Our church passed out today a four page statement, article and discussion guide concerning Halloween, which I greatly appreciated. Above all, I appreciate the preface wirtten by our pastor;

In case you are curious, the Session of [our church] does not have an “official position on Halloween. Rather, we hope that each household will, by the grace of God, humbly and wisely seek to base their “house rules” on the Word of God and seek the best way to both nurture their children in the faith and to bring God’s redemptive work to bear upon the world, starting in our own neighborhoods. At the same time, we must bear with and love one another “in Christ” as we perhaps come to different conclusions about how best to observe and participate in things like Halloween. (emphasis mine)

I am warmly encouraged and rejoice to hear the church recognize an issue that is not black and white and to admonish the body to bear with one another in love. We won’e all agree on such issues as this and I don’t know that we are intended to, at least intended to behave in the same way. I respect my friends who choose not to trick-or-treat. Perhaps that is best for their children. In the following, I will refer to a position that encourages mockery of Satan’s defeat. I understand that reasoning and respect the sincere, vigorous faith of those whom I have heard support it, yet I as of yet am not sure that I agree with it.

In all the reading I have done of late, I honestly cannot discern exactly what the historical factors really are surrounding Halloween, nor exactly the current practices among neopagans and other groups. Much of the information seems either exaggerated or downplayed, taken too seriously or dismissed outright as mere myth. I am guessing the truth lies somewhere in the middle and quite certain that it is not so easy to understand as those with quick answers would be loud to assert.

The issue of Halloween has also highlighted my concern with the degree of isolationism that I see among many Christians (which I believe is both strongly theology based as well as rooted in our sin nature, our affinity to condemn and for that which is easier.) I emphasized my pastor’s exhortation to both nurture our children in the faith and engage the world with the redemptive work of God. We are not called to just bear children into the faith, we are called to go OUT into the world and make disciples. I hear many families with a tendancy to isolate themselves and their children speak of expanding the Kingdom of Chirst through their children. Wonderful. However if you only focus on nurturing your children in the faith, it is likely that they too will be isolationist (or rebellious). Such a one-way focus will create a separate Christian society that is not able to be in or go out into the world as the chruch has been commanded to do.

We are not called to be cynics, throwing up our hands crying “The world is going to hell in a handbasket!” We are to work to proclaim the Gospel in and to the world, going out into all the nations, being used of God to redeem them, not just saving souls from the fires of hell, but redeeming people, communities, cultures. Enough on this for now. However, in our thinking of Halloween, we are to consider our commission to both our children and to our neighbor. These are not to be at odds but integrated in our calling to Chirst.

A few interesting exerpts from the article by James B. Jordan included in our church handout;

The Festival of All Saints reminds us that though Jesus has finished His work, we have not finished ours. He has struck the decisive blow, but we have the privilege of working in the mopping up operation. Thus, century by century the Christian faith has rolled back the demonic realm of ignorance, fear, and superstition. Though things look bad in the Western world today, this work continues to make progress in Asia and Africa and Latin America.

The Biblical day begins in the preceding evening, and thus in the Church calendar, the eve of a day is the actual beginning of the festive day. Christmas Eve is most familiar to us, but there is also the Vigil of Holy Saturday that preceeds Easter Morn. Similarly, All Saints’ Eve precedes All Saints’ Day.

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. . . .

Similarly, on All Hallows’ Eve, the custom arose of mocking the demonic realm by dressing children in costumes. Because the power of Satan has been broken once and for all, our children can mock him by dressing up like ghosts, goblins, and witches. The fact that we can dress our children this way shows our supreme confidence in the utter defeat of Satan by Jesus Christ—we have NO FEAR! . . .

This is a good place to note that many articles in books, magazines, and encyclopedias are written by secular humanists or even the pop-pagans of the so-called “New Age” movement. (An example is the article by Wynn Parks cited above.) These people actively suppress the Christian associations of historic customs, and try to magnify the pagan associations. They do this to try to make paganism acceptable and downplay Christianity. Thus, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, etc., are said to have pagan origins. Not true.

