Friday, November 1, 2024

Part I

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‘It’s Camp. It’s Carnal. It’s Macabre. It’s Silly.’: The Current Celebration of Halloween Has Much to Tell Us About the Moral Trajectory of Our Culture

The headlines around us are so huge. War in Ukraine, war in the Middle East, a presidential election here in the United States. The list could go on. But if you are a person of a certain age, and that is to say if you are a child, the big event this week may well have been Halloween, and trick or treating. I wanted to wait until the day after just to think about this a bit and to look at what’s happening in our culture and what the current celebration of Halloween tells us about the direction of our culture.

Now, as we’re talking about Halloween, that is itself a linguistic conflation, a reduction of All Hallows Eve. And All Hallows Eve is the night before All Saints Day on the liturgical Christian calendar. All Saints Day points to the dead. And of course, it is an affirmation, at least in this historic context of the fact that those who die in Christ are awaiting the resurrection that is to come. They are saints because they were Christians who are now awaiting the Resurrection. But the concentration on the dead, especially on All Hallows Eve the night before, it turned into a rather, well, a rather strange celebration, at least in many parts of the world. And that includes in the English-speaking world. And as you’re thinking about this, the English-speaking world is really in many ways the Genesis story of Halloween as we know it.

Now, it goes back to that liturgical calendar. It goes back to the medieval period. But actually historians say this kind of fall celebration of dark things goes back thousands of years. And at least in terms of modern historical perspective, at least 2,000 years, and it probably goes back in the English-speaking world to Celtic roots and in particular to the nation of Ireland.

In Ireland, there was an ancient commemoration known as Samhain. Now it is spelled S-A-M-H-I-N. But it’s pronounced Samhain. And that is a particular time in the fall when even as in the spring there was a celebration of life in the fall, there was a festival that became associated with death, with darkness. And you can understand how that would eventually coincide with the liturgical calendar, with All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve. But just as in so many parts of the world, there are something like Christmas celebrations that have no reference to Christ.

There is an awful lot of what takes place now in what is called Halloween that has no continuous memory with what came before. And especially you might say the Christian liturgical calendar. But even if we just consider that period of ancient history or we even update it to the medieval period in the English-speaking world, we come to understand something about human civilizations.

The life cycle draws attention to itself. The life cycle from birth until death. It defines the earthly experience of human beings. And it seems that we need some kind of commemoration for the beginning and the end. But the commemoration of the beginning is real easy to figure out, the joy and celebration of birth. And of course, eventually what you had in the Christian tradition is that this comes out in the festival of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, which is the promise that we may be born again, it’s newness of life. But as you think about the fall, the leaves falling from the trees and signs of approaching winter, it seemed that that was the period that would be associated with death. And that’s where things turned dark. And this is something I just want to point out. 

When you find Christianity, you find a decreasing, a strategically, intentionally decreased attention to the dark things. There is indeed a biblical warning against focusing on the dark things, but human beings just left on our own, not guided by scripture, not guided by the gospel. We are drawn to dark things. Now that raises a very interesting cultural development. Over the course of the last 30 years, Halloween has skyrocketed in terms of cultural attention. It has skyrocketed to the point that by some estimations it is now rivaling Valentine’s Day and perhaps even exceeding it for the commercial aspect after Christmas.

The big question is, after Christmas, where do the marketers get to market? It had been Valentine’s Day for some time, but now by all accounts, Halloween is the second most expensive or most lucrative celebration in America. And for many, many people around us, Halloween is such a major preoccupation. New developments. You have Halloween lights, even as you have Christmas lights. You have Halloween ornaments, at least things hanging from trees and other things just as you have outdoor decorations.

You have Christmas yard art. You have all of these things that are now pointing to this festival associated with the dark side, with evil and with death. And it is growing increasingly dark, increasingly explicit in its darkness. You look at some neighborhoods, there are things that people are saying as they decorate their homes, as they hang things from trees, as they put out yard art for Halloween, there’s some very dark, dark, even violent gruesome things that are being said.

There are many Christian parents who are afraid even to take their children on a walk around the block simply for what is happening in their neighborhood. And this leads Christians to ask some very interesting questions. I think I know that couple. I think I know them. I talked to them when they’re out working in their yard, when I’m out in my yard or walking through the neighborhood. I never would’ve thought they were giving so much attention to things that are so dark. And yet this is something else that plays into this cultural phenomenon.

