Hallowe'en

Halloween is just round the corner. I thought I’d give you some of my thoughts on this event. They’re offered as a starting point in an ongoing discussion.

1. Halloween is commercially significant

In the US it’s the 2nd most popular holiday and it generates 4-6 Billion Dollars in revenue. In the UK it’s the 3rd behind Christmas and Easter. Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny are holding Freddy Krueger at bay for the moment. But it’s changing.

2. Halloween is historically significant

The origins of Halloween date back over 2000 years to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain [sow-in], a word that means the end of summer. This festival celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of the Celtic New Year on November 1st.

By 43AD the Roman Empire had conquered most of the Celtic regions and in the following 400 years the Roman festival of Feralia was incorporated into it. This was day in late October when the Romans commemorated the passing of the dead.

By the 800s Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the 8th century Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st All Saints' Day to honour those saints that didn't have a special day of their own. You wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out!
The Pope hoped to put a Christian spin on the pagan Celtic festival with a church-sponsored holiday [after all it had worked with Christmas]. Over the years the festival became known as All Hallows and the night before was known as All Hallows Eve or Halloween.

3. Halloween is spiritually significant
I have no wish to be reactionary but I’ve got issues with Halloween. I’m not about to mount a campaign. I’m aware that Christians have a reputation for the ‘spot it and stop it’ routine and I have no desire to strengthen that conviction. But to use an old Naval saying let me run these up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes them!
I’ve got issues with Halloween because

1. Halloween has become a time when wickedness is domesticated

Evil is portrayed as innocent. I think the Bible allows a place for imagination, pretence and fantasy but Halloween allows elements from the dark side of spirituality to be accepted in mainstream culture. It’s become a holiday of cultural fascination with evil and the demonic. Evil is portrayed as innocent and fun. And it’s neither. We need to remember the wickedness of evil. The devil and his demons are real. We have a real spiritual adversary who seeks our destruction. Of course through our identification with Christ we have nothing to fear from an enemy that he’s already defeated. But nevertheless wickedness and evil ought to be exposed, opposed and loathed. But our approach may actually be encouraging fascination with something that’s ultimately damaging.

2. Halloween has become a time when we celebrate what scares us

Out of love for the vulnerable, particularly children we ought to protect them from things that frighten them. Walking into Woolworths to be confronted by hairy spiders, a witch’s mask and a giant bat is not most young children’s idea of fun. At least our films have classification guidelines that allow parents the freedom to make a decision but no such restraint is exercised at this time of the year. We may be strong enough to cope with the associations with evil without being tainted and we may be brave enough to cope with the frightening images but not everyone is and as Christians we should therefore limit our freedom in love for others.

3. Halloween has become a time when we teach our children that extortion is acceptable

What else is trick or treat? We give people in our neighbourhood a choice between a rock and a hard place. It’s either ‘give me a treat’ or ‘I give you a trick’. Isn’t that what organised crime does?!

So, what could you do on thenight when the local children come to your door escorted by their elder siblings or their parents?
The following advice needs to be adapted to our personality and the age of the child on our doorstep!

1. Comment on their outfits and say something positive about how much time and trouble they went to.
2. Ask, ‘who do you think is the most powerful spiritual being in the world?’ and say no to all of their answers. Then ask them, ‘who do you think the devil is really scared of?’
3. Tell them that God once sent a baby from heaven to earth and when he grew up he scared the living daylights out of every evil spirit that he met. He even engaged in face to face combat with the devil and won. The devil thought he must have won when he was killed on a cross but it turned out that this was the killer blow that led to his complete and utter defeat and will lead to his future destruction.
4. Give them a sweet, hand out a tract like the one entitled ‘Halloween … What a Scream’ from the Good Book Company and tell them to come to church if they want to find out more!

