Ladies – Save the date: October 12th, 13th & 14th

Women’s Retreat at the Williamsburg Christian Retreat Center. Cost is $85 per person. For more details, contact Mary Talley.

The Brien Family, missionaries in Nicaragua, are ministering at New Life on Wednesday night, 15 August. We’ll have pizza and soda at 6:30 pm. Then at 7pm we’ll have a couple worship songs to open and then they’ll share for 20 minutes. After that, we’ll spend the rest of the time in prayer.

Check out their blog for more information on their ministry:

http://capital-on-the-edge.blogspot.com/

Highland Retreat Center

14783 Upper Highland Drive
Bergton, VA 22811

Labor Day Weekend
Friday, August 31st – Monday, September 3rd

POC: Mac McKinney

Cost: $30 per site per night without hookup
$35 per site per night with hookup

Halloween and the Middle Ages

What do Christians do with a holiday when pagans refuse to stop practicing it? This was the dilemma that faced Christians in the Middle Ages. (It is also the dilemma facing Christians today with 40 million children going door-to-door each Halloween.)

In 601 A.D. Pope Gregory the First issued a now famous edict to his missionaries concerning the native beliefs and customs of the peoples he hoped to convert. Rather than try to obliterate native peoples’ customs and beliefs, the pope instructed his missionaries to use them: if a group of people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to consecrate it to Christ and build a church around it.

In terms of quickly adding people to the Christian faith, this was a brilliant concept and it became a basic approach used in Catholic missionary work. In many cases, church holy days were purposely set to coincide with native holy days. Christmas, for instance, was assigned the arbitrary date of December 25th because it corresponded with the mid-winter celebration of many peoples.

In 835 Pope Gregory IV decided to move the practice of All Saints’ Day to November 1. This was possibly done to correspond with the Celtic practice of Samhain. The Mass that was said on this day was called Allhallowmas (“the mass of all the holy ones”). The evening before All Saints’ Day became known as All Hallow e’en (“the evening of all the holy ones”). So you see the name “Halloween” is actually Christian, not pagan. It is derived from All Saints Day.

The old beliefs associated with Samhain never died out entirely. The powerful symbolism of fairies, elves, and the traveling dead had a strong tie with the people and they were not satisfied with the new Catholic feast honoring dead saints. When people continued some of the beliefs and practices associated with Samhain, the church increased the rhetoric against Samhain. They branded the earlier religion’s practices as evil, and began to associate them with the devil. As representatives of the rival religion, Druids were considered malevolent worshippers of devilish or demonic gods and spirits. Celtic belief in supernatural creatures (like elves and fairies) persisted, while the church made attempts to define them as being no longer merely mischievous, but wicked. People continued to celebrate All Hallows Eve as a time of the wandering dead, but the supernatural beings were now thought to be Satanic.

How did witches become connected to Halloween? Once the Druids were branded as evil by the church, their practices were looked at as “witchcraft.” Followers of the old religion were persecuted, went into hiding, and were branded as witches who worshipped Satan. This is why European witchcraft became connected with Satan, whereas witchcraft in other areas of the world is animistic in nature. October 31 became known as a witch holiday. It was called “The Witches’ Sabbath” by witch hunters and eventually European witches began celebrating October 31 as one of their four great Sabbaths held during the year.

Of course, in some ways from a Christian standpoint the church’s response makes sense. Doesn’t the Bible view the worship of other gods as deception by demons (1 Corinthians 10:18-22)? Yes, but the Bible also says that Satan often preaches in Christian churches (2 Corinthians 11:13-14). Pagans don’t have a monopoly on evil, demonic deception, or harmful practices. As a Christian (in spite of a good, pure, and holy God) I often do evil things and fall into deception. Christians can also do very hurtful things in the name of Christ. (Some of the worst hate mail that I get comes from Christians who don’t agree with me about baptism or giving or eternal security or grace or Halloween.)

I’m not sure that anything is gained by calling pagans, Satanists or demon worshippers. It’s easy to view yourself as God’s agent and to brand people with strong labels. Then you can justify not relating to them in grace. You can begin to hate and fear them. And eventually you can persuade yourself that as agents of Satan they deserve persecution (i.e. the inquisition and witch burnings). This goes against everything that Jesus taught about reaching out to pagans (1 Corinthians 5:9-13) and loving our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48), and showing mercy to them (Luke 6:27-36). The truth is that sometimes Christians end up acting more like Satan, than pagans do.

Once the practice of Samhain was viewed as not merely wrong, but “trafficking with Satan,” it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Practitioners of the old religion began associating medieval Satanic elements with Halloween. You can see this association in many symbols and traditions of Halloween. Want to hold a Halloween party? Be sure to use black and red crepe – the devil’s colors according to Medieval superstition… Decorate with a large spider – one of the devil’s followers… And don’t forget the black cat. Christians during the Middle Ages believed that every witch had a personal demon sent by Satan who gave them their powers. This personal demon was called a familiar. The familiars, which lived with their witches, usually existed in the form of some animal — often a black cat. This is a superstitious practice of medieval Christians, however, and should not be attributed to the ancient Celts. (Domestic cats were apparently not introduced to Northern Europe until post-Julius Caesar, and didn’t really “catch on” until after AD 1050.)

How about the jack-o’-lantern? People in England and Ireland carved out beets, potatoes, and turnips to use as lanterns (not just on Halloween). The hollowing out of a turnip to serve as a makeshift lantern was simply a clever way to solve a technical problem in the absence of available metal. According to an 18th century Irish legend, jack-o’-lanterns were named for a man named Jack, who could not enter heaven because he was a miser. He could not enter hell either, because he had played jokes on the devil. Hence, Jack is a damned soul doomed to wander in darkness until Judgment Day. This legend is recent and does NOT go back to ancient times. If it was ancient, we would find it in literature, the Christian art of Western Europe, pagan carvings, or somewhere in graphic representations. It is notable by its absence. After this legend reached America, pumpkins began to be used, rather than turnips, to represent Jack’s lantern. The purpose of the lantern was to ward off evil, not participate in it!

The Present Day Celebration of Halloween

Halloween celebrations (of any kind or form) did not become popular in the United States until the late 1800s. It appears to have arrived after 1840, when large numbers of immigrants arrived from Ireland and Scotland and introduced elements like Mischief Night, beliefs about elves and fairies, and practices such as jack-o’-lanterns. (Many of the Halloween customs that they brought to America probably did not enter Irish and Scottish culture until after 1750.) The practice does not come from ancient times, but modern. It must be said that “Halloween” as we know it in America, with all the folk stories and urban legends attached to it, is a distinctly American phenomenon, with the “Trick or Treat” bits occurring after 1930.

Halloween is celebrated in many countries today, but this is actually a result of secular American influence:

…the trick-or-treat and masking customs on 31 October in England and Finland have been introduced from the United States and Canada (Halloween and Other Festivals of Death, p. 162).

Does anyone today celebrate the Celtic holiday of Samhain as a religious observance? Yes. During the mid-1900′s, a new interest in pagan religion occurred in Europe and the United States. As a result, paganism as an organized religion has attracted large numbers of people. Many followers of various pagan religions, such as Druids and Wiccans observe Samhain as a religious festival. They view it as a memorial day for their dead friends, similar to the United States’ national holiday of Memorial Day in May.

