Surveying the literature on worship currently being published, and listening to the conversations currently taking place among the churches, one can quickly discern that worship is now one of the most controversial issues in the local congregation. As a matter of fact, many current book titles in the evangelical world suggest that what the church faces today is “worship warfare.” The very combination of the words “worship” and “war” should lead us to very sincere and sober biblical reflection. What is worship? And what does God desire that we should do in worship?
The symptomology of the current confusion over worship is seen in the fact that now many believe some modifier or adjective must be appended to the word “worship” in order to indicate that will take place. Traditional worship, liturgical worship, contemporary worship, blended worship, seeker-sensitive worship, praise and worship! But what in the world is worship?
It is true that worship has led to some warfare. In local congregations we see not only confusion, but also fighting, controversy and splitting. And what is the meaning of all of this? Jack Hayford, one of the nation’s most eloquent proponents of “renewal worship,” suggests that nothing less than a new reformation is taking place. The reformation of the sixteenth century was a reformation of doctrine. It was a necessary reformation as biblical truth was recovered. But he says we are experiencing in this generation a reformation in worship that is just as necessary and just as historic.
My concern is that the issue of worship will define not only our church services, but also our theology and our beliefs about God. There is no more important issue for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ than that we worship as God would have us to worship Him.
Geoffrey Wainwright of Duke University reminds us that theology and worship are inextricably linked. Setting the context of missions as primary, he entitled his systematic project Doxology. We should be reminded that the purpose of the theologian is to serve the church so that the people of God worship Him more faithfully. By understanding God’s revelation in His Word we know how He would wish to be worshiped. The Lord himself reminded us that God seeks those worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:23). But what does it mean to worship God in spirit? What does it mean to worship Him in truth?
Theology is by definition not an ivory tower discipline. It is not merely a form of academic discourse. When rightly conducted, theology is the conversation of the people of God seeking to understand the Lord whom we worship and how He wills to be worshiped. So, we might ask in that light, what are the proper conditions of evangelical worship? What is the pattern for worship among those persons who claim to be established in the gospel and submitted to the Word of God?
We know the history of worship through the ages. We know what took place in the Reformation. We know what transpired in the English reforms. We know what took place as features were stripped away that were considered to be unbiblical—and yet we see these same things returning. What is the condition of evangelical worship? It is not an exaggeration to suggest words such as pandemonium, confusion, and consternation.
In the midst of the upheaval, there is a great deal of encouragement to be found from reading the late A. W. Tozer. This is what he said some decades ago: “We have the breezy, self-confident Christians with little affinity for Christ and His cross. We have the joy-bell boys that can bounce out there and look as much like a game show host as possible. Yet, they are doing it for Jesus’ sake?! The hypocrites! They’re not doing it for Jesus’ sake at all; they are doing it in their own carnal flesh and are using the church as a theater because they haven’t yet reached the place where the legitimate theater would take them.
Tozer takes his argument further: “It is now common practice in most evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend the meeting where the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God’s professed children are bored with Him for they must be wooed to meeting with a stick of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games and refreshments.”
This has influenced the whole pattern of church life and even brought into being a new type of church architecture designed to house the golden calf. So we have the strange anomaly of orthodoxy in creed and heterodoxy in practice. The striped candy technique has so fully integrated into our present religious thinking that it is simply taken for granted. Its victims never dream that it is not a part of teachings of Christ and His apostles. Any objection to the carryings-on of our present gold calf Christianity is met with the triumphant reply, “But we are winning them.” And winning them to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To nobility of character? To a despising of the world’s treasures? To hard self-discipline? To love for God? To total commitment to Christ?
Of course, the answer to all of these questions is “no.” As these words were written several decades ago, Tozer certainly saw the future. But there are contemporary witnesses as well. Kent Hughes, who is Senior Pastor of the College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, has written perceptively on this issue. Hughes put it this way: “The unspoken but increasingly common assumption of today’s Christendom is that worship is primarily for us—to meet our needs. Such worship services are entertainment focused, and the worshipers are uncommitted spectators who are silently grading the performance. From this perspective preaching becomes a homiletics of consensus—preaching to felt needs—man’s conscious agenda instead of God’s. Such preaching is always topical and never textual. Biblical information is minimized, and the sermons are short and full of stories. Anything and everything that is suspected of making the marginal attender uncomfortable is removed from the service….Taken to the nth degree, this philosophy instills a tragic selfcenteredness. That is, everything is judged by how it affects man. This terribly corrupts one’s theology.”