Oddly, some fundamentalists have been influenced by these slanted views of history. These fundamentalists do not accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of Western history, American history, and science, but sometimes they do accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of the origins of Halloween and Christmas, the Christmas tree, etc. We can hope that in time these brethren will reexamine these matters as well. We ought not to let the pagans do our thinking for us. . . .

“He who sits in the heavens laughs; Yahweh ridicules them” says Psalm 2. Let us join in His holy laughter and mock the enemies of Christ on October 31.

I find Jordan’s comments on the origins of Halloween new, fascinating, and if accurate, very liberating. I am recently becoming aware of how many Chirstians accept non-christian biased history and dismiss many things as offensively pagan. If we all truly came from Adam and Eve, and then from Noah, within less than 10,000 years, would not the myths and thoughts of pagans be likely to still hold remnants of truth, shreds of that passed on from ancestors who did know the one true God? What if God in His soverignty kept that myth of the sun God in x pagan group so that when He sent his messengers of the Gospel whose feet are blessed that the people would have some kind of symbol or basis of being able to understand the message brought to them? To consider this line of thinking more deeply, I highly recommend Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson. (see “The Library”)

Concerning the mockery of Satan, however, I have some reservations. Interestingly, some Reformed and other theologians teach that Satan has already been bound. Right now he is not freely roaming the earth, but this is the time of his imprisonment so that the Gospel may go out through all the earth. I don’t intend to go into this theology at this moment, nor have I formed my own opinion on the matter. However, it certainly affects how you would approach Halloween. I heasitate with mocking Satan, because I know that he is a formidable foe, said to prowl looking for those he can devour because his time is short. (BTW - those who say he is bound, I presume would teach that Satan was prowling around at the time Peter wrote that, but that with the fall of the Temple in 70AD, the old world and order were ended and Satan was bound. This view interprets much of Revelation - though not all - as having already happened.) Jude also wrote, “But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Thus, although Halloween had Chirstian origins, perhaps they were not the wisest of Christians who established them!

I hope I have provoked deeper thought on the issue. Whatever you and your family decide, let it be from bold faith and not from fear. Peace be with you!

As it ought to be, the blogsphere has been a buzz with Christians debating the validity of participation in Halloween and to what extent. A few of the posts I have read; by Bonnie at Intellectuelle, Chewymom here and here, Challies, plus always lively snipets of discussion with my fellows at the Boar’s Head Tavern (search the site for “Halloween”). There is an interesting, brief summary of various religious approaches to Halloween at Religious Tolerance. Interesting because of to “tollerant slant” and some of the actions attributed to Christians that I wish I had never heard of. Here are a few more quick historical facts on Halloween I found through Google. Thus far I have just listened and thought, feeling rather boarderline about the topic.

My primary concern, or point of refrence, for thinking about Halloween lies in the expected questions from my children, “What is Halloween?” or “Why do we go trick or treating?” or “Why do we dress up at Halloween?” or “Why can’t I be a ghost for Halloween?” or “Why does the neighbor have webs and scary faces on their house?” or “What is a witch?”. I want to have good and right answers for my children which most importantly impart a vision of Christ to them as well as teach them how to think intelligently and faithfully about issues.

I say ‘faithfully’ instead of Biblically because what the latter means depends on your interpretation of the Bible, but the former is both more wholistic and specific, centered on trusting the person of Christ, even when we can’t find the perfect systematic theology to interpret every jot and tittle of the Bible.

With the focus of my thinking on Halloween being instructing my children in life and godliness, I am going to approach the topic as if I were answering my young children’s questions. Hopefully this will both prepare me and keep my writing simpler than usual!

What is Halloween? - Novemeber 1st is All Saint’s Day, a day the church has historically celebrated the “Saints” or all the people in the church whom Christ has saved and made our brothers and sisters. Halloween is a funny name for “Hallow’s Eve”, like the way we call the day before Chirstmas, “Christmas Eve”.

Why do we sit out in the drive way with hot cider and candy and go trick-or-treat on Hallow’s Eve?” - Good question! The tradition of trick-or-treating comes from a few different historical legends that we will learn about when you are older. Our family participates in the neighborhood fun of dressing up, visiting each other and sharing treats in order to get to know our neighbors better and enjoy them. At church on Sunday we will celebrate the saints Jesus has saved. Tonight on Halloween we will celebrate our friends and neighbors and pray that they might come to belong to Jesus too. Let’s pray right now that God grants us conversation with our neighbors and hearts to truly love them. Then lets think of ways and things we can say to be kind to other people as we go out in the neighborhood.