Modern pagans (and non-Satanic witches) would vehemently deny that their celebration has anything to do with the demonic horrors depicted in such films as Friday the 13th. To them, Halloween is one of the four greater Sabbats (holidays) held during the year. Halloween for them is a time of “harvest celebration. It is a time of ritual, a time for ridding oneself of personal weaknesses, a time for feasting and joyful celebration. It is also a time for communing with the spirits of the dead. It is still a night to practice various forms of divination concerning future events.”

Contrary to popular belief Halloween is not the most important celebration for Satanists. Most Satanists celebrate their own birthdays as their most important “unholi”-day, which is to be expected from adherents of a religion who believe that the highest form of religion is “worship of self” (The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey). Some of the stories of Satanic ritual abuse that are passed around in Christian circles may have no basis in fact (like those found in Rebecca Brown’s book “He Came to Set the Captives Free”). According to Christian researchers Bob and Gretchen Passantino (see their well-researched book entitled Satanism by Bob and Gretchen Passantino, Zondervan, 1995):

“The actual incidence level of satanic-associated crime is very low, and on Halloween consists mostly of petty vandalism and desecration of graveyards and churches; satanic graffiti; raucous rituals including drug and/or alcohol use and sexual promiscuity; and very rarely sexual violence or animal killing. The most well-known documented criminal activity associated with Halloween are the “Devil’s Night” fires that were rampant in the Detroit area. These destructive bonfires were not religiously inspired, but were a convenient excuse for out-of-control juveniles to act destructively, often in their own communities.

It is not true that satanists look for “Christian virgins” to rape during Halloween rituals. A young Christian is much more likely to be in danger of a drunk driver, or a party that gets out of hand with drug or alcohol use than of satanic abduction. Occasional anti-social, criminally committed individuals or small groups that also practice self-styled satanism commit crimes on Halloween, but they invariably betray a pattern of sociopathy at other times as well.

It is not true that poisoning or sabotaging of Halloween treats is a significant risk if parents take sensible precautions. Most horror stories are unsubstantiated rumors that quickly cross the country, gaining embellishments, and unnecessarily frightening parents. If parents are careful about restricting their children’s treats to ones from people they know and trust, or from a formal program run by a church, community group, or merchant association, they should be fairly safe. In many communities, local hospitals and/or police stations will screen treats free of charge.”

How should Christians react to Halloween?

• “Halloween is the most dangerous day of the year — when Satanists and witches snatch children off the streets and sacrifice them in Satan’s name!”
• “We don’t worship other gods or honor the dead on Halloween. Halloween is nothing but a secular time of fun and games — an excuse for the kids to dress up and overload on sugar!”
• “I love to see the children, out in the neighborhood streets with their parents, dressed in funny clothing, having a wonderful time …. and mocking the Devil with laughter.”

These are three examples of very different Christian reactions to Halloween. Allow me to offer some opinions.

1.    Occult and Satanic Elements:

Deuteronomy 18:11 says: “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, one who calls up the dead.”

One of the present realities we must be aware of is that in recent decades, pagan, cultic groups, and some Satanists have claimed Halloween as a “holy day.” As Christians we must avoid any action forbidden by our Lord. We should never seek to know the future through horoscopes, divination, or astrology. We should not seek to talk to or call up the dead (necromancy). We should not pray to other gods. We should not seek “power” over other people by the use of spells or supernatural forces. The practice of pagan witchcraft is specifically prohibited in both the Old and New Testaments (Leviticus 19:31; Acts 19:18-20; Galatians 5:19-21; Revelation 22:15). Witchcraft (whether pagan or Satanic) is dangerous and harmful. We are to submit to God and resist the devil; not form alliances with him (James 4:7). The Bible certainly makes it clear that we should not participate with pagans in speaking to the dead on October 31 (or any other day)!

2. Non-Satanic elements:

Although some devil worshippers have adopted Halloween as their “holiday,” the day itself did not grow out of Satanic practices. Halloween has some weak connections to Celts celebrating a new year, but most of present day Halloween customs are neither pagan, nor Satanic. Here is a table of practices and dates as they are connected with Halloween:

Most holidays contain evil, neutral, and good elements as part of their celebration. Christians must discern one from the other and make decisions that glorify God and cause no harm to their personal walk with Christ. Christians seem to have no trouble making these distinctions about Christmas, but we utterly fail to do the necessary thinking when it comes to Halloween. In my opinion, present day Halloween has some evil elements (divination rituals, communication with spirits), some neutral elements (sorry, costumes didn’t come from evil Druids involved in human sacrifice), and some good elements (asking for candy was an attempt by the Boy Scouts of America to calm the abuse of the holiday!).

As W.J. Bethancourt III says: “Each Christian must decide for themselves whether dressing up in funny clothes and asking for candy from the neighbors is ‘satanic’ and ‘necromancing’ or not. Allowing your children to dress up as mass-murderers and as villains from the Hollywood slasher movies may or may not be ‘satanic,’ but it certainly is stupid. Making such creatures objects of ‘hero-worship’ might not be giving the kind of message to a child that necessarily enables them to become sober, productive adults.”

Costuming children as ballerinas or cartoon characters or Bible heroes seems far removed from Satanism or any practice of paganism.

What I have tried to show is that much of the association with witchcraft and Satanic elements has actually come from Christian misinformation attempting to “demonize” this holiday. There is no evidence that the original Celtic celebration was Satanic. Much of the information on Halloween that Christians preach and write about is plainly based on shoddy research. While Christians should absolutely avoid pagan practices, Christian hype tends to make us overreact to benign folk elements of Halloween. We appear like zany buffoons to the world when there is no necessity for doing so. Furthermore, our groundless retreat from all elements of Halloween leaves a vacuum that wicked elements delight to fill.

October 31st is only a day on the calendar. Halloween, like any other day, is only as evil as one cares to make it.

3.    Alternative Celebrations:

I would also suggest using the holiday to be involved in the joy and celebration of All Saints’ Day, thanksgiving for harvest, and the celebration of the Reformation of the Church. Here are two tracts which offer alternatives to the traditional American celebration of Halloween:

Tract 1:

One successful alternative used by a number of churches is a “Faith Festival” in which children dress as their favorite Bible character and gather for a special children’s service with puppets, a Christian film, or something special. This offers an ideal opportunity to explain the spiritual significance of Halloween and to encourage the children to remember Hebrews chapter 11, which features great men and women of faith who have gone before us. The “Faith Festival” can be a time to thank God for His many blessings.

Tract 2:

As believers, we can take this opportunity to provide a creative alternative to this celebration. In ancient Israel, the majority of Jewish festivals occurred at the same time as pagan festivals. God did not simply tell his people not to engage in pagan festivals, He provided an alternative. During every major pagan festival, the Hebrew people would take part in a God-given alternative, a festival celebrating the same general subject but with a completely different focus.

There are many wholesome alternatives for our children: a church Bible costume party, Reformation Day church service, holding a harvest celebration like the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.

4.    Being Positive Without Fear:

Regardless of the position you take regarding your family’s response to Halloween, if you are concerned about the evil associations with Halloween, you can rejoice that you can “resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7) and that through the cross Christ has “disarmed principalities and powers,” and “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15).

I would certainly suggest using the holiday to teach our children about the triumph in Christ of God over evil. This should not be a night that we hide from in fear, but a night (like every night) when a Christian can stand confident in victory, because the One who lives in us is greater, than the one who lives in the world (1 John 4:4). “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them!” (1 John 4:4).