Hughes is right. Our confused worship corrupts our theology and our weak theology corrupts our worship. Are these voices alarmist? They do mean to sound an alarm. But there are others who are saying, “Don’t worry—be happy—go worship.” One recent church growth author has written, “Worship is like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to be. Transportation and communication are imperative; the mode or vehicle is not imperative. Some worship God in cathedrals with the rich traditional organ tomes of Bach and Faure from the classics of Europe. They travel in a Mercedes Benz. Some worship God in simple wooden churches with a steeple pointing heavenward. They sing the gospel songs of Charles Wesley or Fanny Cosby. They travel in a Ford or Chevy. Some worship God with the contemporary sounds of praise music with a gentle beat. They travel in a convertible sports coupe. Some worship God to the whine of a guitar and the amplifiers to the max. They travel on a motorcycle, without a muffler.”
But surely there is more to worship than the spectrum of taste from a Mercedes Benz to a motorcycle. There must be something weightier here. “Worship is like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to be.” Can that be said with a straight face as we listen to the Scripture speak of worship? We know from the onset that there are many different Christian opinions concerning worship. This does not come to us as news. But the real issue for us this morning is whether or not God Himself has an opinion on this issue. Does God care how He is worshiped? Or is He some kind of laissez-faire deity who cares not how His people worship Him, but is resting in the hopes that some people in some place will in some way worship him?
Scripture reveals that God does care. Leviticus 10:1-3 serves as a witness to this point. “Now Nadad and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.’”
These were Aaron’s sons. But they did what God had not commanded them to do in worship. They brought strange fire to the altar and they were consumed. Clearly, God does have an opinion about worship. He is the God whom we have come to know in Jesus Christ, the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. He is a jealous God—a God who loves us and is calling out a people but a God who instructs and commands His people that we should worship Him rightly.
In one sense, I think you can say looking throughout the Bible that there has been worship warfare even in the Scripture itself. As a matter of fact, I think you can look back to the very first murder and see that it had to do with worship as well. What is an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord? Cain and Abel saw this issue differently.
Well, Scripture makes clear that worship is something that we do, not just something we attend. It is not merely an issue for the pastor and other ministers. It is not just an issue for the musicians and those who will plan the service. It is an issue for the entire congregation, for worship is something we do together. It is our corporate and common responsibility to worship God as He desires.
Where shall we turn for instruction on how we ought to worship? There is only one place we can turn, and that is to the Word of God. The norm of our worship must be the Word of God—this Word that He has spoken. As we turn to this Word, we do see a pattern of worship, a pattern that is replicated throughout the fabric of Scripture from beginning to the end.
==============================
Where shall we turn for instruction on how we ought to worship? There is
only one place we can turn, and that is to the Word of God. The norm of our
worship must be the Word of God—this Word that He has spoken. As we turn to
this Word, we do see a pattern of worship, a pattern that is replicated
throughout the fabric of Scripture from beginning to the end.
Scripture is, as the Reformers confessed, norma normans non normata, “The
norm of norms which cannot be normed.” Sola Scriptura. This is the norm
of our worship. There is nothing external to Scripture that can norm or correct
it. Scripture sets the terms, and in Isaiah 6:1-8 we see a picture of authentic
worship.
In this well-known “call” passage of Isaiah, the prophet experienced a
theophany: a vision of the true and living God. Out of this encounter, Isaiah
received his call as a prophet.
Isaiah recounts that it was in the year of King Uzziah’s death that he
saw the Lord sitting on a throne lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe
filling the temple.
What does it mean that God sat on a throne? Well, clearly it is a symbol
of kingship and sovereignty. The throne indicates that the one who sits upon it
is both king and judge. It represents both power and righteousness.
But there is more to this high and exalted Lord who revealed himself to
Isaiah. The one whose train filled the temple with His glory is not alone.
