly hope that’s being taught, since Cornwall is home to dozens of stone circles, such as the Merry Maidens and the Hurlers, which are certainly important to Cornwall’s tourism industry even if their importance to the pagan community is sometimes left in the dust.

Cornwall is also home to the Museum of Witchcraft, which documents the long history of pagan and folk practices in the region.

One has to wonder whether the ubiquitousness of these ancient circles has made the Cornish people blind to the pagans living in their midst, not to mention their peaceful practices. After all, when a beloved horse was slaughtered, some locals were quick to blame local pagans and/or Satanists. Better religious education could nip such horrible rumors in the bud before they make it to the BBC. Today, there are similar rumors in Edinburgh, Scotland after horses’ manes and tails were cut off.

It would be wishful thinking to believe that Cornwall will begin to teach local schoolchildren about paganism in a way that is fair, respectful, and accurate. It’s certainly nice to see such teaching recommended, but will it happen? Time will tell.

Religious leaders see monsters — in teens

Does vampire fiction make teens more likely to commit evil crimes? Some seem to think so. Photo by Flickr user drurydrama (Len Radin).

Halloween is coming soon, and people are already seeking spooks.

Specifically, adults in religious communities around the world think they’re seeing monsters — in teenagers.

In South Africa, a foster teen’s parents discovered some of her poetry and sketchbooks and are now convinced that the 14-year-old has a secret double life with a Satanic cult. Because that’s the first thing that leaps to mind, right? In one sketch, the girl drew Jesus on the cross and then wrote, “He lied/He cried/He died.” On another page, a poem reads:

Lucifer was here and now he is gone.
Maybe we should try and just carry on.
The devil is cool, he is fly.
The beast is the apple of his eye.
Satan is our king and he wears the crown.
And he ain’t letting us walk with a frown…”

(I had to check and make sure these aren’t song lyrics. As far as I can tell, they aren’t.)

When the girl’s foster mother found the diaries — apparently while the girl was away — her assumption was that the girl is part of a Satanic cult. Her response? She took them to the local newspaper, which then turned the poor girl’s diaries over to a minister for examination. It starts out well enough:

“She feels very rejected and it’s normal for young people to try and find their identity,” [Father Mike Williams] says, paging through the books.

Oh, but then he had to go on…

“Even though one can see she’s already delved deep into this whole thing, this doesn’t mean that she’s possessed.

“We must see if she has given her soul to the devil or took part in a black mass.”

… What??

It is, as Williams points out, totally natural for teens to begin questioning Christianity, if it’s the religion they were raised with. Some come back; some don’t. Since many teens are vulnerable to black-and-white thinking, they sometimes combine that questioning with an exploration of the polar opposite — in this case, Satanism. Sometimes it’s an honest exploration of faith. Sometimes it’s a way to draw concern from parents who might not be paying attention in the way a teen craves.

Foster children are especially vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder, abandonment issues, and depression. According to one study, 60 percent of former foster kids suffered signs of depression. To me, the drawings and poems from this South African girl sound like the product of loneliness and perhaps depression — but not “Satanic cult” activity. Her mother should consider finding her some counseling, not an exorcist.

Such suspicions are not restricted to South Africa, however. In a recent article published in several Christian newspapers, Thomas Horn (author of books such as The Gods Who Walk Among Us and Invisible Invasion) goes on at length about teen vampire and werewolf fiction. The article, penned by Eryn Sun, draws links between such fiction and a handful of crimes in which young people pretended to be vampires.

Before we get into that, let’s look at some of the bizarre things Horn has to say:

“Psychologists have long understood how women in general desire strength in men, but few could have imagined how this natural and overriding need by young ladies would be used in modern times to seduce them of their innocence using mysteriously strong yet everlastingly damned creatures depicted in popular books and films like Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse.”

I can barely get past the sexism in this quote, but I’ll try: he’s saying that women’s need for strong men somehow makes them crave vampire fiction in which the men in question are powerful vampires. At least, I think that’s what he’s saying.

But then Sun uses these examples to illustrate Horn’s point:

Just a few months ago, a 19-year-old in Texas, claiming to have been a 500-year-old vampire needing to be fed, broke into a woman’s home, threw her against the wall, and tried to suck her blood.

Another instance in Florida involved a teenage girl who was charged along with four others for beating a 16-year-old to death. They were part of a purported vampire cult, with one teenage girl calling herself a vampire/werewolf hybrid.

Where are the girls craving powerful, vampiric men in these examples?