Holding oneself apart from the world is perhaps a good thing, but sometimes this is just an excuse for being afraid. We are reminded to be “in the world” and “sent to the world”, as well as being “not of the world” (John 17:15-18). There are very few times when strangers actually come to your door and ask you to give them something! Our family has used Halloween to hand out Christian tapes to everyone that has come-a-begging! Some Christian children use “trick or treating” by giving a tract in return for the candy they receive at each house. What a wonderful way to spread the gospel! A smile, some candy, a tract and a “God bless you!” will save more souls than hiding in your house with the porch light off.

As a believer in Jesus Christ and thus a child of God, I personally do not give much honor to the celebration of Halloween, but our family does participate in some of the neutral elements of Halloween and we use Halloween to reach people who don’t know Jesus. We also use Halloween to celebrate the victory that I and other saints have over the wickedness of this world.

A good general principle should be to refrain from participating in anything that compromises your faith or brings dishonor to Jesus Christ. Another good principle is to look for ways to become a positive, Christ-proclaiming voice in the midst of a secular and pagan world. Each Christian must be persuaded in his own conscience about how they approach Halloween.

Why Did I Write This Article?

What I’m arguing for is:

(1) Accurate information, rather than falsehood.

(2) A little bit of tolerance toward Christians who choose to participate in “harmless” Halloween activities that have no connection to paganism (like pumpkins, dressing up, or treat-or-treat).

(3) For the Christian community to think about how it is going to handle Halloween — because it is not going to go away. It is more popular than ever. We can redeem it for Christ or we can use fear and scare tactics to hide our light under a basket (Matthew 5:15).

I think we find a close parallel in Christmas. Christmas wasn’t celebrated by the early church until the fourth century. In that century, the church decided to try to redeem a Roman pagan winter solstice festival (the birthday of the unconquered sun). Sometime before 336 the Church in Rome, unable to stamp out this pagan festival, spiritualized it as the “Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Righteousness.” In some ways, I think Christians have succeeded in giving December 25 a new meaning.

I really think Pope Gregory had the right idea. Take pagan holidays and assign Christian events or practices to them and redeem them for Christ. Christians have as much right as any other group to lay claim to a day on the calendar (Romans 14:6). What’s the alternative? The alternative is to let pagans, devil worshippers, or Hollywood producers put their stamp on October 31. At the very least, this will mean a day given over to the celebration of (what the Bible calls) superstitions, false gods and goddesses. At its worst, Halloween becomes a Mardi gras of the grotesque, of destruction, of wickedness, and of death, because we weren’t being a preservative for good (Matthew 5:13).

Recommended for Further Study:

• Answers in Action: What About Halloween?
• Halloween : Myths, Monsters and Devils
• Halloween Safety Resource Guide
• Hallowe’en: a brief discussion of its origins and history by L. S. Campbell
• ExWitch Ministries

Return to The History of Halloween Part 1

by Dennis Rupert, pastor New Life Community Church of Stafford
Last update: 05/30/2008

This article has been carefully researched in an attempt to separate fact from hype and exaggeration. Sources include scholarly works by folklorists, books by Celtic experts, internet sites, and various reference works. I read and talked with pagan sources to find out how they viewed Halloween, but did not rely upon them for information on the origins of Halloween. I am especially indebted to folklorist W.J. Bethancourt III for initially bringing this history to my attention. I have confirmed his research by my own limited study and highly recommend his site as the first place to view for information on Halloween practices (History of Halloween : Myths, Monsters and Devils).

It’s Probably Not What You Think

On October 31st, you will likely see witches, ghosts, goblins, skeletons, demons, and other evil characters knocking at your door and hollering “trick or treat”, and they will expect a treat or you will be tricked. There will be parties where kids (and even adults) bob for apples, tell fortunes, or go through haunted houses. There will be decorations of jack-o-lanterns, witches on brooms, and black cats. It is the only day of the year when we give free food to strangers and display carved vegetables on our front porches.  . . .when you really think about it, October 31st is a very strange day . . .Where did we get this celebration called Halloween?

The Celtic Connection

Our modern celebration of Halloween is a VERY distant descendant of the ancient Celtic fire festival called Samhain. (The word is pronounced “sow-en” rhyming with cow, because “mh” in the middle of an Irish word has a “w” sound.) It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts  (pronounced ‘Kelts”) lived more than 2,000 years ago in what is now Great Britain, Ireland, and France. Their new year began on November 1.

Celtic legends tell us that on this night, all the hearth fires in Ireland were extinguished, and then re-lit from the central fire of the Druids at Tlachtga, 12 miles from the royal hill of Tara.  (The Druids were the learned class among the Celts. They were religious priests who also acted as judges, lawmakers, poets, scholars, and scientists.) Upon this sacred bonfire the Druids burned animals and crops.  The extinguishing of the hearth fires symbolized the “dark half” of the year. The re-kindling from the Druidic fire was symbolic of the returning life that was hoped for in the spring.

In the Celtic belief system, turning points, such as the time between one day and the next, the meeting of sea and shore, or the turning of one year into the next were seen as magical times. The turning of the year was the most potent of these times. This was the time when the “veil between the worlds” was at its thinnest, and the dead could communicate with the living.

The feast of Samhain is described by MacCane as order suspended. “During this interval the normal order of the universe is suspended, the barriers between the natural and the supernatural are temporarily removed, the sidh lies open and all divine beings and the spirits of the dead move freely among men and interfere sometimes violently, in their affairs” (Celtic Mythology, p. 127).

The Celts believed that when people died, they went to a land of eternal youth and happiness called Tir nan Og. They did not have the concept of heaven and hell that the Christian church later brought into the land. The dead were sometimes believed to be dwelling with the Fairy Folk, who lived in the numerous mounds or sidhe (pron. “shee”) that dotted the Irish and Scottish countryside.

The Celts did not actually have demons and devils in their belief system. Some Christians describe Halloween as a festival in which the Celts sacrificed human beings to the devil or some evil demonic god of death. This is not accurate. The Celts did believe in gods, giants, monsters, witches, spirits, and elves, but these were not considered evil, so much as dangerous. The fairies, for example, were often considered hostile and menacing to humans because they were seen as being resentful of men taking over their lands. On this night of Samhain, the fairies would sometimes trick humans into becoming lost in the fairy mounds, where they would be trapped forever.

Folk tradition tells us of some divination practices associated with Samhain. Among the most common were divinations dealing with marriage, weather, and the coming fortunes for the year. These were performed via such methods as ducking for apples and apple peeling. Ducking for apples was a marriage divination. The first person to bite an apple would be the first to marry in the coming year — like the modern toss of the wedding bouquet. Apple peeling was a divination to see how long your life would be. The longer the unbroken apple peel, the longer your life was destined to be. In Scotland, people would place stones or nuts in the ashes of the hearth before retiring for the night. Anyone whose stone had been disturbed during the night was said to be destined to die during the coming year.

Inaccurate Christian Teaching about Halloween

You will often read in the literature published by Christian organizations (such as the tracts and comic books from publisher Jack Chick) that, “Samhain was the Celtic God of the Dead, worshipped by the Druids with dreadful bloody sacrifices at Halloween.” Chick embroiders this fantasy in a tract called “The Trick” and a full-sized comic book called, “Spellbound?”, shown here.

His writings describe evil Druids going from castle-door-to-door seeking virgin princesses to rape and sacrifice, leaving carved pumpkins illuminated by candles (“made from human fat!”) for those who cooperated, and arranging demonic assassinations for those who refused to give them what they wanted. This, according to Mr. Chick, is supposed to be the “true” origin of trick or treating.