Isaiah is not alone. There are beings here with him. Verse two tells us that “seraphim
stood above him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with
two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.”
These seraphim (literally, “burning ones”) had six wings, and these six
wings convey a great deal of symbolism. “With two he covered his face.” That
must certainly indicate humility. They dared not look at the holiness of God. “And
with two he covered his feet.” Surely this represents purity. “And with two he
flew.” But these winged creatures are not merely flying. “And one called out to
another and said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is
full of His glory.”
We know the words, “Holy, Holy, Holy” as the “trisagion.” In the Hebrew
language there is no adequate comparative or superlative form, so the pattern
of repetition is used in order to make a point. We see this thrice-repeated
pattern again in Revelation 4:8-11: “And the four living creatures, each one of
them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night
they do not cease to say, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the almighty, who
was and who is and who is to come.”
The early church saw in this pattern a Trinitarian understanding. As we
look back with New Testament eyes, we can certainly see that affirmation, but
the central point of this construction seems to be the same as in Genesis
14:10. There we find reference to the construction “pit, pit,” which may be translated
“deep and great pit.” It is one thing to fall into a pit. It is another thing
to fall into a “pit, pit.” But here we see God’s essence, identity, and being
characterized by the attribute of holiness.
What does the holiness of God mean? It means certainly His separateness
from his creation. He is what we are not. We are finite; He is infinite. God is
transcendent. God’s separateness certainly reveals the difference, the infinite
contrast between His moral nature and ours. Holiness also certainly refers to
His majesty and power.
J. Alec Motyer defines holiness as “God’s total and unique moral
majesty.” It is a wonderful expression—God’s total and unique moral majesty. E.
J. Young suggests that holiness is the entirety of the divine perfection that separates
God from His creation. That which is almost beyond our definition is what makes
God, God. Holiness includes all God’s attributes. His holiness is that which
defines him.
I wonder if the vision of the God held by so many who come to worship is
anything like what the seraphim are telling us here. Do we worship with the
understanding that God is holy and that “the whole earth is full of His glory?”
I fear not. I wonder if in our worship we encounter anything like this vision
of God. Do those who come to our services of worship come face to face with the
reality of God? Or do they go away with a vision of some lesser God, some
dehydrated deity? Worship is the people of God gathering together to confess
his worthiness, his “worth-ship.” How can we do that if we do not make clear
who God is? Our very pattern of worship must testify to the character of God.
There is a polarity between the objective and the subjective. There is
the subjective in worship. But what Scripture makes clear is that the subjective
experience of worship must be predicated on the objective truth of the true and
living God, and on an experience of the God who has revealed Himself in
Scripture.
Roger Scruton, a well-known British philosopher, has suggested that
worship is the most important indicator of what persons or groups really
believe about God. These are his words: “God is defined in the act of worship
far more precisely than he is defined by any theology.” What Scruton is saying
is, in essence: “If you want to know what a people really believe about God,
don’t spend time reading their theologians, watch them worship. Listen to what
they sing. Listen to what they say. Listen to how they pray. Then you will know
what they believe about this God whom they worship.”
My haunting thought concerning much evangelical worship is that the God
of the Bible would never be known by watching us worship. Instead what we see
in so many churches is “McWorship” of a “McDeity.” But what kind of God is that
superficial, that weightless, and that insignificant? Would an observer of our
worship have any idea of the God of the Bible from our worship? I wonder at
times if this is an accidental development, or if it is an intentional evasion.
George Hunter III suggests that a thriving church must practice “celebrative
worship.” He offers two reasons: “1) To provide a celebration to which
pre-Christians can relate and find meaning. 2) To remove the cringe factor by
providing a service our people would love to invite their friends to, rather
than a service they would dread inviting their friends to.” Here is a
fascinating reversal. The purpose of celebrative worship, first, is to provide “a
celebration to which pre-Christians can relate.” But, second, he suggests
removing anything he identifies as “the cringe factor” by providing a service
to which our people would love to invite their friends and not one that they
would dread to invite their friends to attend. But, as we read the Scripture,
it is clear that there is a great deal of the cringe factor in there. In
fact, if you are going to remove the cringe factor from Scripture, then you are
going to end up with a very thin book.
