The Vampires of Dayton

New North Carolina License Plate: "First in Bite"

Dayton, Ohio, is known for many things. The Wright brothers are from Dayton. They made it the birthplace of aviation. Don’t listen to people from North Carolina. “First in flight,” they say. Who cares? Flying the thing was the easy part. Designing and building the airplane—that required the fertile intellectual soil of the upper Midwest. The cash register was invented in Dayton, as were Cheez-Its, the movie projector, and the Trapper-Keeper. Don’t tell the North Carolinians. I can see the license plates now: “First in Cheez.” We call Dayton the Gem City, though no one seems to know why. But guess what? There’s a Gem City RV Park in… where is it again? … oh yeah…NORTH CAROLINA.

Sure, most people think of Dayton as an Edenic paradise. I can’t blame North Carolinians for wanting to get in on this action. And yet, it may surprise you to know that Dayton does have its problems: long winters, a rough economy, and Skyline Chili, to name a few. Now it looks like we have one more thing to worry about: vampires.

Yes, you read that correctly. I just learned that we have one of the largest vampire covens in the U.S. here in little Dayton, second only to New Orleans. Netflix has a new documentary coming out called Vampires of Gem City. I can’t wait to watch it. In the meantime, I may or may not hang garlic braids by my doors and windows.

Of course, I was perturbed to learn of a vampire coven in my home of the last eighteen years, so I started to read up on the topic. Apparently there was a murder in Dayton in 2008 connected to an occult ritual and a goth crowd described as “vampire-like.”

Wait a minute… vampire-like? I thought we were talking about vampires, not people who are “vampire-like.” Now I feel a bit silly, thinking there were real vampires and all, and right here in the birthplace of the Trapper-Keeper. What a rube I am.

Or am I?

The Columbus Dispatch reports on a person who says she really is a vampire. She “works as a social media manager, [and] went viral on TikTok last year after posting videos about her life as a self-identifying vampire. The then-28-year-old told USA TODAY that she wears fangs, dark red lipstick and a white shirt with a flowing black cape.” The report continues, “[S]he isn't interested in sucking anyone's blood; she doesn't believe she'll live forever, and she loves garlic. The sun has made her nauseous since she was a child, she said, though it does not make her catch fire, glitter, melt or explode like some popular vampire fiction depicts.”

Okay…. Now I’m thinking I don’t understand what a vampire is. A Google search of “people who identify as vampires” resulted in the following AI summary:

Lifestyle vampires

These people may enjoy vampire movies or Anne Rice, and may dress in Victorian clothing or wear prosthetic fangs. They may also identify as vampires but don't feed on blood or energy, and consider themselves to be human.

Real vampires

These people believe that their health will decline if they don't feed on blood or energy, which they may consider to be necessary for spiritual or physical nourishment. There are three types of real vampires: sanguinarians, who feed on small amounts of human blood, and psychic and hybrid vampires. Some say that vampirism is a subversive choice that rejects social norms, and that it can be empowering. Others say that most vampires follow safe and ethical feeding practices, are mentally sound, and contribute positively to society.

So there are at least two large categories of vampires: “lifestyle” and “real.” I’m getting hung up on the adjective “real,” but in this age of infinitely plastic language, what’s real anyway? Is breakdancing a real sport? Is Pinocchio a real boy? Is Spam real meat? Is Skyline Chili real chili?

Postmodernity gives me headaches. We can insist all day (or night) long that certain characteristics constitute vampirism, such as being undead, drinking the blood of the living, an aversion to crosses, and a severe allergy to sunlight. Those self-identifying as vampires, however, will respond by telling us that we don’t know what vampires are, that those aren’t the true characteristics of vampires. Rather, another set of characteristics represents real vampirism.

I guess vampirism ain’t what it used to be. Nowadays, to be a vampire means you self-identify as a vampire alongside other people who acknowledge your vampiric identity. “Some say that vampirism is a subversive choice that rejects social norms.” That doesn’t seem quite right to me. Vampires embrace the social norms of one community over those of other communities, which is what pretty much everyone in the world does, so….

Looks like all those teachers who told us we could be anything we wanted were right after all. Astronaut, doctor, artist, vampire…. The world is your oyster. When I was a kid we had a record by Marlo Thomas called “Free to Be You and Me.” Ms. Thomas had no idea the liberating effect her courageous lyrics would have upon the vampire community. And don’t even get me started on werewolves, mummies, and merpeople. Here’s to you, 1970s.

Identity really is the question of the age. People have always asked the question, “Who am I?” The difference in the current age is that we’ve embraced the myth of self-invention. I am who I feel like I am, and I will seek out other people who validate and reinforce my self-identification. Even parts of the church have bought into this idea. And yes, Christianity does involve identity, but not an identity we create. We do not make ourselves, but we are made and remade. In other words, we are creatures. We come from a Creator, God. We are meant to live in harmony with God, but we rebel against him and become something we were never meant to be. This same Creator, however, re-creates us. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5 17-18). We do not make ourselves. God makes and remakes us.

So we identify, first and foremost, as children of God, made new by the sacrifice of Christ. All the other ways in which we identify must be subservient to this one, and whatever is in conflict with this identity must go. Of course we all have other kinds of identities. I’m a husband and father, a dean and professor. Those aspects of my life, though, are subsumed by my identity as a Christian, and whatever I do as a husband, father, dean, or professor must be consistent with my identity in Christ.

The decline of Christianity in the West has created a vacuum of identity, and nature abhors a vacuum. Thus people grasp at illusory visions of who they are, what they can be, and why they matter. Many of these identities draw people away from God. Yet God has given the church a ministry of reconciliation. In other words, we’re commissioned to invite people into a proper relationship with their Creator, and to walk with them as they become a part of God’s new creation. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. That means everyone is invited. No one is beyond the reach of God’s redeeming grace—not even vampires.