Sources

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/halloween.shtml
‘Halloween … It’s A Scream’ The Good Book Company
‘Matters of Opinion: Hallowing Halloween: Why Christians should embrace the devilish holiday with gusto – and laughter’ A. M. Rearick III, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/october2/29.79.html
R. Mouw, ‘Making Real Decisions About Halloween’, http://www.beliefnet.com/story/47/story_4761_2.html

The Book of the Term: Autumn 2007

'Prayer and the Voice of God' Phillip D. Jensen & Tony Payne, Matthias Media

I am not someone who instinctively prays. I’m someone who acts not someone who prays! There have been times when I’ve attributed this to temperament and training. But really, it’s unbelief. That’s why I need to keep reading books like this one from Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen. For all of my Christian life I’ve been a fan of their work. I can’t think of a single resource of theirs that I’ve used that hasn’t benefited my Christian life. The same could be said for their book on prayer.

One of the great strengths of their books is that they’re clear and simple. This one is cast from the same die. In one sense it’s is nothing special. It simply collates and rehearses much of the useful biblical teaching that we’ve heard on prayer over the years. But that’s its value. What it offers is not new techniques but a convincing biblical presentation of what prayer is and why we should do it.

The book consists of ten Chapters spread over a little less than 200 pages. It costs £7. The chapters are short enough to be read on a tube trip up to town or accompanying a mocha latte!

In chapter 1 entitled, ‘Prayer and God’s Voice’ the authors argue that prayers is the most naturally unnatural thing for us to do. It’s natural because anyone can do it and often everyone does. It’s unnatural because it’s seeking an intervention from the supernatural. And so they define prayer as essentially 'asking God for something'.
The central premise of chapter two, ‘The God of Prayer’, is that prayer is determined by who God is. Given that God the able, willing, personal, holy and merciful God is also our Father we should have massive confidence to approach Him and ask Him for things.
The topic of why we should pray at all is tackled in chapter three, ‘Why Pray?’ We should pray because it’s very great privilege, it expresses the relationship of faith we enjoy with Him, it’s not an optional extra in the Christian life and because God has promised to hear and to act.
Why we don’t pray begins to scratch at the reasons why prayer is not the feature that it ought to be in our Christian lives. Jensen and Payne suggest that the reasons can be traced to a faulty view of God, a wrong understanding of our relationship with God and the presence of a real spiritual enemy.
The fifth chapter tells us ‘How to Pray’. The authors argue that prayer is not a time to hear God’s voice, it’s a time to respond to God’ voice. They speak to the essence of prayer and do not present a step-by-step technique, emphasizing the importance of both novelty and regularity in this task. They say rightly that prayer is not a matter of technique but of relationship.
Chapter six, ‘The Desires of God’ and chapter seven, ‘the Anxieties of Life’ deal with what ought to occupy the content of our prayers. Chapter six is a longer chapter but it includes a helpful summary of the Lord ’s Prayer. There’s some overlap with Don Carson’s brilliant book on prayer entitled, ‘A Call to Spiritual Reformation’. But this is the place to begin. Chapter seven touches on what to pray and what to expect when we pray in the midst of situations where we have no idea what to pray.
‘What Happens When We Pray?’ is the title of chapter eight. It explains the mechanics of prayer. The authors answer two questions. The first is ‘does God actually listen?’ The second is ‘does anything actually change?’
The brief chapter entitled, ‘Fellowship of Prayer’ is an encouragement to meet up with others in order to stimulate one another as we struggle in prayer. Any of us who've been in a prayer triplet ought to be nodding in agreement throughout this chapter!
The ‘Seven Common Questions’ of chapter ten are the standard queries raised by an audience. The answers are gentle, clear and explain the biblical text. Whether they’re our questions or not they’ll be right on the money for someone in our small group.
The book then concludes with a brief summary chapter and a chapter by chapter discussion guide with questions.

Why not buy a copy and read it this term? If you’re part of a triplet you could arrange to read a couple of chapters before you meet each week, answer the discussion questions and chat about what you’ve learnt. You could team up with someone, perhaps someone in your KG group and agree to work through the book and e-mail each other with some surprising observations, a few implications and a couple of resolutions. To get a copy of this book e-mail John Lumgair on john@quirkymotion.com.

The real value of this book is that it improved my praying. It was a real shot in the arm. I think it’ll help everyone else whether we’re frequent prayers or whether it’s been quite some time since what we had might be described as a routine. If that's a description that you recognise, can I suggest that it’s been long enough? Don’t waste any more time in prayerlessness. Get a copy, get reading and get your Christian life back on the rails.