Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies: All Hallows’ Eve in the Mediaeval Church and the Reformation
On All Hallows’ Eve 1517 a monk named Martin Luther posted a list of points for discussion and debate at the University of Wittenberg campus church. The campus church is named All Saints’ Church. The regular bulletin board for such announcements was the front church door. All Saints’ Church was the largest repository of relics of the saints outside of Rome. Many of those relics would be put on display on All Saints’ Day. Indulgences would be granted to those who came to the Church to view the relics of the saints on that day.
The location, the date, the practices: all of these helped focus the issue on and ensure a wide audience to the topic of Luther’s posted . . . Read All
Halloween & Reformation Day
Happy Halloween! Happy Reformation Day! We’ll be posting on both of those holidays today. Both have reference, of course, to the really big holiday of the church year on the day after, All Saints’ Day. All the ghosts and devils were thought to come out the day before All Saints’ Day, since this was their [Read More…]
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America’s third favorite holiday
Halloween is America’s third favorite holiday, just after Christmas and Thanksgiving. (See the whole list after the jump.) Halloween used to be a holiday mainly for children dressing up and going trick-or-treat, but now it has been seized by adults, who also like to dress up and scare themselves. Why do you think Halloween has [Read More…]
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Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies: All Saints’ Day/Eve and Samhain
All Saints’ Eve, All Saints’ Day: Origins and Samhain-ization
Today it seems that everyone knows that Halloween is originally a Celtic pagan holy day named Samhain [pronounced: Sow-in] which the Christian Church supplanted for the sake of forcing pagans to convert to Christianity. Obviously, in this line of thought, Christianity has nothing of it self to offer and must co-opt, adopt, adapt, and use non-Christian sources for the sake of gaining converts from the world outside of Christianity.
A read through the Old Testament will show that the people of God have many times adopted religious practices and celebrations from the pagan nations around them: Sometimes in an effort to gain peace with those nations, sometimes to attract members, sometimes . . . Read All
5.75 reasons it’s good to be a Lutheran on Reformation Day
My mom excelled at a lot of things. Coming up with Halloween costumes for her third child was not one of them. Maybe that’s why, the year I was officially too old to be trick-or-treating and with a cold that left my head plugged from my nostrils to the back of my skull, she clapped […]. . . Read All