Hospitality and Horror

I’m a Christian who loves horror movies.

And not just the classy or smart horror movies, like the Universal monsters or Rosemary’s Baby. I mean all horror movies: smart stuff like The Exorcist and The Witch, popular stuff like Dawn of the Dead or The Sixth Sense, and trashy stuff like Friday the 13th and Frankenhooker.

That statement has earned me more than a few raised eyebrows, even in the past few years, when people have rushed home from church to catch The Walking Dead. Why in the world would someone who knows that perfect love drives out fear spend time making himself afraid?

There are lots of reasons, more than I’ll cover right now. But one of the best reasons is to see what scares people. You see, the things that scare us in movies almost always stem from real-world problems and concerns.

The…