Sometimes as we go through life we come across a book, a person, or a sermon that completely changes the way we think about things.,it is Tiger Lily's recent article, “Bigfoot Is Real — and More Dangerous than You Think,” provides compelling evidence of the existence of a looming bipedal creature roaming the forests.
For me, it was discovering the podcast “Haunted Cosmos.”
It's the brainchild of Ben Garrett and Brian Sauve, mustachioed Utah natives with a penchant for dark mysteries. I first came across them in guest On “The Steve Dees Show.” Sauve is the senior pastor of Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah, and Garrett is a member and friend of Sauve's. The two have been hosts of “Haunted Cosmos” since the show's March 2023 premiere.
“Christians should be the most interested people in the world.”
For the longest time, I mistakenly thought the podcast industry was saturated and that no one would produce anything truly original. I was wrong. These two have broken new ground in their own unique way, combining compelling storytelling with rigorous research.
Every episode of “Haunted Cosmos” begins with the same introduction.
“What if I told you there was another world? A world beyond sight, beyond the senses, beyond mere nature, but just as real, a world where illusions become reality, a world haunted by the supernatural? And what if I told you that this world was just as real as the one you walk through on any normal Monday or Tuesday? If you kept your eyes open, you’d see this other world flickering through the cracks.”
As Christians, we are accustomed to believing that the physical world of humans exists parallel to a mostly invisible world of angelic and demonic spirits, who wreak havoc on humans, some of whom are aware of their existence, while others, usually non-Christians, are unaware of their existence and suffer nonetheless.
As for the vast and diverse world of pagan legends, myths, ancient tales, and the paranormal, we understand that these are fundamentally UnrealisticThat's just a superstition.
The hosts of “Haunted Cosmos” try to take the paranormal seriously by looking at it from a Christian perspective.
Garrett and Sauve ask questions like: What if there's truth behind many of our legends, mythical creatures and ghost stories? What if the Mothman is a demon sent to terrorize a cursed land? What if sea monsters are fallen angels lurking in the ocean depths right now? What if Atlantis was a real city ruled by a demon god named Poseidon and his Nephilim sons?
And most importantly, what if the Bible contained evidence supporting the existence of these so-called “fictions”? What if the Bible gave us some explanation for vampires, shapeshifting werewolves, fairies, and the Bermuda Triangle?
Every episode will teach you history, theology, and sometimes Hebrew word origins. You’ll hear blood-curdling stories from people from different time periods. You’ll connect the dots from the death of a Native American chief in the American colonies in the 1770s to a series of bizarre events in a small town in West Virginia in 1966 to a passage deep in the book of Numbers. You’ll hear Paul’s teachings shedding light on the “werewolf” incident in Bedburg, Germany in the 1500s (yes, this really happened). By the end of the episode, you’ll be picking up your jaw after it hit the floor. At least, that was my experience.
The duo state their intentions very clearly at the beginning: “In each episode you'll find us telling a very strange story and interrogating it, trying to understand what it is, what's happening, why it matters, and what we should do about it.”
Our task is not to venture deep into the woods in search of Bigfoot, as Joseph does in Tiger Lily's account, or to comb haunted houses with electromagnets and thermometers, or to visit cemeteries, or to use psychics or Ouija boards, or to seek out evil in any way.
Garrett and Sauve never physically enter evil places or meddle with dark paraphernalia – in fact, they are strongly opposed to such things.
Instead, they intellectually go into the darkness, where they peer into what they call “high strangeness” — anything that “cannot be explained by natural phenomena like moving atoms, colliding molecules, and crackling wavelengths of light and energy” — and use the gospel as a beacon in that darkness.
Some Christians may resist this attempt.
They may protest: “Aren’t we called to set our minds on ‘what is true, what is honorable, what is just, what is pure, what is lovely, what is praiseworthy’ (Philippians 4:8)? Blood-sucking creatures of the night certainly don’t fit that description.”
Without a doubt, we are called to ponder the things outlined in Philippians 4:8:
However, “the glory of God is to conceal a matter, but the glory of a king is to discover it” (Proverbs 25:2).
Garrett and Sauve quote this Biblical verse in the first episode. “Christians are the most important people in the world,” Garrett told Dees in an interview. Much of the inspiration for “Haunted Cosmos,” he explained, came from “a gap in the church's interest” in myths, legends and the paranormal.
Sauvé added:
You can tell a dark story very well, with all the skill you have in your power, and not really say, “Hail the Devil, Hail Satan.” When Tolkien told the story of Helm's Deep, and made us feel and be scared of the orcs storming the walls and the women swarming in the caves, Tolkien was not sinning. He was not on the side of Sauron and the orcs.
However, while they acknowledge that “there is certainly danger in discussing the devil,” the greater danger is “not knowing the enemy.”
I am reminded of a famous line by French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire: “The greatest trick the devil played on us was to make the world believe he did not exist.” Given the rise of paganism in the West, the increase in UFO/UAP sightings, and the availability of satanic trinkets on supermarket shelves, I think Christians would do well to tune out the strangest things – with restraint and discretion, of course.
When Diess asked, “How do you stay on the narrow path when broadcasting content like this?” the presenters responded:
Two things: One, get your loves in the right order. You should love God more than you love Bigfoot. You should be more interested in the Lord than you are in Bigfoot… So if you're more concerned about the haunted graveyard in your town than you are about your daily faith and prayer, that's really bad.
The second is Reformed Confessionalism. Following the Reformed doctrines of our spiritual forefathers, like the Westminster Conference, to be able to say, “I agree with all this. This is the tradition to which I belong. This is the history and the faith and the religion to which I adhere.” This gives you the fence of orthodoxy, and inside that fence are fertile fields in which you can graze.
After all, every spirit, being, or principality of darkness will flee in fear before the Lord God Almighty, whom we serve and belong to, and authority over such evil has been bestowed upon us.
“Ghostly Universe” is an invitation to use our God-given ability to think critically and creatively about the troubled universe we live in, to use our imaginations to compare dark phenomena with the light of God's Word, and to dare to consider what we can do. do not have Learn about the forces that seek to destroy us.
