How to tackle Religious Horror if you're not religious?

I got back to working on a story that's basically based around Religious Horror with the plot being that of a devout Christian who has a Family Curse and is trying to repent for his ancestors' sins (which created the curse) in order to lift the curse but it doesn't work, he does more drastic things to get of it and shit hits the fan.

Now, the thing is that I'm not Christian, let alone religious in general; I consider myself agnostic and I wasn't raised in any religion. Because of this, I'm not sure how I can sensitively tackle the themes of religion, especially when Played for Horror. Besides doing research (which is a given on any topic you're not familiar with) and maybe getting a sensitivity reader, what can I do to make sure the Religious Horror is done right in the work?

Frankly, doing research is enough. As long as you make an honest attempt to portray the religion accurately, I don’t think any sensible Christian audience will have a problem with it.

Although, I think I would need to know a little more about the story to give a better answer. Like, generally familial curses (and/or breaking them) aren’t really someone Christian’s believe in.

Edited by Woosmo on May 31st 2023 at 12:28:13 PM

Ah, I'm willing to give more details.

Basically the backstory of the character is that he's descended from the people that were involved in the Salem Witch Trials and accused a bunch of people for being witches (Salem was a Puritan community, thus quite religious). In the story, the accused were actually the favorites of the local Fair Folk who gifted them supernatural abilities. The faeries were pissed at the accusers for executing their favorites, so they cursed Salem's citizens and their descendants as punishment. As a result, the descendants spend their lives trying to relent for their Salem ancestors in a Sins of the Father type of thing.

I still need to work out the specifics of the curse but it's like a superpower with some serious drawbacks; the curse gives the character nightmares and visions about the sins of their ancestors and when not appearing as dark vein-like lines on the body, the curse can manifest in either the form of witch-like beings or tendrils. Both are capable of harming others while the witch beings can hex others with illness and make people highly paranoid and lash out at each other over said paranoia. Said witch beings also mock the character over the sins of their ancestors and how the cursed is no different from them. The curse puts a great physical strain on them, especially when they tries using it as a power.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on May 31st 2023 at 1:09:36 AM

My main thought is to handle the religion pretty much like any culture that you're not a part of—some of which you seem to already have covered!

So then, two further suggestions:

First, if this isn't already covered under "research", you might seek input from Christians—in particular of the relevant denomination or broad category of denominations.

(Denominations can vary quite a bit, I believe—see the differences between their rules on the clergy marrying, or whether they can have female clergy.) Bonus points if you can get input from an actual priest/pastor/etc. or other theologian.

And second, something that I recall that I considered suggesting when previously you mentioned this story (if I'm correct as to which story this is) was that you include some representation of Christianity that isn't part of the horror. Basically something to say: "I don't think that this is true to Christianity in general, or even broadly; it's just an edge-case involving these specific conditions."

(... Well, presuming that you don't so think, of course! ^^; )

(On a non-religious note, it might also be worth looking into how modern residents of Salem, in particular any with ancestry going back to the times of the trials, feel about being portrayed as you describe.)

TY for the suggestions! If you're referencing the story that's brought up in my question about a rather troubled 12-year-old character with a curse, then it is indeed true that the story mentioned in the OP and the one mentioned in that question are the same story.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on May 31st 2023 at 1:55:35 AM

Read old testament, especially Exodus and Leviticus and read parts about religious sacrifices.

I swear to God, if anyone see those kinds of ritual being performed by any pagan religions, they would immediately call Christianity a blood cult.

I'm... not sure of how that's relevant—especially as I doubt that there are many denominations of Christianity that perform such sacrifices. (If any.)

Hence people not seeing Christianity performing such sacrifices, and thus not calling it a blood cult. :P

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jun 1st 2023 at 10:36:57 AM

Uhhh, that's Judaism, not Christianity. Wrong religion. Christ's death ended animal sacrifices. Judaism is not a cult, but animal blood did play a huge role in that religion.

Back to the main topic, this story appears to have little to do with Christianity beyond your character's religious beliefs and reference to Puritans. If you are talking about the Fair Folk, that's Celtic mythology. Although the Fair Folk are native to the British Isles, not America, unless you are saying that some of them immigrated to America along with humans.

If there is no indication of the Abrahamic God being real in your story, all you need is a basic understanding of the concept of Christianity of whichever denomination your character belongs to. Your main focus should be on Celtic mythology, because that is where your horror element is coming from.

That is my take based on the information you have given so far.

Edited by shiro_okami on Jun 1st 2023 at 2:09:39 PM

A previous post of theirs mentioned that the characters engage in self-flagellation, so there is that aspect to take care with I feel.