Hebrews 10:31 reveals, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands
of the living God.” I wonder if there is anything that could even be remotely
suggested as a terrifying reality as we present the God we claim to worship in
what we do and what we say. Just look at the decline in our hymnody.
Scripture tells us that we should speak “to one another with psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph 5:19). But how are our hymns to be measured? We
must measure them by their content, by the God they reveal, and here we see a
decline in evangelical hymnody. We see a surrender of conviction and
accommodation to the culture. We see nothing less than a “dumbing down” of its
contents. We have gone from “Holy, Holy, Holy” to “God the Swell Fellow.”
In her book, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, Marva Dawn has
suggested that so much of contemporary music is an evacuation of Christian
conviction. It is not just a matter of taste and style, it is not just the
abandonment of meter and form and hymnody and structure— it is the abandonment
of content. We must avoid such an abandonment. But we must also be clear that
not all that goes under the label of “praise and worship music” is an
abandonment of doctrinal truth. Much of it is richly biblical. Much of it is
taken directly out of the Psalter and other biblical passages. But the salient
question is “By what standard are we to judge worship?” Is it simply the taste
or style of the congregation’s choosing? So much of what passes for music, for
praise, in our congregations comes down to endless repetition of choruses
which, as one critic has suggested, comes down to this: “one word, two notes,
and three hours.” We have all been there.
What is the result of this accommodated Christianity? I quote Tozer
again: We have simplified until Christianity amounts to this: God is love;
Jesus died for you; believe, accept, be jolly, have fun and tell others. And away
we go—that is the Christianity of our day. I would not give a plug nickel for
the whole business of it. Once in a while God has a poor bleeding sheep that
manages to live on that kind of thing and we wonder how.
True worship begins with a vision of the God of the Bible—the true and
living God.
==============================
Today, March 31, 2006, marks the one year anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s
death by starvation. All too quickly, Terri’s name and cause disappeared from
the national awareness as our attention-deficit culture moved on to other
issues and other concerns.
Just in time for the anniversary of her death, publishers have released
books written by Terri’s former husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents—each
offering competing visions of Terri’s life and the meaning of Terri’s death.
Given the symbolic nature of this sad anniversary, another flurry of news
stories, cable news programs, and media commentaries are likely to appear. But,
has America learned anything about the sanctity of human life over the past
twelve months?
There are signs that Americans may actually be resigning themselves to
the inevitability of euthanasia and the Culture of Death. In the aftermath of
Terri Schiavo’s death, a wave of commentary appeared, offering the suggestion
that what Americans should have learned from the controversy was that personal
autonomy should triumph over all other moral concerns and priorities. Beyond
this, others have been quick to point accusing fingers at political figures,
including George W. Bush, who attempted to intervene on behalf of Terri’s life.
All this suggests that most people address this controversy with
considerable confusion. When it comes to matters of life and death, we moderns
face quandaries and questions unimaginable in previous generations.
Regrettably, we are now attempting to answer those questions while the very
worldview that would offer hope and moral assistance is being undermined and rejected.
Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of
the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton
University, argues that “a crucial line divides those who affirm and those who
deny that the life of each human being possesses inherent and equal worth and
dignity, irrespective not only of race, ethnicity, age, and sex (as everyone
agrees), but stage of development, mental or physical infirmity, and condition
of dependency.”
Professor George addressed these issues as a panelist at an event
sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the Federalist Society,
and the Constitution Project. An edited form of his comments is published as “Terminal
Logic,” in the March 2006 edition of Touchstone.
As George rightly insists, those who attempt to distinguish between “mere
biological human life” and a “person,” are on the wrong side of this divide.
Most often, those who make this distinction are attempting to suggest that persons
possess rights while those who are merely forms of “biological human life” do
not.
Professor George’s clarification of these issues is urgently important
and serves as a basic corrective to so much of the nonsense and confusion that
characterizes the contemporary debate over human personhood, euthanasia, and
related questions. If human beings are divided between those who are presumably
persons and those who are not, this raises the whole question of how we are to
understand “pre-personal” and “post-personal” human lives.
