Evangelicalism seemed to me to have no place not only for the darker side of life, but also for ordinary, messy human emotions. By contrast, the rituals of Catholicism grounded as they were in the cycle of the seasons and in basic human needs, spoke of a more rounded and realistic view of human nature. If you've ever been to a modern evangelical funeral, you'll know what I mean. Grieving seems to be regarded as some kind of failure of faith: you're supposed to smile and be happy that your loved one is now with Jesus, not focus on your own feelings of loss, however devastating. There seems to be little recognition that to experience the dawn, you first have to face the darkness of night, that every Easter needs its Good Friday...
Paradoxically, of course, there's nothing Catholic about contemporary celebrations of Hallowe'en, at least not in Britain and North America. The 'Day of the Dead' festivals in Catholic countries such as Mexico are of a rather different order. But Hallowe'en belongs to an older, grimmer brand of evangelical Christianity, with its roots in the Calvinism of the kirk and the puritanism of Salem. When I was a child in '60s Essex, celebrations of Hallowe'en were almost unknown. The first we knew of it was when a friend who had moved down from Scotland invited me to a party at his house, and I was introduced to the alien rituals of apple-bobbing and pumpkin carving. Now, of course, the influence of American popular culture has made the festival ubiquitous. It's still a shock, though, to be in the States in the week before Hallowe'en, as we have been for the past two years - first in San Francisco, then in Washington DC - and to see virtually every house in Pacific Heights or Georgetown bedecked with multiple pumpkins, and to see skeletons, ghosts and witches dancing from every window.
Given the puritan roots of Hallowe'en, it's odd to witness the modern campaign against it led by evangelicals, or (as I would argue) resulting from the 'evangelicalisation' of other branches of Christianity, including Catholicism. However, it seems to me that both the roots of Hallowe'en, and the current opposition to it, lie in the same strangely literal and superficial understanding of evil (viz. the ridiculous conservative Christian campaign against Harry Potter, despite the Christian-influenced message of the books). Given all the real wickedness in the world - the cruelty, oppression and exploitation that are the daily diet of the news media - it seems perverse in the extreme to take fright at a bit of harmless magic and devilry. By campaigning against Hallowe'en, modern Christians are revealing the persistence of their own naive belief in a literal devil, and their odd lack of confidence in the power of light to banish that imaginary darkness.
14 comments:
Loathe the imposition of this commercialised celebration of shameless greed and intimidation. It certainly didn't exist in my day (although we students went witch-hunting in the dark on 31 Oct up on the Downs - where we encountered nothing, apart from some p-ed off livestock, but lots of other students doing likewise!).
Yes, absolutely: 'to experience the dawn, you first have to experience the darkness of night.' THAT's what Halloween and All Saints', taken in combination, are about: can't have one without the other. It's a prefiguring of the Easter story, and perhaps a reminder of what lies beyond the anticipations of Advent and the joy of Christmas.
Grew up in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, with bells, smells and the glories of the BCP; belong to that wing of the Communion which is perfectly happy with gay priests (PP in Bristol entered into civil partnership with his chap - no problem to the congregation) and women bishops. I'd really like to see at least one of the latter in what was once my country before I pop my clogs; but am not hopeful.
Here, have to endure the malign influence of Australian 'management' & loads of Americans who apparently can't understand anything 'too British', and the results are predictably dire (most of the hymns are strangely reminiscent of the theme-tune to 'Neighbours') and there's no choir (which I miss more than I can say). Although, thankfully, there's no giving unto us the clap we so richly deserve ... yet. Also unfriendly, unlike the more inclusive congregations I was accustomed to before. Now tend to attend church on (a) weekdays, &/or (b) 'hit-and-run' basis! Sad.
Thanks for the comment, Minnie. Love the idea of attending church on a 'hit and run' basis - chimes with my experience too.
Yup, 'outed' as a cr*p Christian & hopeless backslider!
Loved your elegant skewering of the fundamental flaw in the Churche's argument, summed up in your final lines. People who can think all the way from A to B ...
I don't understand why belief in a literal devil should be considered naive for Christians, who, after all, people who believe in a literal God who sent his literal son to earth to literally die for humanity. Each of these beliefs is a lot stranger (historically, culturally, and theologically) than belief in a literal source of evil.
Hi Peter. Difficult to know from your comment whether you share these literal beliefs or you're simply trying to understand how people could hold them. I'll assume the latter, and agree with you that, once you allow yourself to question the apparently 'peripheral' beliefs of Christianity, it raises doubts about the 'core' propositions too. After all, on what basis does one decide what's core and what's peripheral?
I suppose I was being generous and assuming that the majority of modern Christians aren't really literalists about Jesus being the 'son' of a sky-god who was 'sent' (from where?) to earth...and that therefore they would be less literal about the nature of evil too.