Why does the neighbor have webs and scary faces on their house? - Some people think it is fun to be scared and they like to pretend scary things. It makes them feel brave to face those scary things and laugh. We don’t decorate with scary things or dress up like ghosts because our courage comes from Jesus Chirst who has overcome ALL things! Remember your song from Veggie Tales, “God is bigger than the boogie man and He is taking care of you and me?” We decorate with the beautiful things God has made like pumpkins and pretty fall colors and we dress up as things that represnt God’s beauty because that reminds us of how strong and amazing God is.

I am sure my “chatechesis” could use substantial improvement and will need elaboration as my children grow older, but for now, that is what I have!

We are not just going to ignore Halloween and pretend it exist. We are not isolationists in the Crawford household. I desire to equip my children to engage the world with truth. That equiping involves some amount of protection, in order that they might be trained, but it also involves some engagement that they might be trained! We are not going to send our children to a neopagan Samhain celebration where direct, explicit spirit worship occurs. However, the generally secular, materialistic neighborhood activity of trick-or-treating is now far removed from actual spiritism.

Depending on the “spirit” of the neighborhood, we may opt not to trick-or-treat, or to only go to friends houses. Maybe actual spiritism will grow in the thoughts and hearts of the general public and then we would alter our engagement of the world on this Oct. 31st day. Some houses do seem to over-glorify the spooky element of Halloween and take on what seems a spiritist approach rather than that of Martha Stewart. I have no desire to take my children to such houses. However, as Halloween is currently culturally celebrated, I definately want to set up camp in our front yard, turn the light on and invite the neighbors walking by to share a hot drink, some treats, and chat. By God’s grace may we be a family that shines as a light in the darkness just as our cute-faced jack-o-lanterns on the porch, representing the faith, hope, love and freedom that is found in Chirst alone.

As Tommy and I begin to think about and prepare to baptise our children, I have felt a little bit sad that they will most likely not remember the event, as the eldest is only 3. My own baptism was very memorable; I was one of two people baptised at a midnight easter service in a gorgeous Epischopalian sanctuary, filled with beautiful candles, incense and sacred music. I mentioned this in passing to my pastor and he asked me what that said about my theology of baptism. Is it experientially based? We baptise for the experience of it? No, but every mom loves to make worthwhile experiences for their children. I couldn’t help but still want to make it “memorable” for them.

The next day I read an exerpt from Robert S. Rayburn’s lecture “Worship From the Whole Bible” (found in Meyer’s The Lord’s Service). The vision he gives of what actually transpires in baptism offered me a remedy for my concern with memorableness.

Suppose we were to have an infant Baptism here next Lord’s Day; and suppose on this moment alone of all the moments in the history of the Church since the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ this was a sacrament by sight and not by faith: Just as the minister was prepared to begin, with a loud, tearing sound the roof of the building parted; and lo and behold, the Lord Christ Himself descended to where I am standing right now. There were seraphim hovering above His shoulder. We were all on our faces before the glory of God, but He told us to arise. He took the baby in His arms and He pronounced the Divine Triune Name over the child and made the promise of His Gospel and covenant to this child by name and then by mane summoned her to the life of faith and godliness and consecration. He then spoke a word to this child’s parents about the sacred stewardship He was now entrusting to them and how they would answer to Him for this child’s faith and this child’s life on the Great Day. Then He spoke a word to this congregation about their responsibility and then a word to the minister about his. Then He blessed the child and poured water on its head and ascended back into Heaven and with a loud crash the ceiling came back to where it was before and everthing was as it was

Let me tell you a few things that would be inevitably true. One is that that child, though he or she would be too young to have any personal recollection of that moment, would remember her Baptism forever and better than she would remember any other event in her life because of scarcely a day would pass without his parents telling her what happened in the church when she was three weeks old and what the Lord Christ had said and demanded and promised. He would live as he grew up - at 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, at 26 - he would live under the specter and under the mercy, the glory of Baptism. His whole life would be colored and shaped and formed by it. That’s what Baptism is. That’s exactly what happens in the Baptism of a child or adult when it happens in the church. The only difference is that it is by faith that you see it and not by sight.

