Happy Halloween, No Really!

Happy Halloween! I know that many Christians do not celebrate this holiday because of its pagan associations . I used to be one of them. Every year my wife and I would be in the store and we would walk down the Halloween costume and decor aisles and she would ask me, "Now why don't we celebrate Halloween again?" And I would always look at her and say, "Because it's a wicked, wicked holiday." Well, maybe I was wrong.

The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a Christian holiday in the literal sense. No where in the New Testament are we commanded to celebrate the birthday of Jesus or the anniversary of His death and resurrection. In fact we aren't commanded to keep any holidays at all. That is the interesting thing about the Christian religion, it never instituted any specific holy days. Christmas and Easter are just as pagan as Halloween in their historical roots.

Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying we should stop celebrating Christmas and Easter. What I am saying is that we should celebrate Halloween. (Here is a link to help you seperate the facts from the hype.)

Why would I say such a thing when so many Christians believe that it is such a wicked, wicked holiday? It goes back to the fact that Christ never instituted any specific holidays. Why didn't He do this? Was He against celebrating holidays? No, He celebrated many holidays himself. He never instituted holidays because Christianity isn't meant to have a specific culture like Judaism. Instead it is meant to transform the culture that it finds itself in from within the culture. That means we take over already existing creational structures (like holidays) within those cultures.

Someone will object and say "But Halloween isn't like Christmas and Easter, Halloween celebrates Satan and the powers of darkness." I have two responses to that objection. First, it isn't true. Christmas and Easter have roots that are just as pagan and satanic as Halloween. The only reason we as Christians don't have the problems with Christmas and Easter, like we do with Halloween, is because we have had partial success with transforming those holidays.

My second response is... so what. Are we just going to let Satan continue having his day? Are we going to allow rebellion against our God to go unchallenged?... just look the other way, refuse trick-or-treaters by turning our porch lights off. Do you really think we will transform the world by such a feeble silent protest. This is a fortress mentality. This is how you lose a war.

Let me illustrate my point with an example from a favorite hobby of mine, astronomy. There is a star that reaches its zenith near the time of Halloween, this star is a variable star named Algol. This name comes from its Arabic name Ra's al Ghul, the Demon's Head. Our English word ghoul comes from this name. Algol means the Demon. It is the Demon Star. The Hebrews knew this star as Rosh ha Satan, Satan's Head. (This information is taken from the book Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning (Dover Books on Astronomy) by Richard Hinckley Allen)

Someone may say, "How does this illustrate your point? It looks like it contradicts it." "After all", they may say, "it just goes to show that the powers of evil and darkness are on the rise at Halloween."

The reason this illustrates my point is because Algol is in the severed head of Medusa in the constellation Perseus, the Champion or Rescuer as he is sometimes called. The point I am trying to make is at the height of its supposed power the enemy is defeated by the Champion. The kingdom of darkness has already been destroyed. Satan's power has been severed.

So, if the world wants to celebrate the darkness then we should not just role over and let them have their day. No, we instead celebrate the light and its victory over the darkness. We announce to the world that they celebrate in defeat.

We don't do this by offering a Christian alternative to Halloween but by redeeming the holiday and declaring the antithesis. We don't need a Christian substitute for Halloween. What we need is a Christian Halloween. Many of the same elements that are used in the holiday can still be used such as trick or treat, costumes, pumpkins, and even jack-o-lanterns. Since our Champion has conquered Satan, we should use the spoils of the enemy to announce the victory of our King.

So, I say again, Happy Halloween!

Postmodern "Split"

The way our culture thinks and sees the world affects everyone in our culture, including you and me. The way we start to correct our thinking is to first become aware that we do think the way our culture does and to realize that it is wrong. This is the part where you buckle your seat belts because in the past when I have pointed out to people where there thinking is wrong I've gotten a mixed bag of reactions, anger and hostility being one of my least favorites. We'll explore this over the next few post.

We live in the postmodern era because our cultures thinking is postmodern. Within the postmodern cultural landscape there is a wide and varied range of beliefs. This is referred to as pluralism (our generations own version of polytheism). In such a diverse environment of beliefs what is it that unifies these beliefs under the heading postmodernism? What exactly is postmodernism?

Postmodernism is complex, to be sure, but its basic principle is pretty simple. Postmodernism's starting point is a dichotomy. It splits reality into two separate spheres. This was inherited from Greek philosophy. This "split" can be traced down through the history of the church and western civilization. You could diagram it like this...