Let’s look at a few historical facts:

• Contrary to information published by many Christian organizations, there is no historical or archeological evidence of any Celtic deity of the dead named “Samhain.” We know the names of some 350 Celtic deities and Samhain isn’t found among them. The Celtic gods of the dead were Gwynn ap Nudd for the British, and Arawn for the Welsh. The Irish did not have a “lord of death” as such. McBain’s Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language says that “samhuinn” (the Scots Gaelic spelling) means “summer’s end.”It’s not just Christian organizations that perpetuate this fallacy — even the World Book encyclopedia (1990) writes about “Samhain, the Celtic lord of death” (World Book is in discussion with scholars in order to change this in future editions.) This idea is based on a fallacy that seems to have come from Col. Charles Vallency’s books in the 1770s before the reliable translations of existing Celtic literary works and before archaeological excavations. (Col. Charles Vallency also tried to prove that the Irish were descended from the inhabitants of Armenia!) Samhain is the name of the holiday. There is no evidence of any god or demon named “Samhain,” “Samain,” “Sam Hane,” or however you want to vary the spelling.
• Contrary to Christian criticism from many sources, Halloween did not originate as a Satanic festival, but was religious in nature (of course, the religion I am referring to is the Celtic faith of the ancient Druids rather than Christianity). This is an important distinction, for Halloween’s association with Satanic worship is a modern phenomenon. The Celts didn’t worship the devil (or any god of death) on Halloween.It is important to distinguish between paganism and Satanism. Pagans are people who believe in more than one god. Some modern day pagans call themselves Wiccans. [For more on Wicca and modern witchcraft see What is Witchcraft?] Pagans are quick to emphasize that they do not worship Satan or the devil. The devil is a Judeo-Christian concept, they say, because one has to believe in a single God to believe in God’s opposite: “We do not accept the concept of ‘absolute evil,’ nor do we worship any entity known as ‘Satan’ or ‘The Devil.’” (Drawing Down the Moon, pp. 103).Celts were pagans, not Satanists. Of course, from a Christian standpoint both are in error. But to my mind there is a major difference between: (1) pagans (who have not heard the gospel) practicing a holiday containing fairies and elves and (2) Satanists (in rebellion against God) who sacrifice children to the devil. There is no original evidence to indicate that Samhain was any more Satanic than pagan harvest festivals of other religions, like the Romans or the Greeks.
• We have no evidence any where (from tradition, Celtic texts, or archaeology) that virgin princesses or any one else were being offered to the lord of death on Halloween.There is general agreement that the Celts did in fact practice some form of human sacrifice or human execution, but this seems to have been limited to criminals, prisoners-of-war, or volunteers. (For more information on human sacrifice and the Druids see History of Halloween : Myths, Monsters and Devils.) We have no evidence that Druids practiced human sacrifice on Halloween (let alone sacrificed “virgin princesses”).
• The pumpkin is a New World plant that never grew in Europe until modern times, so it couldn’t have been used to make jack-o-lanterns by the Druids.

• There’s zero evidence that the ancient Druids or their congregants ever dressed in costume or engaged in ritualized begging at harvest time. One Christian tract entitled Trick or Treat says:
  

  The Druids went from house to house asking for a contribution to their demonic worship celebration. If a person didn’t give, their trick was to kill him. The people feared the phrase “Trick or Treat.”

  This charge has been laid at the door step of the Celts so often that it’s hard to believe there is no evidence for it, but there is absolutely none. Tad Tuleja (a folklore expert) writes:

An exhaustive Victorian survey of Irish calendar customs mentions divination games and apple bobbing as Halloween pastimes, but says nothing about food collection or a procession of “spirits.”…On the question of masked begging at the Celtic New Year, authorities on the Druids do not say a word. (Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 83).

Where did costuming at Halloween come from? There is a lot of confusion on this point. But in spite of what you may have read in an encyclopedia or seen on the History Channel, I can find absolutely NO historical evidence of costumed begging among the Druids or as part of the Samhain festival.

We do have records of costumed processions in a much later time (Christian times), but these costumed processions were NOT limited to the Halloween holiday. They appear much more frequently at Christmas. The earliest actual historic practice seems to have been poor folk in masks and costumes going from house to house. They would put on a simple play or musical performance in return for food and drink. This practice is called mumming or guising and has no discernable connection to the Celts.

You may be surprised to learn that your parents or grandparents know nothing about costuming on Halloween. A reader sent me this email:

You mentioned in your article that the American custom came about in the 1930s as a reaction to vandalism.  My parents were kids in New York City in those days, and I started looking for more info because of a comment my mom made on Halloween night. It seems that Halloween as we know it did not exist at the time–it was all pranks, as you mentioned (my mom mentioned taking gates off posts and moving outhouses, as you did, and my dad said that in the days of coal fuel there were big cans of ashes that the kids would tip over–a big mess).

The interesting part was that both of them said (Dad was born in 1924 and Mom in 1927) that each year as kids, they did go from door to door begging for food–but it was on Thanksgiving Day, not Halloween! My mom said that rather than “Trick or Treat!” their line at each door was “Anything for the poor? Anything for the poor?” They were given fruit, nuts, a cup of cider, or the occasional coin–that sort of thing.

This email is similar to conversations with my own father and mother (born 1928 and 1930 in western Pennsylvania), who told me that no one dressed in costumes or went door-to-door when they were children. There were lots of pranks on Halloween (some of which make great stories for the grandchildren), but they know nothing of dressing up. So where did costuming come from? That’s a big question mark. Folklorist Tad Tuleja says that costume parties are frequently mentioned in the early decades of the 1900s (but nothing about going door-to-door in costume). The costume parties themselves seem to be an attempt to involve children in disciplined “fun” as opposed to destructive “fun.”

• The actual phrase “trick or treat” is not Druidic! The earliest known reference in print dates only to 1938 in an article in the Los Angeles Times entitled “Halloween Pranks Plotted by Youngsters of Southland,” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California), October 30, 1938, p. A8: “Trick or treat!” is the Halloween hijacking game hundreds of Southern California youngsters will play tomorrow night as they practice streamlined versions of traditional Allhallows Eve pranks.” The phrase is not recorded by the Merriam-Webster Company until 1941. And the term is actually American, not European (Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 47,86-90)!It’s not only the phrase that is American, the practice is too! In America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was a custom of playing pranks on Halloween. This custom appears to have come from immigrants from Ireland and Scotland which had a practice called Mischief Night. Favorite pranks included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates (Charles Panati, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things). The pleasant fiction was that such rambunctiousness was the work of “fairies,” “elves,” “witches” and “goblins” (Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 87). That’s the “trick” part of Halloween.

Where did the “treat” part of Halloween come from? Jill Pederson Meyer writes:

“By the turn of the century, Halloween had become an ever more destructive way to “let off steam” for crowded and poor urban dwellers. As Stuart Schneider writes in ‘Halloween in America’ (1995), vandalism that had been limited to tipping outhouses; removing gates, soaping windows and switching shop signs, by the 1920’s had become nasty — with real destruction of property and cruelty to animals and people. Perhaps not coincidentally, the disguised nighttime terrorism and murders by the Ku Klux Klan reached their apex during this decade. Schneider writes that neighborhood committees and local city clubs such as the Boy Scouts then mobilized to organize safe and fun alternatives to vandalism. School posters of the time call for a “Sane Halloween.” Good children were encouraged to go door to door and receive treats from homes and shop owners, thereby keeping troublemakers away. By the 1930’s, these “beggar’s nights” were enormously popular and being practiced nationwide, with the “trick or treat” greeting widespread from the late 1930s.”

