I thought about writing a Halloween screed. I considered writing about the absurd belief among many evangelicals that participating in the practices of All Hallow's Eve is to lend yourself to the pagan forces of darkness. Yes, friends, carving pumpkins and passing out candy can become a stumbling block to the weak of spirit. Let's not consider how ridiculous it is that we celebrate Christmas, a monthlong celebration of unbridled consumerism, or Super Bowl Sunday, a ritual of masculine bloodlust and gluttony; let's point to toddlers in puppy costumes and say, "Get behind me, Satan!"
I was once part of a Sunday School class in late October where our teacher, an optometrist, started in on Halloween as a "worldly practice." He went on to argue that for us to participate in the dark ritual was to compromise our faith and endanger our witness. I sat in the back of the class (yes, we were already on our way out the door of that particular church) seething, while my wife patted me on the arm and attempted to calm me. This was before we moved to our hundred-year-old neighborhood where Halloween is like a national holiday, but I still had strong feelings about Christians who turn off their porch lights on Halloween and join the faithful for a holy huddle and a Bible heroes costume party.
When the teacher equated children's costumes as masks of deception, I said nothing. When he said that giving out candy was like offering sacrifices to demon gods, I said nothing.
When he said, "If what we do and what we are around does not bring glory to God, it glorifies the work of Satan. We are to be without blemish." I couldn't take it anymore.
I raised my hand. "Don't you work at LensCrafters in the mall?"
"Um, yes."
"Can you explain how the mall brings glory to God? I mean, using your standard, is there anything spiritually redeeming about store after store of merchandise that is not necessary for our survival? Isn't the entire focus of the mall designed to create an addiction to consumption that distracts us from a life of purity and holiness? How does the mall draw us closer to God? In fact, couldn't one make a pretty compelling case for the mall as Satan's church?"
"Um. Well. I'm actually trying to relocate to a vision center outside the mall."
"So, you concede that the mall is evil?"
"Um."
"If the mall is evil, couldn't we say similar things about the movie theater, the ballpark, or the bowling alley?"
"We should always be careful to not associate with anything that conflicts with the will of God."
"And you are prepared to declare for all of us what the will of God is? Don't you think that's kind of dangerous? At the end of the day, aren't we better off living lives of grace rather than judgment? I mean, are our efforts best spent criticizing beautiful little children going out into the streets to meet people, building community, and learning to share candy with their neighbors?"
Things continued along this line until the end of class. In his closing prayer, the teacher spoke about "the spirit of dissension" that had entered the class. I guess God listened and cleansed them of unrighteousness, since we never went back after that.
Yeah, I considered writing something about all that Halloween crap, but I decided not to. Instead, I thought I would just tell you about something that happened last night.
My youngest daughter went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. She and her friends thought it would be cool to stop by the governor's house - he just moved in about four blocks from us. It turns out that he was the one answering the door and giving out the goodies to future voters.
Later, when she joined us at the bacchanalian feast we were enjoying at a neighbor's house, I asked her if the governor was passing out Butterfingers, since it would be an appropriate metaphor for his handling of Medicaid (denying coverage to the "least of these"), among other things.
She couldn't remember what candy he offered, and she had no overtly political comments.
She just said, "His face was completely without blemish."
Beautiful.
13 comments:
I don't think that you have a spirit of dissension. I think you have a voice of reason.
I agree that there are lots of bizarre and judgmental teachings in the church that have little or nothing to do with Jesus. People DO say similar things about the movie theater, the ballpark, and the bowling alley. I have even heard that there are people that go around teaching that any music with "dissonant notes" brings "glory to Satan."
Would it have been effective for you to respond to your Sunday school teacher in a different way? The first half of your response to his teachings about Halloween all centered on attacking the teacher and where he worked.
He must not have been very intelligent because there a jillion ways that he could have defended himself. As far as I know ALL of the eyeglass shops in Springfield are either in malls or strip malls. Strip malls are worse for the environment than malls. He could have started talking about how he was giving all of the pagan retailers an opportunity to be closer to God because he offered them a service that gave them the ability to start reading the Bible. If he was so inclined during his lunch break he could walk on down and pass out tracts to all of the teenagers walking out of Spencers Gifts. Silly arguments? Maybe, but they are not worse than the line of reasoning he was pursuing when talking about Halloween.
Would it have been possible for you to engage the man by actually talking to him "about Halloween?"