As Professor George explains, those who insist on the distinction
between biological life and persons will “insist the question is
not, When does the life of human being begin or end?, but, When does a human
being qualify or cease to qualify as a person, and therefore a creature with a
serious right to life? Those they regard as non-persons do not possess such a
right, though killing them may be wrong for some reason other than that killing
them denies the inherent dignity of persons.”
Every moral argument is based upon some
preconditions and presuppositions. The argument that human beings are to be divided between
those who are merely biologically alive and those who possess sufficient
qualities to be considered as persons is based upon a worldview that privileges
human autonomy over other moral goods. As Professor George explains, “The
right of autonomy immunizes individual choice in matters having to do with how
one leads one’s own life against interference by others, including the state,
especially when the choices do not directly damage the interests or violate the
rights of others.”
The triumph of personal autonomy over other moral goods has allowed
abortion advocates to argue that a woman’s supposed right of personal autonomy
trumps any claim that an unborn baby has an inherent right to life. After all,
according to this logic, the woman is herself a person while the unborn baby is
something less, perhaps a “pre-person” in some stage of development. When
advocates and opponents of abortion argue with each other, they often talk past
one another, with pro-life advocates often missing the fact that those arguing
for abortion rights begin with the presupposition that the woman’s “right
to choose” must triumph over all other concerns and claims, regardless of the
circumstances.
In more recent years, debates over the use and destruction of human
embryos in biomedical research has occasioned similar arguments. Those who
argue for the validity of using and destroying human embryos in medical
experiments or treatments argue that embryos are, at best, “pre-persons” who
simply have no claim upon the moral equation. The claim of autonomy is assigned
to those who would donate such embryos or make the moral decision to destroy
those same embryos in the course of medical experimentation that is most often
delivered with the promise that it will lead to medical treatments for “real”
persons.
Of course, the issue of euthanasia brings the autonomy question into
clear focus. Those arguing for a right to a “good death” do so on the grounds
that a human person has the right to end his or her life as he or she may
please. Once again, autonomy trumps all other moral concerns and claims.
Professor George sets the record straight: “Now, those who oppose
abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide, euthanasia, and so forth, as I do,
oppose them both because we reject the idea that there are or can be
pre-personal or post-personal human beings, or human non-persons of any
description, and because we do not accept the sweeping view of the value of
autonomy. We affirm a doctrine of inherent and equal
dignity that affirms all living human beings as persons, excludes the direct
killing human beings, and demands respect for every individual’s right to life.
Most of us also believe that the law should honor the principle of the sanctity
of human life and not privilege the belief in autonomy over it.”
In one sense, the argument over these questions comes down to a
hierarchy of moral goods and claims. The slide into abortion, euthanasia,
embryo research, and worse is directly traceable to the rise of autonomy as the
supreme moral good in the view of many persons. Of course, this is a fairly new
development in human thinking, but it is perfectly fitted for our times—telling
Americans that their personal autonomy is the most important moral claim we can
conceive.
Terri Schiavo died because her husband sought and obtained a court order
that feeding and hydration should be denied to her. Mrs. Schiavo had suffered a
calamitous physical injury that had clearly affected her brain and powers of
cognition. Still, this injury did not kill her and she did not die as a direct
result of the injury. She died simply because she was starved and dehydrated
until she died—all this at the order of successive courts and at the
instigation of her husband.
The claim for removing her feeding tube and hydration was made on the
basis of her own personal autonomy. Of course, there was no record that Terri
Schiavo had indicated any wish to exercise her autonomy in this way, but the
court received as sufficient her husband’s claim that she had done so in a
recognizably minimal way.
Much of the debate over Terri Schiavo had to do with the contested
question of whether she had actually made any such statement. This misses the more fundamental point—that such a statement
would be immoral and unjustifiable even if made.
In 1992, a group of ethicists known as the Ramsey
Colloquium adopted a statement entitled “Always to Care, Never to Kill.” That
statement offers wisdom that is urgently needed in our reconsideration of the
Terri Schiavo controversy one year later:
“Life, however, is not simply a ‘good’ that we possess. We are
living beings. Our life is our person. To treat our life as a ‘thing’
that we can authorize another to terminate is profoundly dehumanizing.
