Some Thoughts About Christians and Halloween

Halloween has become one the biggest holidays on the American calendar, spending over $6 billion last year on decorations, candy and costumes.  What was once essentially a children’s holiday has become a cultural juggernaut, and as it has Halloween has become an increasingly controversial and at times divisive topic in the Christian community.  But it doesn’t have to be, and to that end I humbly offer a few thoughts.

      1.     There is no clear teaching in scripture about whether or not it is permissible to participate in Halloween observances. It is what might be considered a grey area of Christian life. That does not mean that there are no passages of scripture that should inform your decision about celebrating Halloween.  Addressing the issue of eating meat purchased in the meat market in ancient Corinth  which may have been sacrificed to an idol, Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, stated that it is a matter of conscience, but the key to eating or not eating, was to eat or not eat for the glory of God.   

      2.      Remember whether or not you celebrate Halloween is a matter of conscience, your conscience.  You have no biblical grounds to either approve or condemn another believer’s decision.  Who are you to judge the servant of another? Remember when you mistake your conscience for the moral will of God, you are the one guilty of sin, the sin of legalism. 

       3.      Another key principle that Paul gave to the Corinthians, is that they are not to cause a brother (or sister) to stumble in matters of conscience.  It is not your responsibility to correct another believer’s understanding of Christian freedom as it relates to Halloween.  If you convince a fellow believer to ignore the conviction of their conscience, whether you believe it is sinful or acceptable to celebrate Halloween, you have caused them to stumble, and that is a profound sin.

      4.      Sinful behavior is sinful behavior regardless of the day of the year.  Drunkenness is always a sin.  To look on sinful behavior and evil approvingly is always a sin.  If you wouldn’t wear that sexy pirate costume to church you shouldn’t wear it to your office party either.

      5.      Yes many of the traditions associated with Halloween have pagan origins, but so do many of the secular traditions associated with other holidays.  Chocolate rabbits and hard boiled eggs at Easter harkens back to pagan springtime fertility festivals and evergreen trees at Christmas have roots in Celtic winter solstice celebrations.  If you are going to get worked up about pumpkins, you should be outraged by candy canes too.  (Witches, devils, and skeletons are a different matter, see point 5.)

      6.      Giving out gospel tracts instead of candy to trick-or-treaters is not a good evangelism strategy.  Far better is handing out Gospel tracts in addition to candy.  And better yet talk with your neighbors about Christ the other 364 days of the year too.  (And by the way, if you are going to leave a Way of the Master $1,000,000 bill for a tip in a restaurant, it should be in addition to a 20% tip, not instead of it.)

  

     While believers may have differing, and even very strongly held beliefs, there is nothing about the holiday that should give us cause to divide over.  Although I personally don't celebrate Halloween (it is easy when you live too far out into the country for trick-or-treaters), I do have a pair of pumpkins on the front porch.  And if you plan to send your kids out to ring door bells and ask for candy, my prayer is that they will be safe and that you made that decision for the Glory of God.  After all it is between you and Him.

Dinesh D'Souza, Divorce and the Collapse of Christian Higher Education

     Dinesh D’Souza has been in the news a lot lately.  He has been writing best sellers, directed and produced the second highest grossing political documentary of all time, and even bested Bill Mahr on his HBO show rather frequently in the past few years.  He even paid for the Nigerian brother of president Obama to get some much needed medical attention for his son.  Things have generally been looking up for Dinesh.

     There has been more going on in Dinesh's life though.  In recent years he has joined the parade of previously secular conservative pundits who have sought to rebrand themselves as not merely conservative, but Evangelical Christian social conservatives. But the odd thing is that D'Souza never really embraced or at least appeared to embrace evangelical Christianity.  In one of the most baffling interviews ever given on the topic of personal religious beliefs, D'Souza refused to renounce Roman Catholocism, yet claimed to embrace reformed theology and claimed to comfortable with and part of the Evangelical world.  To appropriate a saying of Ron Jaworski, "if a team says they have two quarterbacks capable of starting  that means they don't have one." I have to wonder if a man who claims to have two diametrically opposing theological outlooks has any at all.  I don't know, nor do I claim to know the condition of his heart, but I do know that someone who is unwilling to make a clear profession of faith in Christ alone for salvation (thereby separating from the church of Rome's doctrine of salvation through works and merit) should not be employed by, let lone tapped to lead,   a Christian college or university.

     Yet D'Souza was named president of The King's College in 2010, an ostensibly Evangelical college located in New York City and closely associated with Cru (the ministry formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ), which according to its mission statement is committed to the truths of Christianity and a biblical world view. (I would see if this is reflected in their doctrinal statement, but if it exists it is no where to be found on their website.)  How can an organization dedicated to the truths of Christianity be led by a man who won't say what they are?

     As sad as his hiring was, the circumstances of his firing are even worse.  Not only is D'Souza unwilling to articulate a biblical world view he doesn't live one either.  This is not a wild accusation, the circumstances that surround The King's College accepting his resignation yesterday are simply scandalous.

     D'Souza, was the key note speaker at an apologetics conference hosted by First Baptist North church of Spartanburg South Carolina.  Other speakers included noted christian biographer Eric Metaxas and eminent apologist Josh McDowell, but D'souza managed to set himself apart.  He was the only married speaker to show up with his fiance!  Despite being married (for 20 years) D'Souza attended the conference with a young woman (reportedly also married) and introduced her to conference attendees as his fiance.  This would be scandal enough, and blindingly bright evidence that a Christian College should never be led by an unbeliever, because invariably the name of Christ will be defamed (the atheist/leftist blogosphere is awash in glee over this scandal), but it was D'Souza's response that was the real black eye to The King's College.  He showed himself to be completely ignorant of biblical Christianity and the content of the bible.

     In response to the World magazine article that exposed his sin, he published this baffling response on the Fox News website.  While he denies some of the details of the World account (notably that he shared a hotel room with his mistress) he doesn't seen to understand why people were shocked at his behavior.  He writes:

"I sought out advice about whether it is legal to be engaged prior to being divorced and I was informed that it is. Denise and I were trying to do the right thing. I had no idea that it is considered wrong in Christian circles to be engaged prior to being divorced, even though in a state of separation and in divorce proceedings.  Obviously I would not have introduced Denise as my fiancé at a Christian apologetics conference if I had thought or known I was doing something wrong. But as a result of all this, and to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, Denise and I have decided to suspend our engagement."

     He clearly didn't seek the counsel of Scripture or faithful men otherwise he would have run into these truths:  God hates divorce; whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; What God has joined together no man may separate.  It is utterly impossible that someone with even a cursory connection to the Christian community, let alone some one who has read the Bible  (or even just the Gospels) just once would be unaware that actual Christians would be outraged that a married man, who they paid to hear speak, who has claimed Christ (sort of) would bring his (likely married) mistress with him to an apologetics conference and introduced her as his fiance.  

     The only thing more shocking to me than his behavior and indignation at the response to it, is that a "Christian" college would name a man as president who is so ignorant of the content of the Bible.  How could this ignorance not become glaringly apparent during the interview process?

    Sadly this is shocking, but not surprising.  Real Christian higher education is rapidly disappearing.  Sure there are some faithful institutions, but they are the extreme exception and few and far in between.  Historic stalwarts of christian education now embrace ecumenism, sexual immorality, evolution, higher criticism, and seemingly every other attack on the authority of Scripture, in an effort to be "relevant" or to be embraced by the culture, or to acquire the veneer of academic respectability they so desperately desire.  What they fail to understand is that there is no way to be faithful to Christ and to appeal to the world.  As Christ said, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

     Sadly The King's College is not unique, they just went all the way.  They hired a man who made no credible profession of faith, and who apparently has no knowledge of the content of the Bible to be their leader, just because he was popular with the world.  And predictably they did not become more relevant, or important or respectable, they became a laughing stock, and dragged the name of the King they claim to serve through the mud in the process.  Pray that other institutions learn from this failure, and return to the truth and authority of Scripture while there is still time.

Why Our Church Isn't Charismatic and Yours Shouldn't Be Either

            When examining the question of the “charismatic” gifts, the key question, really the only question is, “does the Scripture indicate that these gifts are normative for the Church?”  In order for that to be the case, the gifts as practiced in the charismatic church would have to match the sign gifts practiced in the apostolic church.

            The Charismatic movement likes to claim that it is exercising the biblical gifts of tongues (and to a much lesser extent the interpretation of tongues), prophecy and healing, but do they really?

Almost without exception charismatics claim that the gift of tongues is the gift of a secret prayer language, but that is simply not supported by the biblical text.  The clearest text (and the clear should always inform interpretation on the less clear passages) on what the gift of tongues was is Acts 2:1-13, and it not only defines the gift of tongues as speaking in unlearned human languages, it names some of the languages spoken, and even states that those present were amazed because they heard the tongue speaker “telling in our own tongue (language) the mighty works of God.”  Anything other than this is not the biblical gift of tongues.  

 But the charismatic gift of “tongues” is not like this at all, it is a nonsensical “prayer language” that bears no resemblance, according to linguists, to any known human language.  It doesn’t even contain the building blocks of human language.  Even the best pro-tongues scholars admit that it is not normal human language.  D.A. Carson (who I esteem highly, and is many times smarter than I'll ever be) for example claims that the gift of tongues is a prayer language.  And then baffling proposes that a self keyed linear cipher that an informed 12 year old could crack with a pad and a pencil is an undecipherable secret coded prayer language, that no human by natural means could ever understand (the pertinent part of Carson's book Showing the Spirit is excerpted here). Thus we have to conclude that whatever it is that is going on in charismatic churches; it is not the biblical gift of tongues.  And if it is not biblical we do not do it.  

The situation with the charismatic gift of “prophecy” is similar, unless what is practiced as “prophecy” in charismatic circles matches biblical prophecy it must be rejected.   The gift of “prophecy” as practiced in charismatic churches is a fallible.  The typical claim is that the God sends an infallible message to a sinful human recipient, whose fallen condition may result in an incorrect interpretation of the message and the result, is a prophecy that is a fallible revelation from God.  Often these prophecies are not about matters of spiritual import, but often focus on the mundane, what job to take, who to date or marry and the like.  Wayne Grudem, a prominent apologist for fallible charismatic prophecy even claimed to have received a prophecy that he should cancel his subscription to the newspaper (see the video here).   

How does this compare to prophecy in the bible?  Not well!  Scripture is clear that there is one test for the authenticity of a prophet, the prophecies he speaks.  If the prophecy contradicts God’s revealed word, the prophet is false and if what the prophet says does not come to pass, then it “is a word that the Lord has not spoken (Deut 18:22).”  There is simply no idea of fallible prophecy in the bible.   

Although many charismatics will claim that there is a difference between Old and New Testament prophecy this is a mere assertion without any exegetical support.  In fact they often appeal to Acts 2 as a total fulfillment of Joel 2 as evidence that prophecy is normative for the church while maintaining the fallibility of New Testament “prophecy” yet they fail to note that Joel 2 calls for prophecy in the infallible Old Testament sense.   

Similarly they claim that Agabus, the prophet who predicted Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 21:11) was mistaken because an alleged discrepancy with the details of the arrest that come later in the chapter.  However their argument is one merely from the white space of scripture, assuming that if the given details of the arrest do not include details in the prophecy, then they must not have come to pass.  Additionally their hermeneutic is overly literalistic, removing the possibility of symbolic speech from prophecy.  However the details of the prophecy are entirely consistent with the account of the arrest, and Paul, in his recollection of his arrest in Acts 28:17 (and the Greek uses the exact same verbs as in Acts 21:11).  

 There is simply no evidence at all that there is any difference in the nature of prophecy in the New Testament and the Old.  Additionally there is no record or evidence at all in the bible of prophecy involving the mundane details of life and to claim that God gives prophecies about continuing or canceling newspaper subscriptions is to make light of true biblical prophecy.  Thus we can conclude that prophecy as practiced in charismatic churches is not biblical prophecy and if it is not biblical it has no place in our church.

            Likewise, when it comes to the gift of healing, the key question is what is the charismatic “gift of healing” and how does it compare to the New Testament gift of healing.  In charismatic circles, the gift of healing comes in two forms, the pop-Pentecostal/TBN/Benny Hinn variety and the 3^rd wave variety.  The pop-Pentecostal idea of the gift of healing is that if enough faith is present in the sick person, then they will be healed, typically through the laying on of hands.  And while they claim great success, under scrutiny, major “healers” like Hinn, Todd Bently, Peter Poppoff and others have been unable to produce one person who remained “healed” of an organic ailment that was not being treated through conventional means.  They claim that the problem is that the “healed” didn’t have enough faith to sustain their healing.   

The third wave view of healing is much different, and although it is articulated a number of ways, it is essentially that someone with the “gift of healing” prayed for the sick person, and eventually they got better, almost always concurrent with conventional medical treatment and rarely of major visible illnesses. 

Neither of these practices match the New Testament gift of healing.  When Jesus and the Apostles and those associated with Apostolic ministry healed (as recorded in scripture) it was always instantaneous, immediate, permanent, apparent to witnesses and not dependent on the faith of the one healed.  Jesus healed ingrates (Luke17:12-19), Peter healed people whose level of faith is not indicated just by walking by (Acts 5:15) and Paul raised the dead after a three story fall (Acts 20:9-12).  Lepers, the blind, the lame, the physically malformed were all instantly, visibly and permanently healed.  This is the biblical pattern of the gift of healing, and it agrees with neither the temporary “healings” of the pop-Pentecostal movement or with the prayer healing of the 3^rd  wave, thus we can conclude that the gift of healing as practiced by the charismatic movement is unbiblical and so it has no place in our church.

Because the “gifts” as practiced by charismatics are not biblical gifts they have no place in our, or any other church, and the charismatic exercise of them is a serious error.  God still heals today, but not through the gift of healing; God still gives us special revelation, but through His word, not through prophets; and God still allows us to speak the truth in unlearned languages, but through the printing press (and google translate) not through the gift of tongues.  We are deeply gifted as a church, but what charismatics do is not a gift of God, and has no place in our body.

An Election that Actually Matters

          The doctrine of election is one of the most beautiful and encouraging doctrines of the faith.  That doesn’t mean that it is easy to understand and accept from a human perspective.   Even Martin Luther referred to it as “the hard wine”, but if you look at what the bible says and really think about it, then it won’t be so hard to understand and will be a source of encouragement to you.

            The first thing to understand is that when we talk about election there is more than one kind of election in the bible, there is corporate or group election, election to a particular task or office, and individual election to salvation for individual believers.

            Corporate election is when God chooses a group of people to be his people.  In  the old testament this was Israel, but in the same way that God chose Israel, He also choose the church.  Peter writes to believers that the Church is a Holy nation, a chosen race and a people for God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:9-10).  That God chose a group of people as His own is very clear.

            A second kind of election is the election, or choosing by God, of an individual to fulfill a particular function or office.  This is seen in both the Old Testament and the New.  God chose Moses as the deliverer of Israel from Egypt, He chose David to be king and Solomon to build the temple (even though David desired to build it).  This kind of special election was not just something that happened long ago, but is still going on as God elects people to the ministry and other positions and offices within the church (Eph 4:11).

            But when we talk about election what most people think of is personal election to salvation.  This kind of election refers to God’s choosing individual people for grace that results in faith and leads to salvation.  The selection of believers by God is a thread that runs through the whole of Scripture.  In the Pentateuch God choose Abraham (Gen 12:1-3) in the prophets God chooses Jeremiah before his birth (Jer. 1:5) but in the writings we have as clear a statement about election as any of the passages about election we find in the New Testament.  David wrote in Psalm 65:4 “Blessed is the one You choose and bring near to dwell in your courts”.  This is an explicit statement about personal election.

            The New Testament also clearly teaches election in the gospels, Acts and the epistles.  John 5:21 records Jesus saying that the “son gives life to whom He wishes” and in 6:44 Jesus says that “no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.”  Acts 13:48, in describing the response to the preaching of Paul, notes that as many were appointed to life believed. Paul likewise writes “who He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Rom8:30),” and that “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph.1:4).  Peter notes in 1 Peter 1:1-2 that believers scattered throughout the world are “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.”  Finally Revelation 13:8 states that the names in the book of life have been written since the foundation of the world.

            It is simply inescapable that God has elected certain people to faith and eternal life.  It is His choice and He is the actor.  I have given so many examples so that it is clear that this is a teaching that runs throughout the whole of Scripture, from the first book of the bible to the last.  To deny individual election is to deny a clear teaching of Scripture.

            But the doctrine of election in no way negates man’s free will.  Some who believe that man chooses God claim that irresistible election is incompatible with the free will of man. They claim that this doctrine makes men robots who are marching to either destruction or salvation with no input into their fate.  That however is simply not true.  All men apart from God constantly and freely chose sins that alienate them for God and make them objects of wrath.  Paul, in Romans 3:11, writes of the natural man “No one seeks for God.”  God does not actively elect some for damnation and others for salvation.   All men are headed to perdition, by their own choosing and actions, but God gracefully elects some  to be awakened to their spiritual condition that they might repent and believe.  While this may seem unfair to us, the reality is that fair would be for everyone to be cast into hell, but in His mercy God elects some to life.  As Exodus 33:19 records God says “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy”.

            So you should be encouraged by the doctrine of election, if you have truly accepted Christ as both your Lord and Savior.  God has chosen you.  What an incredible gift of grace.  Not only is election a tremendous encouragement, but it is also a call to holy living, as Paul exhorted in Ephesians 4:1, we should strive to walk worthily of the calling with which we were called.