Now that is a vision!

A friend asked recently what modernism was in the context of a discussion of inerrancy. For what it is worth, here is my answer.

Modernism arose with the seperation of theology and religion from the shpere of asking “what is truth”. Modernism, led most famously by Descartes, says that reason alone can answer the ultimate questions of reality. Modernism went along with and gave rise to the scientific revolution which sees itself as objective - able to use reason alone to answer these questions of ultimate reality; who are we, what is the truth of human history, what is the basic ‘essence’ of the world and reality, etc. . . . Postmodernism has come along seeing the fault in that and what is termed the “imperialism” of modernism - how people say their reasoning is objective and right over the reasoning of others, blind to their own biases and rational limitation, and use that as the basis for power manipulation (worst case - Hitler). Postmodernism is a rejection of this delusion of true obejectivity in human thought - part of which is bad, relativism saying there is no truth, and part of it which is good - christians and others saying, wait, we all have biases and theological assumptions which inform our reasoning (evolution, athiesm, deism) whether you like to admit it or not. Truth cannot be argued apart from addressing biases (ie - tenants held by faith).

A strict view of inerrancy is modernist because it ascribes rational, scientific, presumedly objective standards to the Bible, a document which was not written under such a paradigm and which cannot and ought not hold up to it. The Bible is not a scientific textbook, but a true story. It takes faith to accept the Bible as fallible. Trying to argue for its inerrancy through seeking to establish its objective perfection is a dead end road because it isn’t there, at least not in the copies we have. One main problem with this is that God in His unsearchable wisdom has not given us the origional manuscripts. I have no problem saying that John wrote down every word exactly, “inerrantly” as God wanted it to be written and that there is no bit of falsehood in it. However, we don’t have John’s manuscript and the average Christian doesn’t read in Greek, and research though we may, we will never perfectly understant the historical and cultural context that give the Bible its nuances of meaning. The problem is worsened when average Christians are taught a modernist view of inerrancy and then they apply that principle to the Bible they have in their hands. A modernist standard becomes a stumbling block to the Gospel. For example, you have Christians with the attitude that you have to convince someone of 6 day, young earth creation in order to get them to have saving faith in Jesus. That is a dangerous adding to the Gospel, based on modernist, rationalistic standards of Truth.

Postmodernism is good in that it opens the door back wide for the mysteries of our faith and also gives rooms for Christians to again unite the “secular” to the religious. In fact, these were never truly seperate all along, it was just that the religion of man’s independent reason became silently dominant.

As Augustine said - “I believe in order that I may understand.”

So how does one go about tagging people for a meme? I will give it a go. What is your idea of a perfect day? I would love to hear the imaginings of the following people (but not limited to!):

Marla, Amy, Choosing Home Mom’s, Chewy, Anne and how about we try to hear from some guys? Savage and Douglas?

The idea is explained in this post on Dreaming.

I’ve already shown how shallow and dirt thirsty I am with my dream . . . We’ll see how this goes, eh?

Um, no. This is not a “whole food” or healthy recipe, but it is delicious! The men especially seem to love it. There is a time to abstain and a time to splurge, and for our family, November -December is the time to splurge! I try to cook very healthy in between all the celebratory meals where I eat joyously without shame.

The chocolate chips are optional. I leave them out half the time because I like to focus more purely on the pecan flavor, but the guys in my home really love the chocolate so . . . I usually make two!

1 9″ pie crust
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
4 eggs
2 teas. Vanilla
1/4 teas. salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup pecans
3 Tbls. Bourbon

Pre-bake pie crust for 8 minuntes at 350. Allow to cool a bit. Comine sugars, syrup and butter in a sauce pan. Heat gently until melted and dissolved. Cool slightly. Beat eggs, bourbon, vanilla and salt together. Add to cooled sugar mixture and whisk until blended. Gently stir in pecans and chocolate chips. Pour into prepared crust.