Euthanasia, even when requested by the competent, can never be a humanitarian
act, for it attacks the distinctiveness and limitations of being human. Persons—ourselves
and others—are not things to be discarded when they are no longer deemed
useful.”
Further: “We can give our life for another, but we cannot give
ultimate authority over our life to another. The painfully learned moral
wisdom of our heritage is that persons cannot ‘own’ persons. The decision for
euthanasia is not an exercise of human freedom but the abandonment of human
freedom. To attempt to turn one’s life into an object that is at the final
disposition of another is to become less than human, while it places the other
in a position of being more than human—a lord of life and death, a possessor of
the personhood of others.”
As Professor George argues, in agreement with the Ramsey Colloquium: “We
are to maintain solidarity with those in disabled conditions, seeking to heal
their afflictions when we can and making every effort to relieve their
suffering and discomfort. At the same time, we should discourage anyone tempted
to regard his life as valueless or merely burdensome to himself or others from
thinking this and from committing suicide. We cannot encourage or assist
suicidal choices and assisted suicide or euthanasia.”
Bad ideas often work their way out of a culture—but at great cost and
over great time. The sad legacy of the twentieth century demonstrates that
truly tragic, pernicious, and deadly ideas and ideologies can take millions
upon millions of victims. We can only hope that Americans will regain some
moral sense and the consciousness of what was lost when Terri Schiavo became
yet another victim of the Culture of Death. When personal autonomy triumphs
over all other moral claims, this kind of tragedy becomes inevitable. A year
after Terri Schiavo’s death, have we learned anything at all?
==============================
Over a hundred years ago, the great Dutch theologian Hermann Bavinck predicted that the 20th century would “witness a gigantic conflict of spirits.” His prediction turned out to be an understatement, and this great conflict continues into the 21st century.
The issue of Halloween presses itself annually upon the Christian conscience. Acutely aware of dangers new and old, many Christian parents choose to withdraw their children from the holiday altogether. Others choose to follow a strategic battle plan for engagement with the holiday. Still others have gone further, seeking to convert Halloween into an evangelistic opportunity. Is Halloween really that significant?
Well, Halloween is a big deal in the marketplace. Halloween is surpassed only by Christmas in terms of economic activity. According to David J. Skal, “Precise figures are difficult to determine, but the annual economic impact of Halloween is now somewhere between 4 billion and 6 billion dollars depending on the number and kinds of industries one includes in the calculations.”
Furthermore, historian Nicholas Rogers claims that “Halloween is currently the second most important party night in North America. In terms of its retail potential, it is second only to Christmas. This commercialism fortifies its significance as a time of public license, a custom-designed opportunity to have a blast. Regardless of its spiritual complications, Halloween is big business.”
Rogers and Skal have each produced books dealing with the origin and significance of Halloween. Nicholas Rogers is author of Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Professor of History at York University in Canada, Rogers has written a celebration of Halloween as a transgressive holiday that allows the bizarre and elements from the dark side to enter the mainstream. Skal, a specialist on the culture of Hollywood, has written Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween. Skal’s approach is more dispassionate and focused on entertainment, looking at the cultural impact of Halloween on the rise of horror movies and the nation’s fascination with violence.
The pagan roots of Halloween are well documented. The holiday is rooted in the Celtic festival of Samhain, which came at summer’s end. As Rogers explains, “Paired with the feast of Beltane, which celebrated the life-generating powers of the sun, Samhain beckoned to winter and the dark nights ahead.” Scholars dispute whether Samhain was celebrated as a festival of the dead, but the pagan roots of the festival are indisputable. Questions of human and animal sacrifices and various occultic sexual practices continue as issues of debate, but the reality of the celebration as an occultic festival focused on the changing of seasons undoubtedly involved practices pointing to winter as a season of death.
As Rogers comments: “In fact, the pagan origins of Halloween generally flow not from this sacrificial evidence, but from a different set of symbolic practices. These revolve around the notion of Samhain as a festival of the dead and as a time of supernatural intensity heralding the onset of winter.
