The Darkness of Twilight
Demonic Origin of Twilight?
Written by Sue Bohlin
The Twilight saga is a publishing and movie phenomenon that sweeps tween and teen girls (and a whole lot of
other people) off their feet with an obsessive kind of following. Millions of Christian girls are huge fans of this
series about love between a teenage girl and her vampire boyfriend-then-husband. But it’s not just a love story
made exciting by the danger of vampires’ blood-lust. I believe the Twilight saga, all four books and their
corresponding movies, is spiritually dangerous. I believe there is a demonic origin to the series, and the occult
themes that permeate the books are a dangerous open door to Satan and his hordes of unholy angels.
I was stunned to learn about how the idea for Twilight came to the author, Stephenie Meyer. She tells this story:
I woke up . . . from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation
in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was
fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the
facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted
to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her
immediately.{1}
“Fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire”? Consider what vampires are, in the
vampire genre that arose in the 1800s: demon-possessed, undead, former human
beings who suck blood from their victims to sustain themselves. A vampire is evil. And
the vampire who came to Stephenie Meyer in a dream is not only supernaturally
beautiful and sparkly, but when she awoke she was deeply in love with this being who
virtually moved into her head, creating conversations for months that she typed out
until Twilight was written.
When I heard this part of the story, it gave me chills. Scripture tells us that Satan
disguises himself as an angel of light, which is a perfect description of the Edward
Cullen character.
Then I learned that “Edward” came to Meyer in a second dream that frightened her.
She said, “I had this dream that Edward actually showed up and told me that I got it all wrong and like he exists
and everything but he couldn't live off animals . . . and I kind of got the sense he was going to kill me. It was
really terrifying and bizarrely different from every other time I've thought about his character.”{2}
I suggest that if the Twilight saga is demonic in origin, it is dangerous, to Christians and non-Christians alike.
Vampires, Blood, and Salvation
I explained above how the Twilight saga was birthed in an unusually vivid dream that I believe was demonic in
origin. So it’s really no surprise that the books are permeated with the occult.
The Twilight vampires all have various kinds of powers that don’t come from God. They are supernaturally fast,
supernaturally strong, able to read others’ minds and control others’ feelings. Some can tell the future, others can
see things at great distances. These aspects of the occult are an important part of what makes Twilight so
successful.
In both the Old and New Testaments, God strongly warns us not to have anything to do with the occult, which is
part of the “domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13) where demons reign. He calls occult practices “detestable,” which tells
us that He is passionate about protecting us. One of the reasons Twilight is so dangerous is that readers can long
for these kinds of supernatural but ungodly powers; if not in real life, then in their imagination. And this is a
doorway to the demonic, which is all about gaining power from a source other than God. Twilight glorifies the
occult, the very thing God calls detestable (Deut. 18:9). This is reason enough for Christ-followers to stay away
from it!
For a growing number of people, vampirism is not make-believe. In a special report on the Fox News Channel,
Sean Hannity reported, “there’s actually a vampire subculture that exists in the United States right now and
spreads into almost every community in this country.”{3} Joseph Laylock, the author of a book on modern
vampires, explains that there are three general categories of people who “believe they have an ‘energy deficit,’
and need to feed on blood or energy to maintain their wellbeing.”{4} Some drink real blood, others feed only on
“energy” they draw from other humans, and “hybrids” who are a bit of both.{5}
My Probe colleague Todd Kappelman, a philosopher and literature critic, observed that Stephenie Meyer took
unwarranted liberties with the genre. Vampires are evil, and you can’t just turn them “good” by writing them that
way.
You can’t have vampires strolling around in the daytime. You can’t make evil good and good evil,
putting light for darkness and darkness for light [Is. 5:20]. It’s a law of physics: light always dispels
the darkness. You can’t have the bad guys win. There is no system in the world where evil is rewarded
with “happily ever after”; it violates our sensibilities too much. Either the extremely ignorant or the
extremely childish would fall for it. And apart from the moral aspect, it’s doing violence to the genre—
like putting Darth Vader in a Jane Austen novel.{6}
Writer Michael O’Brien comments,
In the Twilight series we have a cultural work that converts a traditional archetype of evil into a
morally neutral one. Vampires are no longer the “un-dead,” no longer possessed by demons. There are
“good” vampires and “bad” vampires, and because the good vampire is incredibly handsome and
possesses all the other qualities of an adolescent girl’s idealized dreamboat, everything is forgivable.
