Zombies exist. You may be thinking this is some sort of gimmick to get people to read this blog, but that’s missing the mark here. No, this starts with a simple question at a table of unknowns in Amsterdam, when the host of the house in which we were staying asked me, “So where does that leave you, spiritually?” The that she was referring to was my faith given the differences in that of my father and mother and the why was because I had just finished giving my life story to a table of strangers. So, I told them that in a nutshell, I am an evangelical who has arrived at that conclusion through much doubt and questioning, but I don’t consider myself among mainstream American masses.

Most Hindus don’t know what they believe. These words came in the car as I rode along with a Hindu coworker to work with a few servers off-location. “That’s the same for every religion, isn’t it?” I countered. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he agreed. This dialogue is rather telling and even more disturbing, if you begin to think into the ramifications. There are few things more dangerous than people running around blindly committing acts in the name of Allah, Yahweh or insert the name of another god here. Yet, millions of people do just this. I know, because I have been one of them.

We wrap ourselves in a faith cocoon. It’s easier to put our faith in something that comforts us than it is to put our faith in that which challenges us and makes us uncomfortable at times. We want an elixir for the pains of this world and religion is a powerful one. Rather than be well, we settle for feeling well. We use faith simply to coddle our existences, therefore there’s no need to delve into it, because then we might be forced to confront who we are truly without the rose colored glasses. That is supremely uncomfortable.

Religion as a drug. I begin to understand Karl Marx’s words “religion is the opiate of the masses” as I look back over the past few years. I ran to religion in college because it was the only thing left that I hadn’t tried after my parents separated. I wasn’t so concerned with what was believed, so long as I believed, felt connected with a community and felt better. I was calling it religion, but all I wanted was the good feeling I had associated with it. So, I languished inside for years until I let faith get uncomfortable. Faith got personal and now I know I can never be the same.

Where are the zombies? Think about what a zombie is and then consider one who practices a set of cultic acts like going to church once a week and attending a small group without understanding or caring why they do it. I can’t find a real difference other than the mastication of brains. We have gotten complacent in our faiths and that has led us to lethargy and lethargy to a pretty form of zombification. There is no heart, there is no compassion only empty smiles and divorce. We have taken Jesus out of our faith and replaced Him with Xanax.

It’s only now that I start to see the foolishness of my ways the past few years. It’s only once I took an inch back from the familiar that I was able to reflect clearly upon a life unlived. It took a trip thousands of miles away for blood to commence pumping through a heart that had iced over from disuse. I have been performing the empty motions for too long, but I am now awakening and I have ceased silencing a heart screaming for life. I can no longer roam this life blindly, thoughtlessly not wanting to know more about the One in whom my faith is placed. I am finished living as a real zombie. Are you?