Plato: Form/Matter = Perfect/Imperfect
Gnosticism: Spirit/Body = Good/Evil
Thomas Aquinas: Grace/Nature = Supernatural add on/Built in goal or purpose
Emanuel Kant: Freedom/Nature = Man has meaning/Man is a machine
Postmodernism: Sacred/Secular, Value/Fact, Faith/Reason = Non-rational/Rational
Note: Look at the "/" symbol as meaning "verses" or "opposite of" or maybe even "in opposition too".

In the past philosophers and theologians tried unsuccessfully to reconcile the tension created by this "split" through reason. These men truly believed that there was a rational answer to the tension. Postmodernism's solution to the tension wasn't to reconcile them or bring them together but to separate them even further.

Classic philosophy viewed the world in terms of true and false (antithesis). That is, they believed that if one thing was true then its opposite was false. This formed the basics of logic and reason. For example, the law of non-contradiction says that something can not be A and Non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. (God can't both exist and not exist.)

Francis Schaeffer in his book Escape from Reason said that since the time of the Greeks until Hegel philosophy had three characteristics. The first was what he called rationalism, they believed that man had the ability to come to know truth all on his own without any outside help. The second was rationality, that is they believed reason was the proper tool to be used to come to the truth. The third was hope because these men believed that there was truth out there and their questions would be answered.

Postmodernism has given up hope of ever coming to the answers by reason. There is no absolute truth. Therefore, reason can't bring us to the answer. The only characteristic that postmodernism retains is rationalism, man is still viewed as the autonomous determiner of what is true.

Postmodernism no longer views things in terms of antithesis but rather they believe that what was looked at before as being true and its opposite false can be brought together to form a new "truth". The result being all things are relative. This new truth is not arrived at by reason (since that was rejected in rejecting antithesis) but by a "leap of faith".

The "leap of faith" is the hallmark of postmodernism. It attempts to solve the problem of the "split" by this "leap of faith". Postmodernism doesn't believe that there are rational answers to be found, no absolute truth to provide meaning to life. Instead, we are to jump to the conclusion that life has meaning inspite of the fact that there is no rational basis for that conclusion. Reason gives us facts but they do not lead to meaning.

As you can see, the solution postmodernism provides is no solution at all. You maybe asking, "what does this have to do with me?" I'll answer that in my next post.

First Post

This is my first post. Coming out of the starting gate I just want to set the tone of what I want this blog to be. My purpose is to examine ways that we as Christians can develop a Biblical worldview and influence the mainstream culture, becoming conformed more to the cross of Christ in every area of life, for the advancement of His Kingdom. I hope this blog will create some very interesting discussion.

I believe that one of the greatest problems that the church in America faces is that we do not know how to apply the Bible to our daily lives. This is why we are losing ground. We don't know how or even if it does relate to our "secular" lives. After all, doesn't it just tell us about "religious" things.

Our thinking is all wrong. I know because I speak from experience. I have prided myself on my biblical knowledge and theological accuracy. Yet, I have always struggled with how to apply the Bible. After completing my very first hermeneutics course I asked the teacher, "Now that I've been taught the art and science of interpreting the Bible what is the art and science of applying the Bible?" His answer didn't satisfy me at all.

Over the years and through much study and searching I have discovered that Biblical application isn't so complicated. Don't misunderstand me. I didn't say it was easy but it is not complicated. The problem is not with the Bible. The problem is with us, with the way we think and with the way we see the world. Our problem is with our starting point in our thinking. If we start at the wrong place then is it any wonder that, no matter how good the directions are, we will end up in the wrong place.

This is why we don't know how to apply the Bible to all of life. This is the reason we do not know how to live as Christians in this fallen and broken reality. Most all we know how to do is work on our personal piety and maybe do some occasional evangelism. But isn't being a Christian more than this? As a servant of the King shouldn't we do more to advance His kingdom than tidy up our prayer closet?

What happened to being salt and light? What happened to being a city set on a hill? What happened to having your good works seen by men so that they glorify your Father in heaven? I've got news for you, the world doesn't care that you are faithful to your spouse, or that you don't curse, or that you read your Bible or pray or any host of a number of things that we think of when we hear those words. The only type of good work that the world will glorify God upon seeing is something that is going to impact or in some way be beneficial to them.

That is what I want to explore in this blog. We will talk about correcting our thinking, applying the Bible, and doing good works that make this rebellious unbelieving world stop, think, and perhaps glorify God.

To God Be The Glory.