{7}
Closely connected to the occult is drinking blood, which is a focus of the vampire literary genre; vampires feed on
the blood of humans. In Twilight, we are supposed to embrace the “good” vampires who have learned to feed on
the blood of animals, calling themselves vegetarians (which is an insult to all vegetarians!). Interestingly, in Lev.
19:26 God connected the occult with ingesting blood 3200 years before the vampire genre was invented.
God understands the importance of blood; in both the Old and New Testaments, He forbids eating or drinking it.
Not only did this separate His followers from the surrounding pagan cultures, but it also separated out the
importance of blood because it atones for sin. In the Old Testament, animals were sacrificed as a picture of how
the spotless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, would pour out His sacred blood to pay for our sins. God doesn’t
want people to focus on the wrong blood!{8}
A Love Story on Steroids: Emotional Dependency
Twilight is also spiritually dangerous in the way it presents salvation. When Daddy Vampire Carlisle turns Edward
into a vampire, it is described as saving him.{9} He ended a 17-year-old boy’s physical life and turned him into an
undead, stone cold superbeing, which Edward describes as a “new birth.”{10} Vampire Alice describes the process
as the venom spreading through the body, healing it, changing it, until the heart stops and the conversion is
finished.{11} Poison heals, and changes, and converts to lifelessness? Healing poison? This is spiritually dangerous
thinking. Isaiah warns us (5:20), “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for
light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
This upside-down, inside-out way of thinking is rooted in Stephenie Meyer’s strong Mormon beliefs. Twilight’s
cover photo of a woman’s hands offering an apple is an intentional reference to the way Mormonism reinvents the
Genesis story of the Fall. LDS (Latter Day Saints) doctrine makes the Fall a necessary step, called a “fall up.”{12}
At the beginning of the book you will find, alone on a page, Genesis 2: 17—”But of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Stephenie Meyer explains:
The apple on the cover of Twilight represents “forbidden fruit.” I used the scripture from Genesis
(located just after the table of contents) because I loved the phrase “the fruit of the knowledge of
good and evil.” Isn't this exactly what Bella ends up with? A working knowledge of what good is, and
what evil is. . . . In the end, I love the beautiful simplicity of the picture. To me it says: choice.{13}
Echoing Satan’s deception of Eve with the temptation to become like God on her own terms, the heroine Bella
eventually becomes a god-like vampire, glorying in her perfection, her beauty, her infallibility. She transcends her
detested humanity and becomes a goddess. This is basic Mormon doctrine, not surprising since the author is a
Mormon.{14}
One of the messages of Twilight is that there is a way to have immortal life, eternal life, apart from a relationship
with God through Jesus Christ; that there is a way to live forever without dealing with the obstacle of our sin
problem by confessing that we are sinners and we need the forgiveness and grace of a loving Savior.
This is a spiritually dangerous series.
Why are girls of all ages, but especially tweens and teens, so passionately and obsessively in love with Edward, the
vampire in Twilight?
Edward is very different from the vast majority of young men today. He is chivalrous, sensitive, self-sacrificing and
honorable. He wants the best for Bella, his teenage girlfriend and eventual wife. He is able to keep his impulses in
check, which is a good thing since he lusts after her scent and wants to kill her so he can drain her blood. No
wonder girls and women declare they’re in love with Edward Cullen!
But one of the troubling aspects of the Twilight saga is Edward and Bella’s unhealthy and dysfunctional
relationship. Yet millions of female readers can’t stop thinking about this “love story on steroids,” which means it is
shaping their hopes and expectations for their own relationships. That’s scary.