Part of the problem, as I've pointed out before, is that Christian leaders continue to speak to their congregations as if the metaphors were literally true, but when challenged tell outsiders, 'Of course, we don't really believe that LITERALLY, any more...' But it seems that many of their flock still do...
Hi Peter. Difficult to know from your comment whether you share these literal beliefs or you're simply trying to understand how people could hold them. I'll assume the latter, and agree with you that, once you allow yourself to question the apparently 'peripheral' beliefs of Christianity, it raises doubts about the 'core' propositions too. After all, on what basis does one decide what's core and what's peripheral?
I suppose I was being generous and assuming that the majority of modern Christians aren't really literalists about Jesus being the 'son' of a sky-god who was 'sent' (from where?) to earth...and that therefore they would be less literal about the nature of evil too.
Part of the problem, as I've pointed out before, is that Christian leaders continue to speak to their congregations as if the metaphors were literally true, but when challenged tell outsiders, 'Of course, we don't really believe that LITERALLY, any more...' But it seems that many of their flock still do...
If you haven't already read it you should add Hogg's 'Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner' to your novels list: the Kirk, antinomianism, and much more.
Re: 'hit 'n run' church attendance--an old friend, a retired Anglican priest, says he loves the poetry of religion but finds the prose hard to take. Sees it all as metaphor, poetry, theatre and nips out when the preacher heads for the pulpit.
Brigada - Thanks for the recommendation. I'll add it to the list - alongside a long overdue re-read of 'Pilgrim's Progress', in which I have a renewed interest, thanks to possible ancestral connections with Bunyan (Bedfordshire Baptists) and the fact that (as someone on Twitter kindly informed me recently) the spiritual landscape of the book is based on the actual landscape in these parts (Beds/N Herts). I shall need something really pagan to read after all this Calvinism!
Brigada - Sorry, should have added that I sympathise with your retired priest friend. I was brought up a Methodist - my dad's a local preacher - so was used to 30 or 40 minute sermons. When I was thinking of becoming an RC, our minister said, 'But their priests are not really preachers...' I confess I thought that was a good thing and rather liked the 10 min RC homilies. These days, on the rare occasions I find myself in church, my patience, and capacity to bite my tongue is even shorter.
I was a little disappointed to see that the Saint costumes weren't at all what I would have expected from their representations in art. I imagined I would see a Saint Sebastian impaled with arrows, a Peter of Verona complete with an axe in his head, a Saint Peter ... well Saint Peter would be a bit too uncomfortable for a costume.
A few years back my son wanted to go to a Church organised 'alternative to Hallowe'en' that was advertised at Cubs. The Church wanted to get away from the evil imagery of ghosts and goblins. It was a themed night and all children were to come dressed as pirates - thieving, murderous, pillaging prates ...
Thanks for the comment, Chris. If you're the 'Chris K' I think you are, then you're the first of my 'real life' friends to make it across from Facebook - and to leave a comment too. Welcome!
Martin -- I'm not the one who called belief in a literal devil naive. You did. My comment was to ask why you would consider this particular belief naive, when Christians believe other things that are far stranger than this. Surely, if you think belief in a literal devil is naive, then you must also think that belief in a divine entity sending his progeny - in human form - to intervene in human affairs also naive. Perhaps you do.
For the record, I don't think there is such a thing as a naive belief. People believe whatever they believe and do so normally for good reasons. Their reasons may be personal, and their supporting evidence may not be replicable in any objective or scientific way. But that fact, in itself, does not mean that the beliefs, or the people who hold them, are naive.
Peter -
Maybe 'naive' was the wrong word, so let's try to put it differently.
I suppose what I meant was that, to modern ears, belief in a literal devil sounds patently absurd, whereas the notion of a 'first cause' of the universe can be defended philosophically. Belief in the devil depends on a mythological world view which assumes the existence of angelic beings and supernatural entities besides the original Creator.
Whatever you say, most modern Christians (I exclude the real fundamentalists) have cast off this mythological view and attempt to re-cast their beliefs about God and Jesus in terms that make sense in contemporary language. Whatever the metaphorical language they may use among themselves, they don't literally believe that Jesus was the 'son' ('progeny' in your terms) of God or that he 'came down' from some external realm.
Most modern Christian discourse has quietly dropped reference to the devil, as it has also quietly dropped preaching about hellfire and damnation. The fundamentalists who haven't done so betray their continued belief in a mythological worldview - but I think they're increasingly in the minority.
Thanks, Martin. I guess we just disagree about what most modern Christians actually believe.
You say: "Whatever the metaphorical language they may use among themselves, they [Christians] don't literally believe that Jesus was the 'son' ('progeny' in your terms) of God or that he 'came down' from some external realm."
On the contrary, I think most contemporary Roman Catholics and most Evangelical Christians actually do believe literally this. Their language on this matter is not metaphorical, and they rarely pretend it is. Anglicans, Episcopalians and Unitarians and those of similar soft-Protestant ilk may not share these literal beliefs, but they are a minority among modern Christians.
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