Can a day be evil?

As I went for a walk this morning, I pondered all of the activity that would take place today. Kids will trick-or-treat, parents will pass out candy, and to some this day will be full of fear and loathing because it is evil. Some folks over at Family Life sure do.

E-mail from Kansas City MO: After my pastor explained to the congregation what it meant, I knew that Halloween was not something that I wanted to participate in and I do not allow my children to celebrate this evil day.

E-mail from Lubbock TX: Don't even acknowledge that Halloween is celebrated. The harvest fests that are celebrated on that day should not even take place. Yes, they do give the kids something to do, but it is still acknowledging that the day is there.

E-mail from Phillipsburg, KS: For parents who think, "Oh, what's the big deal" - I have a sister who dabbles in Wiccan (white witchcraft) and this is a RELIGIOUS holiday for her. It is not innocent - parents need to wake up and recognize this as an evil holiday, and protect their children rather than allowing our culture and social pressure to draw them in.

Now, I’ve never been one to buy into the occult relationship with Halloween. I loved Halloween as a kid. We would go trick-or-treating when I was young and "bombing" when I was older. Now, bombing is a fun activity whereby people in their teens who live in the Chicago area agree to show up at a specific location and pelt each other with eggs, shaving cream, and other innocuous items. It's very fun.

Tonight, we will have a small get together for my daughter and her friends. The dads will take the kids trick-or-treating, while the moms get to hang out, drink margaritas, and pass out candy.

What are you going to do? Do you treat Halloween like it's evil? Do you let your kids partake? I guess this post really raises the question, can a day be evil? Can you partake in something evil with a pure hear?

There is a reason heresy and hysterical sound similar.

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/0512/jesus.mov


If you are easily offended do not watch this clip.

A Dark Picture of Salvation

I often visit a few, how do you say, fundamentalist web sites. I like to get a balanced view and unfortunately, this is not possible from one site when it comes to faith. So, you have to go to several and somehow combine the good information and dump the rest. So, I go to this site and found a few interesting comments.

The context here is a stark criticism of the emergent church movement (ECM). Now, I am no expert on the ECM nor do I really have an opinion on the whole matter. Nevertheless, I found all of the flack that the ECM was taking to be interesting if nothing else. Following are a few comments about a particular ECM pastor and anyone who follows agrees with him. Unfortunately, the comments paint a dark picture of the type of salvation espoused by this fundamentalist group who is criticizing the ECM.

One person writes:

I've often thought a good challenge to younger Christians (or anyone enchanted by the ECM) today would go something like this:

"If Jesus told you to be SQUARE for him, would you do it? Would you wear average-looking clothes and have an average-looking hairstyle for Him, if He asked you to? Would you submit to your parents and teachers, even if you believed they were wrong, if Jesus asked you to? Would you go to a traditional church and submit to the elders there, and sing 'How Great Thou Art' and 'The Old Rugged Cross' and other 'outdated' songs every week, for Jesus' sake? Would you put up with an antiquated worship style out of love for your brothers and sisters in Christ above the age of 50, if He asked you to? Are you willing to be UNCOOL for Jesus?"

Show me a young man or woman who's willing to do that for the Lord's sake, and I'll show you someone who's got the Holy Spirit.

And, if the test of true faithfulness to the Lord (aka the square peg, uncool Christian perspective) wasn’t enough for you, perhaps eternal damnation for poor taste will be:

"Jokes about flatulence are not cussing" (well that's a handy bit of information)
They are also not funny and not edifying. They also are very close to if not outright blasphemy when said about our Lord and Savior (are you telling me that Jesus didn't fart?). Time for some people to grow up and realize that potty humor went out in Kindergarten (guilty, I love a good fart joke).

So let’s recap, if you are stylish, rebellious, speak your mind when you have an opinion, and are unwilling to submit to a 50s lifestyle then you are unsaved…Oh, don’t forget jokes about Jesus farting.

