Question: So are zombies possible? And if so, what does that mean for believers?

“You have to shoot them in the head.”

Vampires get staked in the heart; werewolves get shot with silver bullets (And no, Coors doesn’t count), but zombies are only stopped by blowing their brains out. Now, technically, that can be done with a bat, shovel or high heeled shoe, but the brain must go.

These vicious reanimated corpses were made famous by George Romero, but are now amazingly popular due to the Walking Dead tv show and comics as well as countless films that capitalize on the phenomena. The zombie mythos, however, has a much longer shelf-life tied into voodoo rituals and the possibility that those priests and priestesses might have actually been very good amateur pharmacists crafting drugs to reduce life signs and induce a state of almost hypnotic persuadability. Modern zombies, however, aren’t just barely living docile slaves, they are dead. D. E. A. D. And they are hungry for human flesh, spreading the plague of their condition quickly through the rank and file of society.

So is this possible? Does the Bible permit such a state?

To be clear, dead is dead.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27 KJV)

Unless your name is Lazarus, you are pretty much out of luck. When we die, we immediately pass into our eternal destiny. (A discussion of the “I was dead on the table for 14 seconds and I went to heaven/hell” stories can be dealt with at another time.) General rule of thumb: you die, you stay dead.

Some folks will point to the resurrection of the dead promised in scripture as a justification for a coming zombie apocalypse.

“ For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 ESV)

Yes, there will be a massive resurrection of the dead at Christ’s return. I imagine that will be super freaky to watch, but note what happens here–they join the living believers in welcoming Jesus in the air. So unless you are tooling about in your Jetsons jet car, you should be fine. And these folks aren’t interested in “Braaaains!,” they are interested in just one thing: Jesus. In addition, nobody ends up with a rotting corpse body like make-up genius Greg Nicotero devised. We get much better bodies that are impervious to decay.

“ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53 ESV)

Our souls immediately pass into heaven or hell, but what about those bodies prior to the general resurrection? Is it possible that they could be reanimated? You probably aren’t going to like my answer: It is possible. There are lots of provisos here, but when Uncle John passes, while he is gone, his body could be reanimated.

Organ donation is a small scale picture of this. The heart, kidneys or corneas that he no longer needs are placed in or on a new host. They cease to be John and become a living, working part of Ethel, Candace and Jean Ralphio. In a very real sense, former living tissue is given new life, but only when attached to a living being.

As zombies have become more popular, writers have sought to embrace a scientific basis for the condition. Usually it is traced to a virus that infects healthy flesh, but a more likely culprit would be a parasite. There are several examples of this in the wild. (including at least two wasp species.) Though not an easy task, if attached quickly enough to a recently departed body, it is conceivable that a parasitic organism could send electrical impulses through the existing pathways of the creature in order to cause motion. This would, as is common to the lore, be very limited, so the whole rotting thing makes sense as the parasite focuses only on absolutely essential processes.

Even if that were possible, you can go ahead and conk Uncle John in the head with impunity because “Elvis,” as it were, “has left the building.” This has no more moral implications than swatting a fly. (Sorry, PETA.)

There is another option which is more troubling–demonic possession. The Bible recounts several examples where demons attached themselves to people. It is important to note that demons don’t seem to be able to remain in dead tissue as evidenced by the whole suicidal swine episode in Mark 5. While in control of their living hosts, however, they do not treat them well.

“For he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.” (Mark 5:4-5 ESV)

The demons have little regard for their human hosts. It is conceivable that such afflicted folks would have lots of weeping sores, untreated infections, burns and other defacing wounds that might, indeed, appear very like our image of zombies. On the positive side, however, while there is yet life, there is yet hope. As this man was freed from his demons by Jesus, it is possible, were this to happen, we could seek the Lord to do the same for Uncle John.

So generally speaking, we are pretty safe from an actual zombie apocalypse. Time to move our concerns over to Mayan calendars (oops, too late already), rogue asteroids and sentient robots that reject Asimov’s rules.

Got a question? Ipymin@gmail.com