Oh, Horn does go on, arguing that modern horror fiction is different from that of the past, because the new monsters are “impervious to Christ’s power.” In turn, that means young readers and viewers “have exchanged yesterday’s pigtails and pop-guns for pentagrams and blood covenants aligned with forces far stronger than former generations could have imagined.” I’m not sure how many Twilight and True Blood viewers have actually made blood covenants with any “forces,” but I’d bet it’s not many (and, it’s a legitimate spiritual pursuit if they want to — after all, we are guaranteed freedom of religion by the First Amendment).

It’s true that, once in a while, a young person commits violence. Occasionally, that violence is inspired by horror tales. But that’s because violent people occasionally enjoy horror tales — not because the horror tales somehow inspire the violence.

These are, unfortunately, the kinds of messages that can make some deeply religious people question or even fear teenagers — their own, or other people’s. Such questioning and fear leads these teens, who often already feel isolated and different (and therefore unaccepted, or unacceptable), to feel far worse about themselves. That can’t lead anywhere good. Parents and pastors who truly want to help these kids need to love them, listen to them, understand them, and meet them halfway, not put the Biblical smackdown on them when they’re already vulnerable.

Do you think horror fiction is unhealthy for teen audiences? Does it inspire criminal activity, or put their souls at risk? Does the South African girl really belong to a Satanic cult?

Judge discriminates against Illinois prisoner’s request for sacred text

Kevin Halfmann, an inmate in the Centralia Correctional Center in Illinois, is serving time for predatory criminal sexual assault. He is a Satanist — the kind of Satanist who is an atheist following the philosophies laid out in books such as Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible. Recently, he asked to be able to have a copy of the book while he’s in jail.

A judge said no.

In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners must be allowed access to religious activities and texts, as long as they don’t disrupt order within the prison. Unfortunately, the Satanic Bible has been verboten in Illinois jails for more than 20 years, supposedly because it “has a potential to incite hatred and violence.”

You can, certainly, find places in the Satanic Bible that encourage, say, revenge. But you can also find passages in the Koran and the Christian Bible which can be interpreted to “incite hatred and violence,” too. Certainly more Christians have been responsible for hatred and violence — in the name of their holy book — than members of any other faith. Any federally funded institution caught banning these texts would find itself in serious legal hot water. So why is the Satanic Bible different?

The news on Halfmann’s request comes just as Wild Hunt blogger Jason Pitzl-Waters addresses the specter of Christian privilege. At a time when they are more powerful than ever, many Christians are behaving as though they are part of a persecuted minority.

… you see the valorizing of the very early Christian period, heavy on references to persecution for their faith (and the glossing over of the era when the empire was Christianized). In countless Christian sermons and documentaries that period is returned to time and time again. Instead of being used as a reminder to not abuse power, and to not let any minority be persecuted, this narrative has instead mutated for some Christians into a paranoia about a returning “pagan” persecution that they must constantly battle and guard against.

Unfortunately, this practice creates a number of problems. It keeps the focus on Christians, who already have more control than any single religion ought to have in a society with (in theory) full religious freedom. Worse, it delegitimizes real claims of religious persecution and discrimination experienced by those in minority faiths.

Only in a society where some religions are favored over others could a judge — whose salary is paid by the people — tell a member of one faith that he cannot have access to his holy text, when access to such texts while imprisoned is otherwise protected by law.

I seriously hope Halfmann has the resources to appeal his case.

Readers, what do you think? Should inmates have ready access to religious and philosophical texts that are core to their faiths and practices? Why or why not?

Reporters need a little “Pentagram 101″

The tetgragrammaton pentagram, pictured above, is not a “Satanic” pentagram, even if a news reporter tells you it is. Even if it’s in Texas.

Apparently a news crew in Hidalgo County, Texas, “stumbled on” a worship site they somehow think is “Satanic.” Alas, what they posted is only a teaser for a news item that aired on last night’s Action 4 10 o’clock news:

An Action 4 News crew has discovered what some believe is a ‘Satanic’ worship site in a rural area of Hidalgo County.

The site is located in a field littered with pentagrams, religious objects, paraphernalia and shows very recent signs of use.

Action 4 News spoke with neighbors and law enforcement officials about the site.

Okay. Now check out the photos that ran with this teaser. That isn’t a “Satanic” symbol at all; it’s a tetragrammaton pentagram. Many, many Christians know exactly what the tetragrammaton is: it’s the 4-letter name of God.