People use Halloween as an excuse to play around with things that they will say, “I don’t have anything actually to do with at all. I’m not making a theological statement, but yes you are. I’m not making a moral statement. Well, in your own way, inevitably, yes you are.” One of the things we need to recognize is that an inordinate focus upon, not to mention a celebration of dark things is actually what Christians are commanded not to do. We are to give ourselves to light rather than to darkness, and we are to celebrate the gift of God in Christ and we are not to focus on even what’s acknowledged to be real in the New Testament such as demons and evil forces.

The Bible is extremely clear about the reality of Satan, but we are warned against focusing upon him much less, finding him attractive. But the Scripture is also clear that evil is very attractive. And in a fallen world that is one of its greatest dangers to us. It is very attractive and increasingly it is lucrative. For example, the New York Times ran an article, the headline caught my eye even as I was quickly looking at the New York Times while in an airport. The reality is that we are told here that the music industry is, “Hoping Halloween can be the new Christmas.”

That is to say they hope that Halloween music can rival Christmas music in terms of its commercial reality. The music industry is hoping for this. Well, my guess is many of you don’t know how big the Halloween music market is. You might not even have known there was a Halloween music market. But we are now told that it is a very big market. But you know this New York Times article, I just want to remind you of the headline, “the Music Industry is Hoping Halloween Could be the New Christmas.” But you just go a few paragraphs in and you find out that some of the people that are associated with this hope are sending even a more complicated message than you might’ve known.

One of the artists cited in the article said, “I feel very passionately about Halloween music.” That artist, “Noted the day’s roots in the Celtic festival as well as its prominence in LGBTQ history.” “It’s camp,” that means homosexual culture, “it’s carnal, it’s macabre, it’s like silly. It’s the only holiday where all of these get to exist at once.” Okay. I’ll just say that what this artist has told us is exactly why we should be concerned about this. And as this article makes clear, a part of the increased popularity of Halloween is due to the fact that Halloween celebrations do play a particular role in the LGBTQ community. And that shows up big time in the New York Times.

And I’m just going to tell you, I cannot say out loud much of what’s published in this article in the New York Times. It’s not appropriate for families. I’ll just tell you that for example, you have a streaming horror drag, that is drag queen competition, which is known Dragula. Well, you look at that and you go, “I guess it just had to happen.” I mentioned all of this just for Christians and especially Christian parents to be aware that you really do know there’s more to Halloween than most children understand.

You also know that armed with that knowledge, Christians have to look at this kind of celebration in a fundamentally different way. We have to look at it with different eyes. We need to hear about it with different ears than our secular neighbors. We cannot give ourselves to a celebration of the dark things of the dark side of the dark spirits that is in Scripture, exactly what we are told we must not do.

Furthermore, it is central to the Christian worldview that the Christian worldview explains death and acknowledges death. But we are also told explicitly in scripture that death is our enemy and the only rescue for us is the atonement accomplished by the father through the son. And that’s the good news of the Christian gospel. And as we look at Halloween, what we need to understand is that historically Halloween emerged from deliberate misbehavior the night before the celebration of the gospel, as is represented in the saints awaiting the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s just say as clearly as we can that regardless of how big the celebration is in the culture around us, it completely utterly misses that point.

Part II

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How Can I Honor God with My Feelings When I’m Not Allowed to Date Yet? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a 16-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

All right. We’re going to turn to questions and I’m going to start out with a question that I think will speak to an awful lot of people, especially an awful lot of young people, and I hope a lot of parents as well. I am simply going to say that I’m not going to use the name here, but it’s a very sweet communication from a young 16-year-old girl and she identifies herself. She says, “I’m a 16-year-old homeschooled girl.” And by the way, thanks to this listener for listening to The Briefing, and I appreciate the kinds word said.

This 16-year-old young woman goes on to say, “I’m not allowed to date until I’m 18.” And then in parenthesis, “What’s the point in dating if I can’t get married yet?” She continues In these circumstances, “Is it wrong to have feelings for a guy? Should I try to ignore those feelings? Do I keep on treating this guy like a friend? My goal in everything is to honor God, but I don’t really know how to do that in this area of my life. I’m struggling to figure out how to honor the Lord even in this situation. I guess a summary of my question is if I’m still too young to get married or date, should I try to ignore my feelings for guys? I know I can’t always ignore those feelings, but should I try at this stage in life? How do I honor God in this situation?”

