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Q. My friends are crazy about Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga. I started to read Twilight, but thought the idea of romance with a vampire was kinda dark. What do you think?

A. Good question. These books about the love between teen girl Bella and the vampire Edward are super popular. In fact, there's a ton of anticipation for the fourth book in August and the Twilight movie in December. For the most part, the use of the supernatural (vampires and werewolves) is only a plot device to create a stirring romance.

But still, are there dangerous traps when getting into vampires? Well, the whole vampire mythology comes packed with spiritual ideas about God, demons, life and death. Most of those ideas are completely false and can be misleading for anyone looking for biblical truth. However, vampire fiction tends to come with some respect for a supernatural world that includes God and eternal human souls. After all, vamps are usually chased away with Christian symbols (like crosses and holy water)—implying that true demonic evil can only be conquered by a truly good God. (In fact, Meyer's books don't slander or criticize faith or God; the only real mention of either is that a relative of Edward's was a Catholic priest bent on killing vampires.)

There's another intriguing part of the Twilight Saga for Christians. Just because Edward is made for evil, he tells Bella, doesn't mean he must give into the dark side. That sounds a lot like the Christian life doesn't it? We are born sinful but try to resist our urges (Romans 7:14-24).

Having said that, modern vampire fiction often turns vampires and demons (in one form or another) into heroes. Also, any fiction that builds on a fascination with demonic evil for entertainment is something Christians need to be very careful about. For one thing, we're convinced real demonic evil exists and that Satan seeks opportunities to destroy God's children (1 Peter 5:8). Why fuel our imaginations with fictional demons when we have genuine spiritual battles to fight? (Check out Ephesians 6.) I'd say the bottom line here in weighing these good and bad points is to talk to your parents and youth pastor about what's in the books and see what they think.

Mark is the founder of WisdomWorks Ministries. You can learn about his conferences, read movie and music reviews, and more at planetwisdom.com.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Ignite Your Faith magazine.
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