If you want to be technical, it’s not even Judaism. More like proto-Judaism.

Anyways, if I were this character in this story (and assuming God’s status in this story is “ambiguous” to “non-existent”), my assessment of the situation would be to see it as a demonic curse unrightfully put upon me for somebody else’s wrongdoing. Rather than trying to atone, I’d probably take the Job route and become more steadfast in my devotion to God rather than try to appease the fairies.

In fact, from a Christian perspective, the witch-burners would be in the right when against some group of people who were receiving powers from supernatural forces not aligned with God. It might be worth pointing this out as not to make Christians of the past seem like violent zealots. Though, to be fair, the real-life Salem guys were.

What I’m getting at is that that would be a perception that the main character would need to grapple with in the story. Maybe learning that the fairies are not demonic or evil and then working in a theme about how it is wrong to fight evil with evil (either real or perceived). Then the proper Christlike thing to do would be to extend an olive branch of peace to the fairies.

About the faeries, they aren't exclusive to Celtic Mythology (they existed throughout Europe IIRC) and in the story's universe they traveled with colonial settlers to the New World, hence how they ended up in America. I don't think the Salem people were aware of their local fae until after the trials (tho that detail might be subject to change).

The main character fails to realize that he can go contact a faery to lift his curse. He ends up dying before he would get the chance to learn that while his daughter, who bears the curse, eventually does in another story.

EDIT: Also to clarify, Christianity is still a contributor to the horror, alongside Generational Trauma. Outside of the background, the story doesn't focus on faeries.

EDIT 2: The story is intended to have a Downer Ending and the main character is potentially too mentally fucked to consider the Job route.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Jun 2nd 2023 at 9:14:49 AM

Ah, well, as long again as you make it clear that it's this specific and limited sub-set of Christianity that is a contributor to the horror.

I like this idea, by the way! I could see some interesting stories coming from it perhaps—maybe something like "Outlander, but for inhabitants of Faerie rather than the future".

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jun 2nd 2023 at 7:09:41 PM

Ah gotcha! Glad you like my faery concept!

I mentioned Celtic mythology for two reasons.

1. The term "Fair Folk" that you mentioned first is often used as a translation of Tylwyth Teg, which specifically refers to the Brittonic fantasy creatures. As you mentioned later, "faery" is more generically European.

2. Regardless of how specific you were being, the Puritans were English, so the "faeries" emigrating with them would likely be from the same place, and thus would be the aforementioned Tylwyth Teg.

Edited by shiro_okami on Jun 2nd 2023 at 9:27:43 AM

Alright, I'll take that into consideration, but do note I only used The Fair Folk because that's what the trope name for faeries happened to be called.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Jun 2nd 2023 at 7:44:55 AM

You might want to look more into the history of the Salem Witch trials. It's depiction in pop culture is often oversimplified.

You should know that generational curses conflict with Christian doctrine. It is horror though, and the Salem Witch Trials, it is not like Christians aren't used to horror showing a complete lack of understanding of theology and the Salem Witch Trials are also common in pop culture and the idea that they are bad isn't controversial.

~ry4n Hi, sorry for the late response; I legit forgot this thread exists since the last post on it was months ago and I'm not very active on this section of the TVT forums these days.

The whole "You should know [X]" thing comes off as condescending and you could've worded it like "Hey, just letting you know that generational curses contradict the Christian Doctrine." which much nicer diction. I haven't worked on this story in a long time but I don't mind returning to it.

Anyway, I have a couple questions:

A) Can you cite where you got your info about generational curses contradicting the Christian Doctrine? I don't doubt you but I want to make sure that your claims are true just in case.

B) How can I still make the story work with that in mind?

C) I have a hard time understanding your second paragraph about how Christians are used to seeing horror misunderstanding Christianity. Can you clarify some more there please?

~TheLivingDrawing The OP already says "Besides doing research (which is a given on any topic you're not familiar with)" and was asking for other feedback. Maybe you had something more substential in mind?

Nobody's requiring you to give your 2¢. If you don't have anything to add, it's perfectly valid to not post.

Another angle to consider is that "Religious Horror" doesn't necessarily have to correspond to a specific religion. The "horror" aspect works best when you pull from something you yourself have experienced, but you could just as easily draw from, say, being lured into a clique that encourages self-destructive behavior as it could come from the experience of being part of an organized religion.