The best way to describe their relationship is emotional dependency. This is when you have to have a constant
connection to another person in order for you to be okay. Emotional dependency is characterized by a desperate
neediness. You put all your relational eggs in one basket, engaging in an intense one-on-one relationship that
renders other relationships unnecessary. In fact, there is often a resentment of not only the people that used to be
your friends, but you resent anyone in the other person’s world who could pull their attention and devotion away
from you.
When things are going well, it’s like emotional crack cocaine. The intensity is addictive and exhilarating. When
Emotional Pornography
things aren’t going well, it’s an absolute nightmare. Emotionally dependent relationships strap people into an
emotional roller coaster full of drama, manipulation, and a constant need for reassurance from the other.
When Edward leaves Bella for a time, she becomes an emotional zombie. The book New Moon is full of descriptions
of the pain of the hole in her chest because when he left, he took her heart with him. She had withdrawn from all
her friends to make Edward into her whole world, so she had no support network in place when he left. All of her
emotional eggs were in his basket. Many readers see this as highly romantic rather than breathtakingly
dysfunctional.
One or both people are looking to another to meet their basic needs for love and security, instead of to God. So
emotional dependency is a form of relational idolatry. People put their loved one or the relationship on a pedestal
and worship them or it as a false god. When you look to another person to give you worth and make you feel loved
and valued, they become inordinately essential. When we worship the creature rather than the Creator as in
Romans 1, what results is a desperate neediness that puts us and keeps us at the mercy of the one we worship.
They have a lot of power over us, which is one reason why God wants to protect us from idolatry.
Twilight is like an emotional dependency how-to manual. At one point, Bella’s mother tells her, “The way you
move—you orient yourself around him without even thinking about it. When he moves, even a little bit, you adjust
your position at the same time—like magnets . . . or gravity. You’re like a . . . satellite, or something.”{15} The
power of story, especially this story, is that it can set up readers to mistake emotional dependency and relational
idolatry for what a love story should look and feel like.
On the Credenda blog, Douglas Wilson makes a powerful case for Twilight also serving as a manual for how to
become an abused girlfriend and then an abused wife. Edward’s moods are mercurial and unpredictable, and Bella
just goes along with it, making excuses and justifying his actions.{16}
Twilight is spiritually dangerous because of its demonic origin and its occult themes, both of which God commands
us to stay away from. But it’s emotionally dangerous too.
The Twilight series is touted as pro-abstinence and pro-chastity because the main characters don’t “go all the way”
before they get married. A lot of parents hear that and give a green light for their daughters to read the books and
see the movies. But the Twilight books are a lust-filled series, so embedded with writing intended to arouse the
emotions, that it is legitimately considered emotional pornography.
Marcia Montenegro writes,
Much has been made of the alleged message of Twilight, that it is one of abstinence and shows control
over desire. In truth, Edward is controlling himself because he does not want to kill Bella; her life is
truly in danger from a ferocious vampire attack from the one who loves her. Aside from that, a
vibrant sensuality of attraction lies just beneath the surface. A TIME reporter who interviewed Meyer
wrote, “It's never quite clear whether Edward wants to sleep with Bella or rip her throat out or both,
but he wants something, and he wants it bad, and you feel it all the more because he never gets it.
That's the power of the Twilight books: they're squeaky, geeky clean on the surface, but right below it,
they are absolutely, deliciously filthy.”{17}
The struggle with self-control is saturated with eroticism and lust. It’s so sensual that teenage boys and young
men will read it simply for that reason. The protest, “They don’t have sex” is lame; the relationship is extremely
sensual. One very insightful blogger writes,
To claim that the Twilight saga is based on the virtue of chastity is like calling the Sports Illustrated
Swimsuit Edition pro-chastity because the girls are clothed.