It seems to me that it’s all about falling in line, doing it the appropriate way, keeping the tradition. Why do we all have to conform in order to be saved? I thought God made us individuals…I thought He knows the number of hairs on my head, not the average number of hairs on the heads of all those who love him. Why do we have to be the same, think the same, believe the same? Why does my faith have to be made from the same mold as everyone else?

Quit Going to Church!

Now, I cannot remember where I found this but it has the ring of some stupid church person forwarding schlock around the internet:

A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years
now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons.
But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked
Some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this .. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"


Obviously, this guys wife is a bad cook and he is incapable of making a sandwich. He must be the guy that all of the Hardy's commercials are aimed at. I would contend that it makes no sense to go to church for slightly different reasons including the following:

WARNING: sweeping generalizations ahead...

CAVEAT: I know, I know, your church is sooo different, your pastor would never act like this, and the "real" church that you go to is full of love, kindness, and goodwill just like Jesus. I'm sure it is.)

• Most of the crap spewed out during the sermon is so absent of truth that you should either (a) go to church and not listen to/forget what you've heard or (b) just not go.
• All of the fake people who try to blow sunshine up your butt when things are bad when all you need is some real compassion, understanding, and friendship.
• All of the power-hungry, manipulating bastards who want your money, time, energy, or children.
• Isolationistspeople who want to separate themselves from "the world" and ignore the hurting around them when they, ostensibly, have the cure to the hurting.
• To show the church leaders that you want something different can buy crap at Wal-Mart, hear lies on TV, be manipulated at work or school, be robbed of my dignity by my "friends", and be ignored because I'm of no consequence just about anywhere. I WANT JESUS AT CHURCH NOT THE CRAP YOU ARE SELLING!
  
  Tell me the reasons you don't go to church.
  
  Tell me the reasons I should go to church. I want to know because right now, I see no reason to go.
  
  

Church Motivation

The following post is a recent comment:

Nicole said...
I think the reasons that people in general go to church are for:
1.) A sense of efficacy
2.) A sense of meaning and purpose
3.) Social support

Those are the three things everyone needs in order to function. It's the buildnig blocks of helping people get better mentally, and most people could broadly fit in one or all of those categories in their reasons for church attendance.


Nicole, I agree with your three points. Your comment may even be a better way to summarize the list than I have. However, I think the terms you use all have a benevolent connotation. Frankly, I don't think that's the case. Don't get me wrong, I would prefer it be that way, but in my experience, that's fantasy land.

I would estimate that at least one third of the people who come to church do so to with malicious motivation.
1) They seek to achieve a sense of self-efficacy by dominating others and exerting themselves in a hostile manner. This is really just a cover for extremely weak self-esteem.
2) They pervert the message of our faith to manufacture a sense of meaning and purpose. Once attached to this new purpose, they now have a position of moral superiority from which they can demean and chastise others.
3) They also come to live under the illusion of a social support system that they unwittingly work to destroy.

I think Nicole is absolutely right! She has listed the primary points of motivation for church attendance; however, in a sign of genuineness and a pure heart, she has left out the counter example of which I am always ready to supply. I think I’ve just revealed a lot about myself.

Faith That is Alive and Growing

Now, I'm no "fan" of Brennan Manning. In fact, his name really turns me off. I know, that's shallow but I don't know what to do about it. However, I have read one of his books, Abba's Child, and really liked it. Below is an excerpt from another one of his books "The Ragamuffin Gospel" (again, the name makes me want to smash things). It starts off a little shady but gets into the concept of growing faith. The conclusion is that faith is always growing...I think I've been pruned recently but I agree with the growing faith comment.


"Faith means you want God and want to want nothing else. When God's love is taken for granted, we paint Him into a corner and rob Him of the opportunity to love us in a new and surprising way, and faith begins to shrivel and shrink. When I become so spiritually advanced that Abba is old hat, then the Father has been had, Jesus has been tamed, the Spirit has been corralled and the...fire has been extinguished...To be Christian, faith has to be new, that is alive and growing. It cannot be static, finished, settled...when I conclude that I can now cope with the awful love of God I have headed for the shallows to avoid the deeps."

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel