SuperLutheran (Avignon Half) on Nostr: On the topic of whether it's okay for Christians to celebrate Halloween: There is ...
On the topic of whether it's okay for Christians to celebrate Halloween:
There is nothing wrong with your kids dressing up like astronauts or cereal box characters and asking for candy. Whoever decided that it's actually pledging allegiance to the devil or something needs to evaluate just how loose a grip they think God has on the faithful.
"B-b-but it used to be a pagan holiday!!!" Sure. We took it from the pagans. We pwn'd the pagans and now the holiday belongs to the Church who spends a night every year mocking the devil and eating candy. I fail to see the issue.
But since we're on the topic of Jack Chick levels of "you did something I don't like very much so you're damned," keep in mind that almost every single aspect of human life has been used by pagans in their worship. If you believe that dong something pagans did, even if you are not doing it for pagan purposes, damns people, then no one is saved.
Sex was used in rituals by fertility cults. Does having sex with one's wife accidentally initiate them into the mysteries of aphrodite? How about weightlifting or wrestling? Both were used religiously in the Ankhara temples in India, where they worshiped a deity of strength and combat. Are you accidentally losing your salvation if you hit the gym? American indian tribes smoked tobacco in religious ceremonies. Tobacco was believed to have entheogenic properties and was used in many an indian ritual. Does that mean sparking up a Marlboro damns you?
Let's not even get started on eating. Ritual feasting and ritual fasting have been things for millennia among pagans. I guess both eating and not eating make you damned because you might accidentally eat or not eat in a form that honors a demon. What a stupid notion.
Seriously, your baptism is not undone by virtue of you eating a piece of candy. That you are covered by Christ's blood is not undone by doing down dog to stretch out your hamstrings. My God is bigger than the devil and He's not going to let the devil snatch me out of His hands. You should believe the same.
There is nothing wrong with your kids dressing up like astronauts or cereal box characters and asking for candy. Whoever decided that it's actually pledging allegiance to the devil or something needs to evaluate just how loose a grip they think God has on the faithful.
"B-b-but it used to be a pagan holiday!!!" Sure. We took it from the pagans. We pwn'd the pagans and now the holiday belongs to the Church who spends a night every year mocking the devil and eating candy. I fail to see the issue.
But since we're on the topic of Jack Chick levels of "you did something I don't like very much so you're damned," keep in mind that almost every single aspect of human life has been used by pagans in their worship. If you believe that dong something pagans did, even if you are not doing it for pagan purposes, damns people, then no one is saved.
Sex was used in rituals by fertility cults. Does having sex with one's wife accidentally initiate them into the mysteries of aphrodite? How about weightlifting or wrestling? Both were used religiously in the Ankhara temples in India, where they worshiped a deity of strength and combat. Are you accidentally losing your salvation if you hit the gym? American indian tribes smoked tobacco in religious ceremonies. Tobacco was believed to have entheogenic properties and was used in many an indian ritual. Does that mean sparking up a Marlboro damns you?
Let's not even get started on eating. Ritual feasting and ritual fasting have been things for millennia among pagans. I guess both eating and not eating make you damned because you might accidentally eat or not eat in a form that honors a demon. What a stupid notion.
Seriously, your baptism is not undone by virtue of you eating a piece of candy. That you are covered by Christ's blood is not undone by doing down dog to stretch out your hamstrings. My God is bigger than the devil and He's not going to let the devil snatch me out of His hands. You should believe the same.