The (Rotten) Fruit of Twilight
Bella gives detailed first person accounts of her “make out” encounters with Edward—everything from
trying to unbutton clothing, to how loud her breathing is and how this or that feels . . . these detailed
first person descriptions are designed to arouse young girls—like a gateway drug to full blown romance
novels or vampire lore. How can books in which the author has written detailed first person
descriptions of actions leading to arousal help readers to be chaste? The words on the page defy
chastity. Anyone who claims that the books promote chastity has to explain how a young girl can read
detailed first-person descriptions of “making out” as a tool to preserving her innocence.{18}
The sensuality of Twilight is not lost on even the youngest readers and movie-goers. Robert Pattinson, the actor
who plays Edward Cullen in the Twilight movies, was asked in a Rolling Stone interview, “Is it weird to have girls
that are so young have this incredibly sexualized thing around you?” He answered, “It’s weird that you get 8-yearold
girls coming up to you saying, ‘Can you just bite me? I want you to bite me.’ It is really strange how young the
girls are, considering the book is based on the virtues of chastity, but I think it has the opposite effect on its
readers though. [Laughs]”{19}
God’s word says, “Flee youthful lusts” (2 Tim. 2:22). Without a strong discernment filter in place, and without a
strong determination to guard one’s heart (Prov. 4:23), it will very hard to obey that protective command when
reading the Twilight books or watching the movies.
Recently at a youth discipleship camp, I asked the young men how they felt about Twilight. They booed. Real men
don’t stand a chance to be enough compared to the too-good-to-be-true Edward Cullen. When girls use the
emotional porn of romance novels or movies, they are setting up impossible expectations that have no hope of
being fulfilled by limited, fallible, all-too-human beings. It’s a cruel twist on the way men can sabotage their
relationships with real women by their use of internet porn. Is there much of a difference between using sexual
porn or emotional porn? In both cases, fantasy creates unrealistic expectations that reality cannot satisfy.
Apart from the problem of unrealistic expectations, it is unhealthy to make such an intense heart connection with a
fictional character. Some people choose getting lost in reading and re-reading the books over having connections
with real human beings in community. One lady told me that she called a friend about going out to a movie, but
her friend begged off: “Oh, I’m going to stay in with Edward tonight.” A nail technician had one 60-year-old client
who confided, “Don’t tell my husband, but I’m in love with Edward.”
In the first Twilight book, Edward sweeps Bella off her feet with the intoxicating description of his intense desire for
her and why she desires him: “I’m the world’s most dangerous predator. Everything about me invites you in. My
voice, my face, even my smell. . . I’m designed to kill. . . I’ve wanted to kill you. I’ve never wanted a human’s
blood so much in my life. . . Your scent, it’s like a drug to me. You’re like my own personal brand of heroin.”{20}
I believe there is a spirit of seduction in the Twilight saga. Something supernatural draws millions of readers to
fantasize about being desired, pursued and falling in love with a character that I believe has a deeply demonic
component. It’s dangerous on several levels.
Twilight is one of the most successful series ever published. Readers don’t just read the books; many of them reread
them, multiple times. In order to be discerning, we need to examine the fruit of this series to see its effect on
readers. I believe that there is a spiritual reality of evil behind Twilight that explains three kinds of fruit I see.
First is the fruit of obsession. Literally millions of fans can’t stop thinking and talking about the books, the
characters, the minutia of the Twilight world. There is an addictive element of the series for many people.
Addiction is bondage; why willingly submit yourself to bondage?
Some girls talk about their daily reading and study of “The Book,” and they’re talking about the whole saga—not
the Bible.{21} With social networking and digital media, fans have access to an ever-growing community of other
Twilight-obsessed people, which allows them to connect with their God-given desire to be part of something bigger
than themselves. But the transcendence of connecting to the Twilight world is so much less than God intends for
us to experience!
The second fruit is the spiritual warfare reported by Christians, especially those who disobeyed God’s leading to
get rid of the books—night sweats, hearing voices and other unusual noises, being gripped by a spirit of fear, loss
of intimacy with God. Some thoughtful people have reported what one woman called “a stronghold I didn’t want
and couldn’t seem to overcome. I became uncontrollably obsessed over this make-believe world. And fell into a pit
of manic-depressive-suicidal state.”{22}
One Christian teenager, clearly under conviction, wrote this comment on a blog:
As a 15-year-old, reading those books was a . . . strange experience for me.