The Halloween begging activity known as trick-or-treat comes from America in the 1930s, not the British Isles. The custom was intended to control and displace disruptive pranks.

——-

Every year, right around Halloween, we are treated to an outpouring of literature making false statements about the origins of Halloween. (In years past, I even helped distribute this type of literature to my congregation.) But my research on this subject has found that the Christian Halloween literature is vastly mistaken. Christians are guilty of spreading falsehood (perhaps out of ignorance, but falsehood none the less). Believers do no service to God or to other Christians by creating very frightening fantasies masquerading as historical facts. Sloppy and improper scholarship makes Christians look deceitful. It also makes God appear deceptive to unbelievers.

What I am arguing for is accurate information, rather than falsehood. No, I’m not a “closet pagan.” No, I’m not “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” No, I haven’t “bought into pagan propaganda.” I’m a born-again, fundamentalist, Bible-believing, filled with the Spirit Christian (did I use enough labels?) trying to get at the historical truth.

At the Christian college I attended, I was taught that all truth was God’s truth and that we don’t need to fear truth — whether it comes from secular, pagan, or Christian sources.  Over a period of years I have been reading and talking with folklorists, historians, Christians, pagans, and people from Scotland and Ireland. The origins of Halloween are NOT what most Christian literature teaches. Sorry, no pumpkins with candles of human fat! Sorry, no human sacrifices by evil druids. Sorry, dressing up can’t be historically connected to the Celts. Sorry, treat-or-treat is not a Satanist plot to captivate our children.

Continued in The History of Halloween Part 2

Origins and Early Traditions

Christmas wasn’t celebrated by the early church until the fourth century. In the fourth century, the church may have attempted to redeem Roman pagan winter solstice festivals, specifically Saturnalia & Sol Invictus. By the fourth century Sol Invictus had become the more important festival. Many of the traditions of Saturnalia were incorporated into Sol Invictus. In Saturnalia Romans danced in the streets with gifts under their arms and greenery atop their heads. You can see that some of these actions were eventually modified and adopted into Christmas. According to Xavier Virsu (from an email 12/5/08):

“Saturnalia was first celebrated on December 17, and over the years the celebration expanded to a week ending on December 23rd. Christmas was set on the feast of Sol Invictus which was December 25th, and had supplanted Saturnalia. Many traditions of Saturnalia were incorporated into Sol Invictus, and were also carried forward into the Christian holiday. Saturnalia was a dedication to the god Saturn, while Sol Invictus was dedicated to the Unconquered Sun.

“Before Roman Emperor Aurelian, Sol Invictus was celebrated in the Roman military, but Aurelian made Sol Invictus a state-supported holiday and proclaimed December 25th Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, “the birthday of the unconquered sun,” in 274 CE. The early church may have tried to ‘baptize’ the holiday of Sol Invictus by imbuing it with a new Christian meaning.”

Based on Biblical evidence Jesus of Nazareth was probably born in the fall near the Jewish feast of Tabernacles or in the spring around the time of Passover. But sometime before 336 Pope Julius I, chose December 25th for the celebration of the birth of Christ — the same date as the “Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Righteousness” (Sol Invicti). The practice was adopted by the Christian church in Antioch around 374. By 380 it was being observed in Constantinople, and by 430 in Alexandria. (The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 223.)

One of the difficulties of discovering the actual origins of Christmas is that statements are made by Christian leaders admitting that Christmas and Sol Invictus were held on the same day, but stating that they are not related. For example, in the 5th century Pope Leo I (the Great) spoke about the origin of this holiday in several sermons on the Feast of Nativity. In his 22nd sermon he directly addressed those who attributed the Nativity to Sol Invictus:

Having therefore so confident a hope, dearly beloved, abide firm in the Faith in which you are built: lest that same tempter whose tyranny over you Christ has already destroyed, win you back again with any of his wiles, and mar even the joys of the present festival by his deceitful art, misleading simpler souls with the pestilential notion of some to whom this our solemn feast day seems to derive its honor, not so much from the nativity of Christ as, according to them, from the rising of the new sun . Such men’s hearts are wrapped in total darkness, and have no growing perception of the true Light: for they are still drawn away by the foolish errors of heathendom, and because they cannot lift the eyes of their mind above that which their carnal sight beholds, they pay divine honor to the luminaries that minister to the world.

In this sermon, Pope Leo I clearly establishes that the two feasts were held on the same day, but Leo also states that the holidays are not related. Is this a theological statement? Is it a concern to separate the practices of the two holidays? Or is it a specific statement of origins? It’s hard to know.

Germanic tribes of Northern Europe also celebrated mid-winter with feasting, drinking, religious rituals and the lighting of the yule log. During the Middle Ages, Catholic priests sought connections between biblical teachings and pagan traditions — believing that a convergence of customs would lead more individuals to Christianity. The celebration of Jesus’ birth was melded into other age-old practices and became known as the “Christ mass.” Firelight represented the light of Christ. Gift giving was linked to the presents of the wise men. Trees were decorated with apples associated with the biblical Garden of Eden.

The Christmas Tree

The tradition of decorating trees occurs among many different people. The Celts for example decorated trees with apples and nuts during the winter solstice (around December 21), encouraging the sun to return to bring spring. Other European people had tree decorating rituals.

In the 7th century a monk from Crediton, Devonshire, went to Germany to teach the Word of God. He did many good works there, and spent much time in Thuringia, an area which was to become the cradle of the Christmas Decoration Industry. Legend has it that he used the triangular shape of the Fir Tree to describe the Holy Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The converted people began to revere the Fir tree as God’s Tree, as they had previously revered the Oak. By the 12th century it was being hung, upside-down, from ceilings at Christmastime in Central Europe, as a symbol of Christianity.

The first record of the Christmas tree (as we know it) dates back to Riga in Latvia, in 1510. In the last quarter of the 16th century, Martin Luther is said to have decorated a small Christmas Tree with candles, to show his children how the stars twinkled through the dark night. Decorated trees became very popular during the German Yuletide. In 1841, Queen Victoria of England married Prince Albert of Germany. Albert brought the Christmas tree custom to England and hence, to the English speaking world. Many citizens were eager to embrace the traditions of the English royalty.

In the United States, the Christmas tree was initially not well accepted by the northern half of America. They frowned upon the pagan roots of the tree custom. However, Southerners readily adapted the tradition into their homes, decorating a tree on Christmas Eve and celebrating for 12 days. Today, the popularity of the Christmas tree continues around much of the world. (Holy, Reindeer, and Colored Lights by Edna Barth.)

Santa Claus

In the 4th century, a bishop in Turkey named Nicholas was known for good deeds involving children. Because of his holiness, Bishop Nicholas was sanctified by the Catholic Church and came to be known as Saint Nicholas. St. Nicholas is illustrated in medieval and renaissance paintings as a tall, dignified and severe man. His feast day on December 6 was celebrated throughout Europe until about the 16th century. Afterwards, he continued to be known in Protestant Holland.

The ancient inhabitants of northern Europe believed a powerful pagan god, cloaked in red fur, galloped across the winter sky. These myths combined with the legends of the real life figure of Bishop Nicholas. Dutch children would put shoes by the fireplace for St. Nicholas or “Sinter Klaas” and leave food out for his horse. He’d gallop on his horse between the rooftops and drop candy down the chimneys into the children’s shoes. Meanwhile, his assistant, Black Peter, was the one who popped down the chimneys to leave gifts behind.

