Church Potluck
A Smorgasbord of Christian Curiosity! Church Potluck serves up thoughtful, friendly, informal conversation at the intersection of Christianity and contemporary culture. Just like a church potluck, we offer variety: a variety of topics, a variety of academic disciplines, and a variety of Christian traditions. Guests are friends and colleagues who are also experts in the fields of sociology, political science, theology, philosophy, divinity, and more.
Church Potluck
Horror, Halloween, and Holiness: Are Faith and Horror Compatible?
Premiere horror and Halloween enthusiast (and fashion icon) Clint Peters joins the podcast to discuss how horror taps our primal selves. We dig into how films like The Babadook, Jaws, Nosferatu, and even Midnight Mass reveal what we value, how fear works, and why the genre often takes the supernatural—and the Church—more seriously than most “serious” films.
Perennial guest and bud Michael Bailey argues Christianity is inherently spooky, pushes back on the “horror desensitizes us” worry, and compares horror’s moral mirror to the real cultural rot: vanity, greed, and tribalism.
And host Dale McConkey jumps in with questions about liminality and the connections between Halloween, All Saint's Day, All Soul's Day, and Mexico's Day of the Dead. Enjoy!
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.