I didn’t think they were too bad or morally lacking until I heard my old high-school chaplain [a thirtysomething
woman, I think. Never dared to ask :-) ] praise them. And then something inside me
clicked, because it struck me as wrong that a Godly woman would find this series good. . . .
Another problem with Twilight that I had is that it drives girls to think of love before they are
emotionally and mentally ready for the idea. It pretty much skews their ideas of love up. I know it’s
done that to me. Because what this series has done is stick Edward Cullen in one category (i.e. “pure
perfection”) and “everyone else” lumped together in another as a portrayal of pure “ocker”ness. I am
now not sure to what percentage *gentlemanliness* exists in a normal, TANNED boy. So it’s not really
fair to guys, or girls, because of skewed expectations. . . .
Otherwise, I enjoyed the Twilight series, but I don’t feel that I should have, so I’m going to pray about
that one.{23}
The third fruit is a spirit of divisiveness. Some Christians are inordinately defensive about Twilight, choosing the
books over relationships with other believers who take a negative view of the series. One Christian speaker who
shared her deep concerns over Twilight at a church conference was verbally attacked at the break by supposedly
mature women. Some of them still refuse to speak to her.
Of course, we hear the refrain, “Oh come on. It’s just a book. It’s just fiction.” But all forms of entertainment are a
wrapper for values and a message, and we need to be aware of what it is. Remember, what we take into our
imaginations is really like food for our souls. If something has poison in it, it shouldn’t be eaten. Saying “It’s just a
book, who cares what it is as long as we’re reading,” is equivalent to saying, “If you can put it in your mouth and
swallow it, it must be food.” What are you feeding your soul? Goodness or poison?
Readers resonate with the important themes of life and literature: romantic love, family love and loyalty, beauty,
sacrifice, fear, danger, overcoming, conflict, resolution. But these themes are laced with spiritual deception: “You,
too, can be like God.” You hear that Twilight is a love story on steroids, and people—especially young girls—are
drawn to God’s design for a woman to be cherished, protected, and provided for. They are drawn to the way Bella
responds to Edward with love, respect and submission, which is also God’s design. So it is especially devious that
the elements that resonate with our God-given desires for love are poisoned as occult principles are interwoven
with the story.{24}
One teenage girl made this comment on a blog: “I never thought of [the books] as arousing or erotic in any way.
Like many other girls, I found myself falling for Edward as I delved into the story. Before I knew it, my heart was
beating faster during the mushier scenes.” Like millions of others, she is unable to discern the line between
emotional and sexual arousal. Swooning because you are in love with a fictional character, when you long for this
character when you’re not reading the book, means you’ve been taken captive (Col. 2:8). And God does not want
us in bondage to anything except Him!
Twilight is dangerous because it subtly stretches us into accommodating that which God calls sin. People don’t leap
from embracing good to embracing evil in one giant step; it’s a series of small, incremental allowances. Readers
Addendum: Should I Let My Children/Grandchildren/Students Read
Twilight?
easily accept unthinkingly an unmarried couple spending every single night together when the Word says to avoid
every form of evil and to flee temptation, not lie there cuddling with it! Readers are led to accept as heroes and
friends vampires who murder human beings to drink their blood.
Commentator Michael O’Brien makes a stunning analysis of Twilight:
In the Twilight series, vampirism is not identified as the root cause of all the carnage; instead the evil
is attributed to the way a person lives out his vampirism. Though Bella is at first shocked by the truth
about the family’s old ways (murder, dismemberment, sucking the blood from victims), she is
nevertheless overwhelmed by her “feelings” for Edward, and her yearning to believe that he is truly
capable of noble self-sacrifice. So much so that her natural feminine instinct for submission to the
masculine suitor increases to the degree that she desires to offer her life to her conqueror. She trusts
that he will not kill her; she wants him to drink her essence and infect her. This will give her a
magnificent unending romance and an historical role in creating with her lover a new kind of human
being. They will have superhuman powers. They will be moral vampires—and they will be immortal.
Here, then, is the embedded spiritual narrative (probably invisible to the author and her audience
alike): You shall be as gods. You will overcome death on your own terms. You will be master over
death. Good and evil are not necessarily what Western civilization has, until now, called good and evil.