Dutch settlers brought the legend of Sinter Klaas to North America — where we came to know him as Santa Claus. Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker History (1809) described Santa Claus as a stern, ascetic personage traditionally clothed in dark robes. It was a character we would scarcely recognize as the Santa Claus we know today, apart from his annual mission of delivering gifts to children on Christmas Eve.

The next mention of Santa Claus is found in a Christmas poem published in 1821 called “The Children’s Friend.” This poem for young people, harkened from the same tradition but also added some new elements to the “Santeclaus” myth. The poem begins:

Old Santeclaus with much delight
His reindeer drives this frosty night.
O’er chimney tops, and tracks of snow,
To bring his yearly gifts to you…

The next year (1822), protestant minister Clement Clarke Moore, wrote his poem “The Night Before Christmas.” Moore wrote the poem for his six children. Moore, stodgy creature of academe that he was, refused to have the poem published despite its enthusiastic reception by everyone who read it. Evidently his argument that it was beneath his dignity fell on deaf ears, because the following Christmas “A Visit from St. Nicholas” found its way into the mass media after all when a family member cunningly submitted it to an out-of-town newspaper. The poem was an “overnight sensation,” as we would say today, but Moore was not to acknowledge authorship of it until fifteen years later, when he reluctantly included it in a volume of collected works. He called the poem “a mere trifle.” An artist named Thomas Nast drew the first picture of Santa Claus (shown here) for Harper’s Weekly.

Santa Claus gained much of his popularity after World War II when the economy and the baby boomers blossomed. Children born between 1945 and 1965 greeted this gift-giving Santa with open arms that have refused to let go, even in adulthood.

Is It Wrong to Celebrate Christmas?

If you are a Christian, you have probably heard the arguments about the pagan origins of many of Christmas’ and Easter’s symbols. This is true. (The very name Easter is derived from Ishtar or Astarte, a pagan goddess.) But implicit in the charge of paganism is the thought that it is wrong for believers to celebrate Christmas and Easter (or more appropriately, the Incarnation and Resurrection Day), because a believer could unintentionally be worshipping a false god. But is it possible to worship, venerate or give allegiance by mistake? In order to reverence an idol or a false god, one must be conscious of that idol or god and believe in the validity of giving worship to it.

In New Testament we run into a similar situation when Paul addressed the issue of eating meat which had been sacrificed to idols. Paul said that a believer had liberty to eat meat that was sacrificed to idols. In fact, in this discussion, Paul even refers to the celebration of special days. Romans 14:5-6,10 says: “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each person be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God…. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.” The bottom line of this passage is that the observation of certain holidays is a personal decision between the believer and His Father. As long as the day is being celebrated to the Lord, no brother has a right to judge or impose guilt on another believer.

Some believers have had impossible burdens placed upon them by others who used the practice of guilt by association. So what if pagans had a holiday on December 25? It does not mean that those who celebrate Christ’s birth on that day are being pagans. If that were so, the accusers would need to be consistent about other calendar names as well. They would need to change the names of the weekdays, because each of the weekdays is named after a pagan god. For example, Saturday is named for the god Saturn and Sunday is so called because of the veneration of the sun.

And what about the names of cities? According to the thinking that proclaims Christmas and Easter wrong, believers should not live in Phoenix, since that city is named after a mythological god. Furthermore, many other sites in this country [the United States], such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Yosemite, etc., bear Native American names which have totemistic significance. Should we shun those places? Carried to its logical boundaries, such thinking soon becomes absurd. That kind of logic would forbid anyone eating any category of food that was ever offered to any kind of idol on an altar, because thereby one might be venerating the idol to which such food or spices had been offered. [From About Christmas and Paganism, Jews for Jesus newsletter, December 2003.]

Simply because a holiday was once celebrated by pagans does not make the believer guilty of worship by association. If I celebrate Jesus’ incarnation at Christmas time, this is a good practice. I am doing it “to the Lord,” not to a pagan god who no on remembers.

What About Pagan Symbols?

Many of the symbols we use to celebrate our holidays have been adopted from different cultures and some have pagan origins. For example, because trees were once worshipped by Germanic people, some Christians refuse to place a tree in their home at Christmas time. This may seem pious and reasonable to a Christian who is trying to be pure in their worship of God, but this must be balanced with the understanding that many symbols Christians hold as sacred have inauspicious beginnings.

Jesus was put to death on a cross. Most people realize this was the method of torture and execution in the Roman culture. This can be easy to forget when a delicate gold cross dangles around someone’s neck or a beautiful wood cross adorns your church. What’s going on here? Most people wouldn’t fashion an electric chair out of precious metal or put a hangman’s noose in their sacred place. Christians (and God) have changed a symbol of death to one of resurrection and life. A “bad” symbol has been changed to a good one.

This pattern is true throughout the Bible. Consider other symbols in Scripture that once had other meanings. Many Old Testament symbols were adapted from religious, political, and economic practices of the Sumerians, Egyptians, or Canaanites. The structure of the Old Testament covenants comes from royal grant and suzerain-vassal treaties. The layout of the camp, the tent of meeting, and the ark of the covenant find their equivalents in Egyptian armies and shrines moving with their pharaoh. God used familiar symbols and structures and invested them with new meaning for the Israelites. “Bad” or neutral symbols were changed to good ones.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Elements that Christians use to celebrate Christmas or other holidays shouldn’t be accepted without question. But perhaps the original meaning of symbols may not be as important as how Christians have transformed the symbols to worship God. Were trees sometimes worshipped by Germanic tribes? Yes. But early Christian missionaries took a “bad” symbol and transformed it into “God’s tree,” a symbol of the Trinity. No one thinks of a Christmas tree as a god or an object of worship. A bad symbol has been transformed into an object that proclaims Christ. Children ought to be taught that Christmas trees remind us of the Trinity. Far from a pine tree being an act of pagan worship, the Christmas tree is a demonstration that Christianity has conquered “tree worship.”

So for most people is Christmas a pagan winter celebration or a religious celebration honoring the birth of Christ? In our culture it is a mixture of both with, as any economist will confirm, quite a bit of materialism thrown in. But no matter what the culture is celebrating, a Christian can celebrate Christmas “to the Lord” (Romans 14:6).

What’s a Christian to do? Celebrate to the Lord! And discern bad elements from neutral or good ones. Most holidays contain evil, neutral, and good elements as part of their cultural celebration. Make decisions that glorify and honor God and cause no harm to your personal walk with Christ. And don’t throw away what Christians have already won. If we stop celebrating Christ’s birth, the world won’t stop celebrating something in the bleak winter. We can keep the focus on Christ (realizing that every year will be a battle with the world and our own souls) or we can let the celebrations degenerate into materialism and pagan revelry.

Conclusion

To the best of our knowledge Christmas was never celebrated in the early days of the church. But Christmas is celebrated in local churches here in Virginia in praise of the fact that God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to earth. The Son was enfleshed so we could see what God was like. This Son was entirely God and entirely man. We have given in to the temptations of this earth, but Jesus was able to overcome all temptations and live a sinless life. He was then crucified as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. One can not understand why we celebrate the birth of Christ without seeing the other end of His life. He was crucified for our sins and resurrected. That’s something to celebrate!