Does your point of view allow for making blanket statements about the goodness or badness of Halloween or certain aspects of it? In the mind of some people Halloween is all about five year old kids dressing up like Freddy Krueger and egging houses or adults dressing up like characters from the Rocky Horror Picture Show and getting drunk. People that have such a view might be short sighted, but what is your feeling about your Christian witness to them? Jesus wants a relationship with them too.
In a way your response doesn't seem fair. I could take anything that you say and begin criticizing the religious affiliations and associations of your employer. I think I'd have a lot of material to work with.(You could do the same with mine.)
These really aren't attacks, just statements and questions to spur a discussion. To prove it, I'll end with a complement: It is pretty impressive that you are a Christian that gets along well with his neighbor.
Sure, C, my argument about his workplace was completely absurd. That was the point. What made it sound like I was making a real argument was that he actually started trying to answer it.
I sure could have engaged him on a higher level, but I have to admit to a serious amount of smoldering rage that had been building for some time. This was the same church where the pastor had recently said in a sermon, "Sometimes I think we take this grace thing a little too far." They kicked a guitar player out of the worship band because he played in bars. There were growing paranoia about unrighteousness in the ranks. It was seriously a nuthouse. I was already gone and just hadn't quite figured it out yet.
In dealing with folks like the optometrist, you suggest a dialogue model. How hopeful of you. The reason I write about such people is because that is the very thing they are opposed to. People like that don't dialogue, they proclaim. If you adopt a counterpoint, they simply condemn you. That doesn't particularly bother me, I can take it, but there are people who swallow their crap because they have been conditioned to live in fear.
As for my "Christian witness" to them, I NEVER think of an encounter with another human being as a "witnessing" opportunity. To do so, in my opinion, is to reduce them from human to object, not to mention the utter ineffectiveness of whatever "witness" I might think I am performing.
By the way, thanks for your well-reasoned and gently pushing comments, Cneil.
You have the distinction of being my 10,000the visitor and 29,829th page view. Your prizes should arrive in the mail soon.
I think you might enjoy this piece at World O'Crap.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2005/10/31.html#a1947
Best thing I read all day, comments included.
Yes, the mall is evil.
Those who are interested should really check out Death Makes a Holiday by David Skal, a cultural history of Halloween. He spends a lot of time examining the supposed "demonic influence" of Halloween/All Hallow's Eve/Samhain. Skal's a hell of a lively writer who clearly adores the subject, and his books are always very well researched. He's got one out now about the role of the Mad Scientist in fiction and film that I'm itching to get my hands on.
There's a good audio interview with him here (link is to an mp3 file, Skal's interview begins about 4 minutes in) about Halloween.
Oh, and evidently the Wallace & Gromit movie is not good for kids, either.
Yes, I recommend the Skal book. He is scholarly and even-handed: a refreshing approach to this topic.
Just don't buy his book at the mall. Evil, evil place. Buy it at Wal-Mart instead. God lives there.
I followed the link to the Wallace & Gromit review that middleclasstool mentioned and then scrolled down to look at the links from that website. I found one devoted to the HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA!!!!!!!
It was pretty entertaining.
And I'm no math whiz, but could anyone explain the following figures and tell me how they make sense?
(Direct quote from the link)
Homosexuals account for only 1-2% of our population based on current surveys. The National Opinion Research Center in 1992 found that 2.8% of men and 1.4% of women identified themselves as “homosexual” or “bisexual. A 1995 survey of 18-49-year-old men published by the Journal of Sex Research indicated that 2.6% of them had engaged in homosexual sex within the prior 12 months; 4% had had homosexual sex within the past five years. In other words, at least 98-99% of our population is heterosexual in orientation.
(End of quote)
Huh?
I love Halloween. Possibly because I get to dress my alter ego (SINNER!!!) and take it out to parties. (Which leads me to wonder what it says about me that I tend toward costumes with a biker chick/streetwalker/pirate wench theme...but perhaps we'll discuss that another day).
I think we can find evil everywhere, in everyone, in everthing. If we look hard enough. We can also find good, clean, lets-play-pretend fun which all us children need in regular doses regardless of our chronological age.
Thanks for the post. Spot on and glad you escaped the scary church. I'm afraid i rather enjoyed the Wallace and Gromit film, perhaps i'm just a bad Christian. And, come to think of it, maybe the fire at their warehouse was the judgement of God?? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4326286.stm)
This is good.
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