Is Halloween Devil-Worship?

I’ve been around church long enough to hear the claims that Halloween is evil. When I was little I would’ve never guessed this: I dressed up as C3PO, got a few scares, and a pillowcase full of candy. Since being around churches for the last fifteen years I’ve seen Halloween celebrations turned into Harvest Festivals. We still dress up, still give candy, but weed out all the ugly stuff. We don’t let our children dress up as witches and demons – that is probably good advice for three-year-olds. I don’t really want my toddler having nightmares from those sights. But according to the article below, it might not be a horrible idea for us and older kids to march around as red devils.

It’s not that I think we should all be devils on Sunday, but the thoughts are certainly interesting, especially when much of subculture Christianity communicates Halloween as nothing redemptive. Make the jump and give it a read – The Truth of Halloween.

Here’s a teaser quote from the article:
“The concept, as dramatized in Christian custom, is quite simple: On October 31, the demonic realm tries one last time to achieve victory, but is banished by the joy of the Kingdom. What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan’s great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan in a ridiculous red suit with horns and a tail. Nobody thinks the devil really looks like this; the Bible teaches that he is the fallen Arch-Cherub. Rather, the idea is to ridicule him because he has lost the battle with Jesus and he no longer has power over us.”

A Great discussion on this topic over at Internet Monk.

Tags: culture, faith

Guilt as a Motivator?

Things I don’t like:

1. Mustard.
2. Loud bass coming from someone’s car.
3. Christians using guilt as means to change people’s behavior.

Let me clarify.

What I don’t like:
guilt -> behavioral change

What I believe is right:
guilt -> gospel of grace -> behavioral change

Busyness

“As motion distracts the eye, busyness distracts the heart.”

I’m not sure who said it, I found it scribbled in my journal.

Did Adam and Eve Exist?

Adam and Eve did exist, not just because I uphold the the legitimacy of scripture, but the story is also in me. I gravitate to being my own master, independent of God and his way of life. I lean towards disbelief and doubt. I think they ate of a fruit God asked them not to, but I don’t think it matters whether it was an apple, or even whether or not I can prove this story to be historical true.

Again, the story is alive in me. What was created in Adam – sin – is alive in me. Wonderfully, something else is also alive in me. A power greater than this sin.

Romans 5 is glorious:

12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. 15But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Losing Everything

“If God wills it, it is better for me to lose all I have, and I know that experiencing the worst calamity is the wisest and kindest thing if God ordains it.” – Charles Spurgeon

Mr. Spurgeon, please send us some of your faith.

Ideals or Things

Life should be about ideals – love, peace, bravery.

I struggle with this, because I love things – TV’s and jeans, houses and shoes. But it seems clear, these things rust and rip, so life should be about ideals.

Life should consist of things but be about ideals.

But it’s hard to sell ideals.

Question

The question is not what is believed, the question is what is true?

Right theology matters because freedom comes with truth.

Alabama’s Loss and Freedom from Perfection

This past Saturday Alabama’s football team finally lost – it’s been a couple years of straight victories. Their quarterback, Greg McElroy, had not lost a game as a starting quarterback since the eighth grade. That’s six or so years without a loss. The streak had to be on his mind.

Perhaps the pressure to maintain this streak of victories felt like a burden to him – it would to me.

Perfection can be a menace. The pursuit of it can be enslaving. The constant maintenance on a life pretending to be perfect is tiring. The doctrine of depravity states we all lose, no one has straight victories. We are broken morally, rebellious towards our Creator, whether in action or just thought and motive. So the question isn’t whether we lose, it’s whether we embrace our losses and what we do when we arrive there.

Jesus only came for the sick – that is, he only came for those who realize they are sick. The victory we have in Jesus only matters to those who embrace the losses we have in our humanity.

See, losing isn’t all that bad for we actually gain.

Tags: culture

Half of My Heart

I’ve been listening to this song alot lately. I’m probably completely misinterpreting it, but I relate to the line – “half of my heart.” I don’t relate to it in terms of love to my wife for that is certain, a choice as much as an emotion, but I understand the feeling of a divided heart in general, desiring one thing then the next. Fickle and ever moving.

I think of Paul’s words in Romans 7:

15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Madonna and Self-Worth

“I have an iron will. And all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy. I’m always struggling with that fear. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being and then I get to another stage and I think I’m mediocre and uninteresting and I find a way to get myself out of that again and again. My drive in life in life is the horrible fear of being mediocre. That’s always been pushing me, pushing me. Even though I’ve become somebody I still have to prove that I am somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will.” (Madonna, Vogue, 1990′s)

Being Somebody when you are somebody is easy.
But it’s also unstable because you have to maintain your somebody-ness.
What if you could be Somebody when you are a nobody. That’s freedom.

We love recognition. We bask in the glory. Some recognition is nice, floods of it warps us, and we shouldn’t gleam our self-worth from it. The justification for our existence shouldn’t lie in achievement or recognition, because one day we will fail, then our self-worth will plummet. Depression will arrive. The fight to never fail is impossible, only exhaustion awaits that pursuit. We are left only to find our worth outside of ourselves.

This is the gospel: though I’m broken, though I’m small and love recognition too much, God still loves me through Christ!

Our validity is given, not earned. The love is given.

If you don’t know you’re important before you achieve you will become a slave to your achievement or the pursuit of it.