Dennis Rupert, pastor
Last update: 12/09/2008

by Douglas Jones

We so often lead lives forgetful that our God is very shocking. Amidst all our jelly piety and devouring busyness, we have a Lord who steps in and commands us such things as, “Thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household” (Deut. 14:26). Such unthriftiness. Such waste. Such gluttony. Such winebibbing. Such is a command of our holy God.

For some reason, foreign to our modern ears, God tells us that celebration is central to pleasing Him; it is central to leading a good life. Modern American life has no time for serious celebrations as did life in centuries past. We’ve got work to do; projects and deadlines press us. And yet for all our industrial-strength pragmatism, few if any truly important things get accomplished. We have forgotten that celebration isn’t just an option; it’s a call to full Christian living.

Celebration is worshiping God with our bodies, with the material creation He has set up around us. Celebrating—whether in feasts, ceremonies, holidays, formal worship, or lovemaking—are all part of obeying God’s command to “love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5; Mk. 12:30). We are to show our love for God not just with one portion of our being, the spiritual aspect; we are to love God with our whole body, heart and strength and legs and lips.

Complaint is the flag of ingratitude, and it waves at the center of unbelieving hearts—”although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful” (Rom. 1:25). Yet by grace, God’s redemption and creation ought to keep us in a perpetual state of thanks which bursts out in celebration at every opportunity.

Celebrating in Feasting

Throughout Scripture and later history, feasting stands as the central expression of celebration. Through Isaiah, God promised a messianic future in which He would “wipe away tears from all faces” (Is. 25:8; Rev. 21:4), and He depicts this redemption not in terms of intellectual satisfaction or quiet piety but in terms of an extravagant feast: “And in this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees” (Is. 25:6)—choice pieces, well-refined wines, and fat things!—all the blessings which anemic moderns say we shouldn’t have. Redemption doesn’t appear to be a low-cal, cholesterol-free affair.

In addition to redemption, the creation itself calls us to thankfulness. Ancient Greek paganism of the Platonic variety has always despised the created order, seeing matter as a debilitating prison, something to be escaped. But God’s creative work has given the material creation a high place—”God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Gen 1:31). The apostle Paul tells us “every creature of God is good” (1 Tim. 4:4). Creation is not to be despised. It is a gift of divine art—wheated prairies, royal roses, steep giraffes, cool breezes, etched cliffs, loyal dogs, and tall corn; but also indoor plumbing, plastic toothbrushes, zippers, sourdough bread, Merlot wine, Italian sauces, tri-tip steak, and marinated mushrooms—”nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4).

To see how far away we are from ancient and medieval notions of celebration, consider what it would take to hold three, week-long celebrations a year as in ancient Israel. On top of that, imagine attending several weddings during the year each of which took a week. Such serious celebrating has molded most eras before our own. Or what would even a three-day feast look like? We moderns wouldn’t know where to start. Yet even if we are to try to win back some commitment to celebration, it has to become something we pursue seriously. It won’t happen just when we get free time. It has to become a meditation and a discipline, because the crowd is pressing us in the opposite direction.

We can at least start to feast with single meals. But even that will require a concerted pursuit of good cooking and delightful tastes. God has surrounded us with so many amazing tastes, and yet we Americans are barely scratching the surface. The Anglo streak in the American heritage has certainly put a tight squeeze on the breadth of our palates. American food is really so bland and tame we don’t even recognize it anymore. And we pass on our picky eating to the next generation. Pure criminality. But even the English know that for good food you have to leave the country. They like France, but the entire world awaits us. We have much to learn from the feastings of Asia and the Latin countries, especially that land of feasts—Italy.

Part of learning to celebrate includes learning how to splurge and not be so tightly utilitarian. Our culture is so wicked in its neglect of savings and slavery to plastic credit that we, with some right, run the other direction. But if your house is in order, it’s time to learn how to splurge at times. Beauty isn’t cheap, and neither are artistic meals and good wines. It may not be every week, but we need to learn to splurge with a pure conscience before God. If He has blessed us, then don’t we slight Him if we trade that blessing for Top Ramen and boxed wine? There is a time to “bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.” Christ Himself was not one to submit to the false piety behind much tightwad thinking common to evangelicalism. When the woman poured “an alabaster flask of very costly oil” on His head, the immature disciples complained, “`it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.’ And Jesus said, `Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always’” (Mk. 14:5_7). Let her alone. These are words of liberation.

Celebrating in Lovemaking

What more divine gift of celebration do we have than lovemaking? Even those married couples who can’t afford to splurge on grand meals and fine wine can feast on each other—”Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine” (Song 1:2). Holy Scripture even describes the delight of lovemaking in terms of a feast: “How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved” (Song 7:6-9).

Yet notice how nonsexual we are in our living. We run from the cold, impersonal sex of our surrounding culture only to act as if lovemaking were some shameful secret. The joy of sexuality doesn’t permeate our lives in the way it did in earlier eras. As much as pragmatism characterizes modern life, a living, warm sexuality characterized much medieval living. It was an important category of life, sometimes distorted, but always present. At their best, they knew that God had made them lovemaking creatures, and such passion and natural affection expressed itself in a warm comfortableness with things sexual. That “Puritan” poet Milton described this comfortable sexuality between Adam and Eve.

. . . . and with eyes
of conjugal attraction unreprov’d,
And meek surrender, half-embracing lean’d
On our first Father, half her swelling Breast
Naked met his under the flowing Gold
Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight
Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms
Smil’d with superior Love, as Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the Clouds
That shed May flowers; and press’d her Matron lip
With kisses pure: aside the Devil turn’d
For envy. . . . (Paradise Lost, IV, 492-503)

Modernity has not only turned us into shameful animals copulating with strangers, but Christians, who should be the best lovers, the most sexual, are quite stiff and on feverish guard lest anyone actually “commit” a holy kiss. This is a sign of our spiritual immaturity. A more mature Christian culture could honor public etiquette, knowing that lovemaking is a private but not a secret thing, while still leading lives blossoming with celebration of the amazing gifts of sexuality.

But that sort of life has to start with love in the privacy of our marriage beds. We must first pursue celebration there. It ought not merely be a place of satisfying natural urges but a place for delighting in the mysterious beauty of those drives. Why did God delight to entrance us with smooth skin, soft breasts, firm muscles, entangled legs, and slow kisses? There are deep mysteries here, and we love meditating on them in person. Just think, we could be monks of love, devoted to a lifetime of meditation on the realities behind such commands as—”Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love” (Prov. 5:18,19).

Like feasts and holidays, celebration in lovemaking is about remembering. It is a love of history, a couple’s history of good times, of positive personal knowledge shared by no others, of refuge from a crazy world. Adulterers despise this sort of history, as do slaves of one night stands and bitter Christian marriages. Mature Christians love tradition, knowing that their sweet history is the only possible haven for the best lovemaking.

Living a Whole Life

Feasting and lovemaking are only two examples of celebration; many others abound, but these two are central. It is our besetting sin to forget God’s work for us. How often do we see miserable Christians wasting their half-lives in bitterness, their heads buried firmly in melancholic marriages or soulless busyness, almost enjoying their narrow nitpicking, molding insignificant faults into eternal weapons. “Stand up. Grow up,” you want to say. “Life is too short!” and “You have forgotten all the important things in life.” Celebration, like good stories, put things back in perspective. It reminds us of the important things.

So what is it to lead a whole life? How can younger persons live now so that they can look back when they are seventy or eighty and say in all maturity, whether rich or poor, “I have lived well.” Most of us, I’m afraid, will look back with decades of regrets, decades of waste, splintered lives. At that age we may finally “have time” to think about the good life, but it will be far too late.