You will define the meaning of symbols and morals and human identity. And all of this is subsumed in
the ultimate message: The image and likeness of God in you can be the image and likeness of a god
whose characteristics are satanic, as long as you are a “basically good person.”
In this way, coasting on a tsunami of intoxicating visuals and emotions, the image of supernatural evil
is transformed into an image of supernatural good.{25}
Twilight is not dangerous because people will literally want to become vampires. Twilight is dangerous because,
through the powerful medium of storytelling, dangerous ideas and messages go straight to the heart like a
poisoned-tipped arrow, without being passed through a biblical filter. Beware the darkness of Twilight.
I have read all four books in the Twilight series. I strongly recommend against reading these books.
But I also understand that it’s a cultural phenomenon, and lots of people are going to read the books no matter
what anyone says. So allow me to attempt to redeem the cultural pressure inherent in these books’ popularity by
suggesting how you can help the tender, untaught minds of your loved ones to think critically as they read.
If your teen or tween expresses a desire to read the books, give an explanation for why you think they shouldn’t.
(“Just say no” just doesn’t work with most kids. They need to know why, and that’s fair.) I would suggest
something along the lines of, “I love you and I want what is best for you, and that means protecting you from
dangers you are not aware of. This series is steeped in the occult and in demonic influence, both of which God
strongly warns us against in His word. There is also a powerful emotional draw into unhealthy fantasy which could
sabotage future relationships with real people. There are spiritual dangers and emotional dangers that I want to
protect you from.”
If you receive pushback, then you might respond by saying, “If you want to read the books, then I’ll read them
with you. We’ll talk about them, a chapter or a scene at a time. The choice is yours.” This gives your loved one the
power of choice, but you remain involved in the process. What would be especially powerful for young girls is for
Dad to read the books as well and talk to his daughter(s) about what’s in them. Men would have a very different
take on the emotional lust in these books, as well as a sensitivity to the unfair expectations of a lover that would
be formed in their daughters’ hearts. Girls need their father’s input in this adolescent time of emotional and sexual
confusion, and Twilight is almost guaranteed to add to the confusion.
Question 1 – Me and God
Question 2 – Me and the People Around Me
Question 3 – The Bible
Talk about the books’ content frankly and openly; if they are embarrassed for you to know what they are reading,
their well-placed shame will make a powerful statement about the wisdom of reading this kind of book. Make sure
they know that you are completely aware of what they are taking into their minds and spirits, just as you would
want to know if they were taking drugs into their bodies. Reframe the book’s content in terms of what the Bible
says, and ask questions: Does this agree with the Bible’s explanation of life and reality? Does this help you draw
near to God, or does it make you want to avoid Him and His Word? How do the descriptions of Bella's, Edward's
and Jacob’s thoughts and feelings make you think about the people in your real life? Are you tempted to look down
your nose at the “mere humans” you do life with?
Even though this work is fiction, it is still making statements about reality. What is it saying about life on earth?
About God? About sin? About love? About the soul? About heaven and hell? About biblical truth?
How does the book compare to what the Bible says? For example, look together at the Ephesians 5 passage about
marriage and why it is important. (Marriage is an earthbound illustration of the union of Christ and the church.)
And what Jesus said about the nature of the marriage relationship in heaven in Matthew 22:30. (The marriage
relationship is ended by death.) How does it compare with the ideas about marriage in Twilight? Look for the ways
Bella relates to her father. Is it according to God’s command to children to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1; Col.
3:20)? Does she get away with her deceptions and repeated acts of disobedience? (Yes.) Is this consistent with the
Bible’s teaching on the consequences of sin (Gal. 6:7)?
Talk about the gold standard for what God wants us to expose ourselves to: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true,
whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things” (Phil. 4:8). Look for what is true and not true, noble and not
noble, right and not right, etc. The books are not without statements and ideas that are true, noble, and right; the
problem is that they are mixed in with even more compelling ideas that are false, ignoble, wrong, impure,
unlovely, and shameful.