How should Christians respond to this pagan background? Harold L. Myra of Christianity Today argues that these pagan roots were well known to Christians of the past. “More than a thousand years ago Christians confronted pagan rites appeasing the lord of death and evil spirits. Halloween’s unsavory beginnings preceded Christ’s birth when the druids, in what is now Britain and France, observed the end of summer with sacrifices to the gods. It was the beginning of the Celtic year and they believed Samhain, the lord of death, sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking live evil spirits themselves.”
Thus, the custom of wearing costumes, especially costumes imitating evil spirits, is rooted in the Celtic pagan culture. As Myra summarizes, “Most of our Halloween practices can be traced back to the old pagan rites and superstitions.”
The complications of Halloween go far beyond its pagan roots, however. In modern culture, Halloween has become not only a commercial holiday, but a season of cultural fascination with evil and the demonic. Even as the society has pressed the limits on issues such as sexuality, the culture’s confrontation with the “dark side” has also pushed far beyond boundaries honored in the past.
As David J. Skal makes clear, the modern concept of Halloween is inseparable from the portrayal of the holiday presented by Hollywood. As Skal comments, “The Halloween machine turns the world upside down. One’s identity can be discarded with impunity. Men dress as women, and vise versa. Authority can be mocked and circumvented, and, most important, graves open and the departed return.”
This is the kind of material that keeps Hollywood in business. “Few holidays have a cinematic potential that equals Halloween’s,” comments Skal. “Visually, the subject is unparalleled, if only considered in terms of costume design and art direction. Dramatically, Halloween’s ancient roots evoke dark and melodramatic themes, ripe for transformation into film’s language of shadow and light.”
But television’s “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” (which debuted in 1966) has given way to Hollywood’s “Halloween” series and the rise of violent “slasher” films. Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff have been replaced by Michael Myers and Freddy Kruger.
This fascination with the occult comes as America has been sliding into post-Christian secularism. While the courts remove all theistic references from America’s public square, the void is being filled with a pervasive fascination with evil, paganism, and new forms of occultism.
In addition to all this, Halloween has become downright dangerous in many neighborhoods. Scares about razor blades hidden in apples and poisoned candy have spread across the nation in recurring cycles. For most parents, the greater fear is the encounter with occultic symbols and the society’s fascination with moral darkness.
For this reason, many families withdraw from the holiday completely. Their children do not go trick-or-treating, they wear no costumes, and attend no parties related to the holiday. Some churches have organized alternative festivals, capitalizing on the holiday opportunity, but turning the event away from pagan roots and the fascination with evil spirits. For others, the holiday presents no special challenges at all.
These Christians argue that the pagan roots of Halloween are no more significant than the pagan origins of Christmas and other church festivals. Without doubt, the church has progressively Christianized the calendar, seizing secular and pagan holidays as opportunities for Christian witness and celebration. Anderson M. Rearick, III argues that Christians should not surrender the holiday. As he relates, “I am reluctant to give up what was one of the highlights of my childhood calendar to the Great Imposter and Chief of Liars for no reason except that some of his servants claim it as his.”
Nevertheless, the issue is a bit more complicated than that. While affirming that make-believe and imagination are part and parcel of God’s gift of imagination, Christians should still be very concerned about the focus of that imagination and creativity. Arguing against Halloween is not equivalent to arguing against Christmas. The old church festival of “All Hallow’s Eve” is by no means as universally understood among Christians as the celebration of the incarnation at Christmas.
Christian parents should make careful decisions based on a biblically-informed Christian conscience. Some Halloween practices are clearly out of bounds, others may be strategically transformed, but this takes hard work and may meet with mixed success.
The coming of Halloween is a good time for Christians to remember that evil spirits are real and that the Devil will seize every opportunity to trumpet his own celebrity. Perhaps the best response to the Devil at Halloween is that offered by Martin Luther, the great Reformer: “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him for he cannot bear scorn.”
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther began the Reformation with a declaration that the church must be recalled to the authority of God’s Word and the purity of biblical doctrine. With this in mind, the best Christian response to Halloween, might be to scorn the Devil and then pray for the Reformation of Christ’s church on earth. Let’s put the dark side on the defensive.
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