The thing to understand about Religious Horror is that it contains two parts: The trappings (creepy cultists, iconography, etc.) and the themes (being drawn into a crowd, following a charismatic leader, being part of an "in-group" and separating yourself from the "out-group," doing things because you're whipped up in a fervor with everyone else...) These two things weave together to really make the trope shine. Midsommar does this excellently.

But as the trope page itself is written, no, you don't need to "be Christian" to lean into religious horror. It helps, but reading The Bible, The Divine Comedy, and a handful of more recent examples should also get you up to speed.

I didn't mean to come across as condescending.

A) As in many thing, Christians have different ideas about generational curses and curses and many today either don't believe in them or believe that Christians are immune to them. Although, a typical family curse in real life is more something like alcoholism. There are parts in the Old Testament that mention God punishing sons for the sins of their fathers (Exodus 34:7). Ezekiel 18:2-3 however explicitly says that sons don't suffer for the sins of their fathers. The idea of children being punished for the sins of their parents, is discussed in John 9, where Jesus says that a man born blind was not born blind because of his sins or his parents sin.

The most important part of Christianity is that God is omnipotent and forgives sin. Therefore one would expect a Christian to break a curse by asking God for forgiveness and healing. Even though there is the idea that a curse could effect a family over multiple generations would require each generation to be unrepentant. Of course, this hasn't stopped Christians in the past from believing in supernatural family curses.

It is probably relevant to look into the Satanism hypothesis. In the Middle Ages only malicious witchcraft was punished. However, an idea came out of the universities that supernatural power came either from God or the devil, and therefore witches got their power from making an alliance with the devil. This is the idea that lead to unrepentant witches being burned, and was the main idea behind the Salem Witch Trials. The Puritans also believed that Christians can be cursed, because the trials involved Christian victims of the "witches".

B. One option is to ignore the inaccuracies or at least downplay them. Most people, even devour Christians aren't aware of what Puritans believed, except that they were strict and anti-Catholic. I think a lot of people don't know the differences between Puritans and the Mayflower Pilgrims. No one really identifies as Puritan nowadays anyway. You could connect the curse to a sin that each generation is guilty of. The character then must learn the lesson that God wants him to, inorder to be freed.

C. Christians are acceptable targets, but also a lot of nonreligious and religious people think they know more about religion than they do and Hollywood usually depicts things inaccurately anyway. Most religious inspired horror is based on Catholicism, but at best, it is based on Word of Dante stuff and not actual official teachings. A lot of stuff is based on other movies. It is kinda like how Thor in the Marvel comics is more based on Wagner than Mythology and the MCU Thor is based on the comic character, but even farther away from the mythology.

Some links: A modern view: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/christian-life/are-generational-curses-biblical.html A bunch of sources on what people thought about witches during the trial: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/salem-witch-trials-primary-sources/

Edited by ry4n on Jan 28th 2024 at 3:03:23 AM

From the sound of the premise, the Religious Horror aspect is more or less an existential one rather than anything else.

The character is clearly a devout believer of his faith. The problem comes when he tries to use the rituals of that faith to solve a problem that is outside of this religion's reach, resulting in failure after failure and an increased potential "crisis of faith" when slowly coming to the realization that his religion is not working against this curse at all, despite what the character believed beforehand.

It was a curse set by the Fair Folk, who got their own set of religious rules and untouchable by the character's branch of religion.

For comparison, it's like "putting a plumber to fix your car" kind of situation.

It works excellently when faced with a demon or an angel but against anything else, it's not going to work.

Hence the existential horror playing into the story and its curse.

And if this is the case, handling it respectfully would not be a problem, as it would be a matter of portraying one's faith as a "spiritual support" for the despairing character than anything else, which ultimately fails due to the character's own shortcomings than the religion's. That, when the character is faced with the horrors of this curse, he regain some sense of security and comfort, by falling into the everyday rites of his religion, such as praying, which would let him get some of the pressure out from his chest that is building up from the stress dealing with the curse.

Until it reaches a point where the character builds up so much stress and dread that it no longer works like it used to anymore.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Jan 28th 2024 at 4:21:48 PM

Umm, Nukeli, I don't think it's a good idea to portray a group negatively just for being that group. There's exceptions to that (i.e it's completely acceptable to portray a hate group being in the wrong for obvious reasons), but being Christian is not one of them. Yes, there are people who use Christianity as an excuse to do some pretty horrible things but I'm pretty certain that the average Christian is a decent, sane person.

The whole "The dominant group cannot be oppressed or any kind of victim." thing comes off as an excuse to be a prick towards a group you don't like, which isn't cool.

For everyone else, thank you so much for the advice and I appreciate that.