Why we celebrate Halloween

"Mock the devil, and he will flee from thee. Fear of the devil leads to devil worship." Bono

"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.", Martin Luther


Now, how often do these two get quoted together? More often lately, I am guessing, but I use them to illustrate why we do Halloween at our house.

Notice, I didn't say celebrate, because to me celebrate means we love the darkness, evil, the devil, etc. And there is an element of that in Halloween that is disturbing, no question. And, if it is left there, it is not something I would touch.

But, Halloween is more than that, the fun, the costumes, the trick or treating, etc is a way for us to confront what we fear. And more than that, to make fun of it, to belittle it. But, how can we do that?

The answer comes in Christ and his complete work in our lives. His perfect love that lives in us casts out fear, drives away the devil in scorn, showing him for what he really is, a prideful fraud. And, it does the same for us, as the Cross exposes our self reliance, the worship of our selves and the idols that set themselves up in our lives. The cross mocks them.

Because, that is what God does with idols in the Bible. Colossians 2:15 that Jesus exposes the authorities, things in our lives, Satan for what they really are, silly, ridiculous frauds. And, the Old Testament tells us more. I call it the Elijah treatment. Check it out in 2 Kings 18. Basically, the prophets of Baal think their god can overcome Elijah's God, they cut themselves, they shout, they get naked, etc. Baal doesn't show up and Elijah mocks them with such expressions as "is your god out taking a piss?"

God does this sort of thing all the time. He treats idols and idol worship with contempt, especially among His people. And, the way He treats it in my life and the way I want to treat evil, and my fears when the become idols in my life.

So, we do Halloween, not celebrate it. We do not celebrate evil, the devil, witches or anything that is morbid. But, rather, we mock our fears, mock the devil, and mock anything that thinks it is more powerful than God. So, as my family does pumpkins, passes out treats, or goes trick or treating, we tell the devil, the darkness and our idols,

Piss off, I belong to Christ and I no longer fear the night.

Tyranny of the Majority

I have not written a serious, churchy post in awhile. I think it is because even though I am an assistant pastor, discussing church things have been hard for me.

Why? Well, let me just say from a few hard experiences in my time in ministry thus far. And, while most of those hard times come from my own sin, there is something else at work and indeed at work in the church in America that has spit it's poison into much of evangelical Christianity.

I am talking about the tyranny of the majority.

My church is currently training the guys who will be elders. In the PCA, we have elders that rule the church and they are divided up into two classes, Teaching Elders and Ruling Elders. The Ruling elders are lay folks elected to eldership by the congregation while the Teaching Elders are formally trained in seminary, etc.

Anyway, we were talking about what sort of church we would be in if we were not presbyterian. It was interesting to see that most, if not all of the guys in the training said they would be baptists or some other form of congregational style of church government. I think I shocked them all when I said I would go the other way, to the Episcopal side.

I guess my reasons are plenty. You could chalk it up to my catholic upbrining, my desire for the ancient and holy in worship or as my wife might say, I like the dramatic. But, really, it comes down for me to what I call the tyranny of the majority.

Protestants, especially in America, are chronically allergic to the idea that a bishop and a priest should be in charge. They talk about how one man can be corrupted by power, etc. I think that is most certainly true and a valid argument to a degree. The argument then runs that people can be trusted to elect their leaders and pastors themselves. Which then assume an opposite error, that the majority is not sinful.

I am not sure what to think of this reasoning. I am sure I have overstated the case, but really that is the heart of it. But sin cuts at everything. The Majority do make mistakes, sinful tragic ones. The Majority can make tragic assumptions that lead to broken lives, broken people, broken churches and broken pastors. Or, really, someone leads that majority into those things, which brings out the irony: One man brings about the corruption of many.

So, what to do with that? For me, right now, the answer is what we do in the PCA, there is a give and take, between the congregation and its leaders. Give and take between the local church and the presbytery. The system is by no means perfect and has many flaws, but it works for now. I think the important to remember is that the Gospel has to be the center or nothing, not presbyterian, not congregationlist, nor Episcopal system of government will work.