I know it can be difficult to tell your pentagrams apart. Good thing there’s such a thing as the Internet, where reasonable people can go to do their research before frightening loads of residents into thinking a) Satanists are scary and b) they’re running around hold “rites” in public where anyone can come across them. Satanists are no scarier than Christians, who are also known to hold their rites in public places, called churches.

So what, exactly, is the tetragrammaton pentagram, and who uses it? Well, according to altreligion.com:

19th century occultist Eliphas Levi constructed this pentagram. It is commonly interpreted as a symbol of mankind, as many pentagrams are. However, it is a symbol of many things that unite in the existence of mankind, as is evidence by the variety of additional symbols involved.

In addition to the name of God, this pentagram includes symbols of the Sun and Moon, Venus and Mercury, Alpha and Omega, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the four elements, a caduceus, and a pair of eyes representing spirit.

Although this symbol could be used by anyone wanting to honor the union of opposites, Levi’s work heavily influenced followers of Thelema and Hermeticism. Neither of which, by the way, are Satanic.

None of this is to say there would be anything wrong with this worship site if it were Satanic — this blog has stood up for peaceful Satanists plenty of times. On the other hand, if reporters are going to return to this kind of Geraldo Rivera-style fear-mongering about alternative faiths, they could at least get their facts straight. Not that Rivera did, but the news world has had at least 20 years to learn from his mistakes.

It’s important for reporters to get their facts straight when reporting on these situations (or better yet, not report on them at all, since they’re protected under the First Amendment and aren’t really newsworthy). The more people are made to misunderstand and be afraid of alternative spiritualities, the more discrimination there will be against people who belong to those spiritualities. And discrimination is no good for anybody.

Has a news report ever misrepresented your religious beliefs in any way? If so, how? What, if anything, did you do about it?

For many teens, metal is a gateway to God

If heavy metal is a religion, then arenas are its churches. Photo by Flickr user Whiskeygonebad.

“Is heavy metal a sacrament? For some people it is. If it keeps kids alive, if it gives them hope, if it gives them a place to belong, if it gives them a sense of transcendence, then its a spiritual force and I believe it is a pipeline to God.”
– fan, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey

Earlier this year, UK headbangers launched a campaign to get heavy metal fans to list metal as their religion on the UK Census. Census forms were mailed March 27, so it’s too soon to tell how successful they were in getting metal recognized. Surely some people think the idea is a joke, but there’s plenty of reason to call metal a religion.

Socially, the heavy metal subculture has much in common with religion: a tight-knit community, kinship with others in that community even if you’ve only just met, rules about dress and behavior. More than that, though, metal also inspires loyalty (even worship) toward music and musicians, and the music itself — both recorded and live — creates states of displacement, even ecstasy.

Last year, James Robertson examined the relationship between metal and religion in The Immanent Frame. On the one hand, metal adopts many symbols from Christianity, often times in obvious rebellion against the religion. It also makes use of pagan and Satanic icons — pentagrams, upside-down crosses, Baphomet, and so on. But it isn’t the use of these symbols that makes metal so much like a religion. It isn’t even the use of these symbols that makes fans so devoted to metal. Not exactly, anyway.

Greg Downey looks deeper:

Although many musical genres perform a similar function (a kind of aesthetic appreciation of emotion performed and articulated) Metal gets particularly religious because the emotional palette on which it draws — the stances it takes toward such emotions as righteousness, rage, death, awe, and solidarity — is very similar to Christian emotional footings, especially in more baroque forms of Christianity (like Catholicism). The use of religious iconography and themes is not simply an act of sacrilege, but rather a cross-fertilization because the music approximates some of the emotional stances believers can take toward the sacred.

That is, Metal doesn’t get linked to all religions, but to very specific religions that share some of the emotional dynamics found in Metal and compelling to its audience. (Emphasis Downey’s).

Downey goes on to describe how music, especially metal, serves many of the same functions as religion: it assists the process of identity creation, it helps us understand emotions, it helps us understand present and past, and we become possessive of music that holds this kind of meaning for us. This is especially true for young people, because they’re just figuring out who they are and are constantly dealing with powerful emotions that may not entirely make sense to them, he says.

Even if you can’t conceive of heavy metal as a religion, it’s certainly a distinct culture. The folks with the International Day of Slayer are are petitioning the UN to formally recognize the heavy-metal culture. What this means isn’t certain. In the meantime, the International Day of Slayer is June 6, 2011.

What do you think? Can metal — or any genre of music — be considered a religion?