The wisest man in the world taught us that “there is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God” (Eccl. 2:24). Nothing better. Nothing better. Eat, drink, and enjoy the fruit of your labor. “Make your soul enjoy” celebration—feasting on food and love. But doesn’t this neglect purist doctrine, social injustice, and more time at the office? Yes, it certainly does.

This article was taken from Credenda magazine/Agenda Vol. 10, No. 2. Used by permission.

Solving Problems and Disagreements

1 Peter 2:17 Show proper respect to everyone. . . .

There are many ways to try to solve problems and come to agreements. This method (called the 3Ps) is one way that many couples have found helpful. Great marriages are characterized by an abiding sense of teamwork based on deep, mutual respect and love. In some ways, this model is like a road map to keep you on the path and moving forward when you have a specific problem to work through. Try it out and see what you think.

Step One: Problem Discussion (The Speaker-Listener Technique)

Proverbs 18:13 He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him. (NKJV)

• You should separate Problem Discussion from Problem Solution.

• Premature problem solving leads to poor solutions and poor follow through.

Step Two: Prayer

This is a step not mentioned in the secular material, but we would emphasize the value of a couple praying together and seeking God’s direction and help. Whether silent or out loud, at this point in the process or earlier, there is power and peace in acknowledging God in your working together.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Step Three: Problem Solution

Agenda Setting

• Pick a very specific piece of the issue you are working on to try to solve right now.
• Stay on this focus for solution ideas.

Brain Storming

• Suggest any ideas at all and be creative.
• No criticism or evaluation at this point.

Agreement

• Talk out the ideas you came up with.
• Try out different combinations.
• Try to find the trial solution that will have the best chance of working.

Follow up on Trial Solution

• Set a time frame to see if the solution is working, and change it if necessary.

copyright Christian PREP, Inc. 1996

Return to Marriage Class

Forgiveness

No couple could make their marriage last with joy and intimacy without a commitment to forgiveness. And yet forgiveness in marriage is seldom actually stressed. There is no magic formula, but Jesus Christ’s teaching does point the way for moving through forgiveness when needed.

Defining Forgiveness

Jesus uses financial models:

Matthew 6:12 Forgive (APHIEMI) us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Mark 11:25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

The Greek word = APHIEMI = to send away, to give up, to keep no longer, to let go, to release from obligation…

Reasons to Forgive

1. Jesus commanded us to do so. — If you hold anything against anyone, forgive him… (Mark 11:25).

2. Not doing so hinders your relationship with God. It puts you out of fellowship with Him. — …forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins (Mark 11:25).

3. Because you have experienced God’s grace and forgiveness. — Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? (Matthew 18:33).

4. It is a powerful way to be like Christ. — Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you (Colossians 3:13).

5. Forgiving frees you for a restored relationship!

The Keys

1. You give up your perceived right to get even.

• Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. (Romans 12:17).

2. You don’t hold “it” over your partner’s head.

• Love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5).

3. You try to move ahead constructively with the relationship.

• Love always hopes, always perseveres (1 Corinthians 13:7).

How to Get It Going

• Set an Agenda to work on the issue in question.

• Pray Together for the Lord to bless your time discussing this issue.

• Explore the Pain and Concerns

This is a good place to use the Speaker/Listener Technique for the offended partner to share the hurts.

• Offender Asks for Forgiveness

If applicable, offender gives positive commitment to change recurrent patterns or attitudes that give offense.

• Offended Person Agrees to Forgive

• Both Commit the Issue to the Past

No throwing the issue at the other in a conflict.

• Pray Together for grace to release the issue as a barrier between you both.

James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

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Fine-tuning the speaker/listener technique

In the book Fighting for Your Marriage Rule #1 for the Speaker is stated as follows:

Speak for yourself. Don’t try to be a mind reader. Talk about your thoughts, feelings, and concerns, not your perceptions of the Listener’s point of view or motives. Try to use “I” statements, and talk about your own point of view. “I think you’re a jerk” is not an “I” statement. “I was upset when you forgot our date” is. [page 64]

I. Describing Your Feelings:

There are different levels of communication:

Every human being has emotions, feelings, desires, and needs. Many people, especially males, have difficulty in describing these, because we lack a “feeling” vocabulary. Our German-English culture has tended to suppress and hide feelings. Our language reflects this: The English language has only __1/3___ the number of feeling words that the French language has. As a result, though we have feelings, but they are often unnamed and hidden. Describing your feelings will help in the following ways:

*Describing your feelings can get you to the “real issues.” Feelings are the part of the iceberg that is hidden under the water.

*Describing your feelings will help you channel your emotions in healthy, godly ways. Unnamed feelings will manifest themselves in some manner: anger, “acting out,” depression, psychosomatic illnesses. When we appropriately express our emotions, we “feel better,” and can often get what we need to meet our deep felt needs.

*Describing your feelings gives the Listener a window to your soul: Describing how you feel helps the Listener understand what motivates you, what you desire, and what you really need. The Listener won’t have to mind-read or guess what you need.

Ways to Describe Your Feelings:

*Identify or name it. “I feel insecure.” “I feel abandoned.” “I feel enthusiastic about the progress we are making.”

*Use similes and metaphors. We do not always have enough labels or names to describe our emotions so we sometimes invent what we call similes and metaphors to describe feelings. Examples: “I feel squelched.” “I felt like a cool breeze going through the air.” “I feel lower than a snakes belly in a wagon wheel rut.”

*Report the type of action your feelings urged you to do. “I felt like hugging you.” “I feel like I could hit you.”

*Use figures of speech, such as “The sun is smiling on me today.” “I feel like a dark cloud is following me around today.”

II. Using “I” statements rather than “You” statements:

I statements are sentences that begin with the word “I.” In Ephesians 4:29 the Lord explains to us his purpose for our verbal communication:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

God wants the words you speak to be helpful, encouraging, and beneficial for the listener to hear. “I” statements do not blame or accuse others for your thoughts, feelings, needs or desires. Therefore they are less likely to provoke resistance, anger, or resentment and hence, less likely to hurt the relationship. An I-message is a statement of fact rather than an evaluation and therefore is less likely to lower the Listener’s self-esteem.

Here’s how to break the “You” statement habit:

1. Examine the feeling behind your accusatory “You” statement. Were you hurt? Were you feeling guilty? Resentful? Betrayed? Usually, some primary negative feeling underlies your reacting with a “You” statement.

2. Okay, you got the feeling pinned down? Now express this primary feeling with an “I feel _blank_” statement rather than attacking with a “You” statement.

3. Now follow your “I feel _blank_” statement with a “when” or “because” phrase: “I feel _blank_, when _[such and such occurs]_.”

Use I-messages to:

*Respectfully express your feelings.

*Demonstrate that you are taking responsibility for your thoughts, beliefs, feelings, needs and desires.

*Respectfully confront a person about something he or she has done.

*Request that a need be met or a desire be considered.

*Respectfully ask for something you want.

*Express thanks and appreciation.

Proverbs 15:1 says: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word just stirs up anger.” One of the ways to be gentle in our speech is by using “I” statements rather than “You” statements.

III. Watch Your Body Language:

God understands the importance of body language: “The Lord make His face to shine upon you… The Lord turn His countenance upon you and give you peace” Numbers 6:24-25.

Of a person’s total communication:

The actual words account for only ___7___ percent.

Tone of voice accounts for ___38___ percent.

Body language accounts for ___55___ percent.

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