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 7:23). The things we think about by filling our minds and hearts will
shape us. What are you filling your mind and heart with? Longing for the perfect lover that no human being can
fulfill? Discontent with being human and wishing you could have supernatural powers? Will that serve you well?
Lia Carlile, a teacher at a Christian school in Washington State, offered these excellent critical thinking questions to
help students think through Twilight or any other cultural phenomenon. Lia cites many Scriptures in her notes,
which I highly recommend.{26}
• How is this thing building my relationship with the Lord?
• How does my interest in this area compare with my time invested in my relationship with the Lord?
• Is this creating conflict in my family or with others?
• Does it offend other believers or is it confusing them in their faith?
• What am I saying to my non-Christian friends or what example am I setting for others?
• What does the Bible have to say about this? Who does it glorify—God or Satan? Jesus or the things
of the World?
Question 4 – Me and Twilight (or whatever applies)
• How is this affecting what I think about; my attitude, heart, and mind?
• Does it help me to do what is right according to God? Or, does it promote things of the world?
• Does it distract me from the Lord and my relationships with others? Serving, praying, reading Bible,
ministry, etc.
• Does it cause me to say, think, or do things that are contrary to Jesus and his life?
Notes
1. www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html
2. www.Twilightgear.net/Twilight-news-and-gossip/stephenie-meyer-reveals-details-of-new-dream-about-edwardcullen/
2493, March 29, 2009.
3. Steve Wohlberg, "The Menace Behind Twilight," SCP Journal: Vol. 32:2-33:3 (2009), p. 27.
4. Ibid., 28.
5. Ibid.
6. Personal conversation with the author, May 2010.
7. Michael O'Brien, "Twilight of the West,"www.studiobrien.com/writings_on_fantasy/Twilight-of-the-west.html
8. I am indebted to Steve Wohlberg's article cited above for this insight.
9. Stephenie Meyer, Twilight (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005), 288.
10. Meyer, Twilight, 342.
11. Meyer, Twilight, 414.
12. http://www.truthinlovetomormons.com/basic_mormon_doctrine/doctrine/theo/fall.htm
13. www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight_faq.html
14. "As God now is, man can become. As man now is, God once was." James E. Talmadge, Articles of Faith (Salt
Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1976). See also Oscar W. McConkie, Jr., God and
Man (Salt Lake City, UT: The Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, 1963), 5. Cited in Russ Wise, "Mormon Beliefs
About the Bible and Salvation," www.probe.org/mormon-beliefs-about-bible-salvation.
15. Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2007), 68.
16. Douglas Wilson has written a series of insightful reviews of Twilight at Credenda:
www.credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=author&id=64&Itemid=127
17. Lev Grossman, "Stephenie Meyer: A New JK Rowling?" TIME Magazine, April 24, 2008,
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1734838,00.html). Cited in Marcia Montenegro, "A Girl and Her
Vampire: The Frenzy Over Twilight." www.christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_Twilight.html
18. spesunica.wordpress.com/
19. bit.ly/9m4Nje
20. Meyer, Twilight, 268.
21. www.radicalparenting.com/2009/05/14/the-new-bible-Twilight-mini-article/
22. spesunica.wordpress.com/is-Twilight-anti-christian-yes/
23. bit.ly/aSKdWl/
24. I am indebted to the wisdom shown in the comment by Jae Stellari on spesunica.wordpress.com.
25. O'Brien, "Twilight of the West."
26. www.ericbarger.com/twilight.carlile.pdf
© 2010 Probe Ministries
About the Author
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker with Probe Ministries. She attended the University of
Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 30 years. She is a
What is Probe?
frequent speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Ministries (Christian
Women's Connections), and serves on the board and as a small group leader of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ
centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. Sue is on the Bible.org Women's Leadership
Team and is a regular contributor to TheTapestryBlog.com. She is also a professional calligrapher and the
webmistress for Probe Ministries; but most importantly, she is the wife of Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of their
two grown sons. Her personal website is suebohlin.com.
Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers
with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission
through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive
Web site at www.probe.org.
Further information about Probe's materials and ministry may be obtained by contacting us at:
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