Spiritual Factor: Night of the Living Dead Christian is full of spiritual questions, lessons, and thoughts. What I found most interesting is how Matt categorized different people into different monsters, each with their own inner issues and needs.

The werewolf represents those of us who succumb to our baser instincts. We see how destructive we can be when we let loose the beast within. We hurt our friends, our families, and ourselves. We want to be free and desire to not hurt others anymore. But the wolf beckons and we answer the call, turn savage, and leave a trail of blood behind us.

The vampire represents those of us who leach life out of other people in order to give life to ourselves. In other words, we use people. And once we’ve used them, we ditch them to the side and look for another fresh life to use up. We don’t like to look in the mirror because we are ashamed of what we do and do not want to see what we have become. But we lack the ability to stop.

The zombie represents those of us who mindlessly follow others without rationally thinking for ourselves. We buy a particular leader’s books, podcasts, and videos. We never learn to read and understand God’s Word for ourselves. Instead, we let leaders tell us what to do and then heavy handedly encourage others to do the same. Disclaimer: it is not a bad thing to follow church leaders. But when we lean heavily on a leader for our spirituality, it usually means we are not leaning heavily on God.

The robot represents those of us who, if we lived in the world of Star Trek, would have been born Vulcan. We tend to over think and have a hard time feeling. Everything is a cold calculation. The problem with that is we forget to love people the way God loves people.

The mad scientist represents those of us who have an answer to everything. And because we have the answer, we don’t listen to anybody else. It also means that we think we can fix the world. In other words, we have a big problem with pride.

There are other monsters listed in the back of Matt’s book, but I list the top five that show up during the story. As you can see, it’s kinda funny to compare people to monsters. And yet look how scarily accurate the descriptions are?

We are all monsters. Or as the Bible would say, we are all sinners. And no matter how hard we try, we cannot get rid of the monster inside of us. Only God can. Only God can bring true transformation, transformation that starts from the inside out.

I highly recommend Night of the Living Dead Christian. And if you really want, I also recommend Matt Mikalatos’s first book My Imaginary Jesus.