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until the edges puff and the center is set. If the edges of the crust begin to brown too much, cover them with strips of foil.

Another option, if some guests will baulk at the Bourbon, is to leave it out and then make a spiked whip cream for topping. For spiked cream, mix 2/3 cup whipped topping (or whipped cream) with 1 Tablespoon Bourbon.

This recipe is a combination of several random pecan pie recipes. I found the spiked cream idea in the November 2004 Cooking Light.

This is part two of the “Dreams” post, what I imagine to be a perfectly enjoyable day. And I think this would make a great meme, so if you decide to do some imagining of your own, let me know through a trackback or put a link in the comments.

The Welsh noble descendant in me wants to wake up thoroughly refreshed in a Swiss Chalet early the morning after having climbed a nearby peak. Have you ever slept in those amazing feather mattresess they have over there? Divine. Then to wander down to the kitchen to grab some tea and head outside to smell the fresh air and hear the morning birds, perhaps catch a glimpse of one of those swift little European antelope, or if I am lucky a long-horned sheep.

The Native American descendant in me wants to wake up thorougly refreshed in a snow cave on the side of a Cascade mountain early the morning after having climbed the peak looming outside my cozy icy, self-made hotel; to crawl out in my favorite red down puffball jacket and fire up the whisper-light stove to make my morning thermos of gourmet alpine french press coffee. I love to make my “mountain gruel” with 10 grain cereal, cinnamon, chopped dried apricots, crasins and a sprinkle of brown sugar.

Either place, I would pull out my little leather travel journal and write my prayer. I pray best on paper. Of course, if I were in the Swiss chalet, I could have brought my mountain bike up on the gondola and follow up morning breakfast with a 12 mile ride. M.. ride outside Oakridge in Oregon will forever serve as the template for my favorite type of mountain bike ride. Nine miles winding constantly up hill on a wide, senic dirt road, providing a killer workout, followed by 5 straight miles of downhill single track, providing a killer thrill and technical challenge. I am sure they could have something like that in the alps!

Obviously, my precious husband and dearest friend is with me and has joined me in my morning ride. Upon return we would shower together, get dressed and pack up our packs to take the gondola back to the main town. Don’t get funny ideas, we have our best conversations in the shower for some reason. Before leaving the chalet, we would somehow bring a touch of unexpected cheer to the owner there. Perhaps we would surprise him by asking to listen to his old stories while we helped wash up the breakfast dishes or clean the tables.

Some people complain about the rudeness of Europeans to American travelers, but I had nothing but delightful experiences in my travels (except one cranky German man who stole my chair on a boat up the Rhine . . . ). Being truly friendly, genuinely interested in other people and their culture and not being afraid to mispronounce “Comment allez-vouz?” goes a long way in befriending your nationalist hosts!

Now at this point in my dream, I miss my children. Grandma and Grandpa must have all four of them, down at the nearby town. We must go meet them for lunch and then spend the afternoon walking on a trail just outside town singing “Sound of Music” songs at the top of our lungs.

Back to the hotel for nap time. Tommy and I have to prepare our final notes for the class we are going to co-teach at the university, something combining philosophy (me) and theology (him) like the Joel Garver essay I wrote about two posts ago. After the class we would have dessert and coffee with the students, who asked wonderful questions and saw the world of His Truth opening before their minds in a new and deeper way.

Then Tommy and I would head back to our own hotel room, and well, I will end the dream there.

Or maybe I will dream about the day my 12 children cut the ribbon on our new house in outside Jackson Hole that we built ourselves on our new horse ranch.

I feel thoroughly selfish in dreaming all this, and of course it will never actually happen. How can I dream about things I would like to do when others in the world would just dream of having food for their children?

Yet when I loose the ability to dream at all, imperfect though my dreams may be (and what do I do, pray tell, that is without flaw!), I have also lost joy, hope and the courage to love. If I cannot recieve the grace and freedom to dream silly concievable things, how can I hope in Chirst to do the truly impossible, redeem humanity? It’s not that we dream of bike rides in the alps really placing our life hope on that event happening, but we allow our minds and spirits to freely imagine that God is good and the life He gives us is good.