Well, if only the world was filled with more young people who were actively explicitly articulating the issue as to how can I honor the Lord? How can I honor God in this situation? That’s the right question to ask. And I want to say to this young listener, and I want to say to young men and young women and especially the parents of both young men and young women, I think this is a very honest question and I think it’s just sweet. I really do mean that.

And it’s sweet in a couple ways. It’s sweet because as I like to put it in these contexts, it goes along with the grain of the universe. In other words, this is how God made 16-year-olds. This is exactly how a 16-year-old looks to the future and foresees a time when he or she will indeed be married and in fulfillment of God’s plan. And I’ll just say that for Christian young people, this should be in the total context of an understanding of serving God in every stage of life. And that means seeking holiness by God’s grace in every stage of life. That means avoiding sin in every stage of life, but it also means understanding that God has various ways of telling us his plan for us. 

And I think what you’re looking at here even in this young woman’s interest. And in the right interest of a young man, for a young woman that is pointing to something that actually is not only natural in the right context, it can be an instrument of our sanctification, of your sanctification, trusting in the Lord in every stage of life. And so I want to say to this 16-year-old young woman, it is not wrong for you to be attracted to young men. And for you to think even in relational terms and for you to imagine that moment when with the very right young man, you make that commitment of marriage and then receive the gift of God in marriage in all that it entails.

And that includes the fact that when you look at a young man, I hope you’re looking at a young man and evaluating him, whether you say it to him or not as to whether or not, whether he would be a good Christian father of your children. In other words, you’re looking at a longer horizon. And that’s really embedded in this young woman’s question and I appreciate it so much. And by the way, I think that it’s also reflecting some wisdom and that includes some wisdom from her parents very specifically I want to talk about here.

And that is that I think, and she kind of repeats it twice here, so I think she really understands it. I think that modern dating culture is a real problem. And that’s especially true when you say to say teenagers, “Wouldn’t you just pair up and go off alone?” I just don’t think that’s a good idea. And especially as this young woman says, “When marriage is not on the immediate or close horizon.” And so that’s one of the reasons why I think it’s wonderful for Christian parents and Christian churches to have supervised get-togethers for young people and for young people to be together, together in which pairings are not so much the point, even as pairings will develop in terms of interest and even perhaps just in terms of conversation and in terms a growing relationship.

The fact is that dating implies something that I believe should be more proximate, that is to say closer to marriage. But the last thing Christian parents want to say to a young person is it’s wrong to want to date or it’s wrong to want to envision the Lord’s plan for your life and his glory in your life and fulfillment of all that he’s called you to be. It’s also honest to say 16 is not 22.

In other words, I chose the arbitrary age of 22. Just as a point of comparison. There’s an awful lot of difference between 16 and 22. And somehow, somehow the Christian Church and Christian parents and Christian young people need to understand a healthy way to get from 16 to an older age in which marriage is not just on the horizon but actually can happen. And we want all these things to fall together in a way that honors God. And that means clearly reserving all things sexual up until marriage, and the exchange of vows.

And at that point it is not only a legitimate expression, it’s actually definitional. And by the way, in the biblical worldview write down to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. Now, this is one of those questions that might be easier to skip rather than to take simply because answering it, well, it’s hard to know where to stop. But I want to say how much, again, I appreciate this question being sent and to this young woman and her parents, I would say I think this is a great opportunity for young people to be together in a Christian context. And that means boys and girls, young men and young women, together in a context in which they can learn.

For one thing, and I say this as a former young man, a young man has to learn how even to talk to a young woman, even at the same age and how to have a conversation. That’s a good place to start. And one of the things we want as Christian parents is not to load those meetings, those get togethers with so much romantic weight that frankly young people get crushed under that weight. A Christian understanding of these things through that kind of interest then into courtship, then to marriage, that’s the kind of thing that should be natural among biblically-minded gospel committed Christians. And I want to thank this young listener for asking the question because it gives us the opportunity to make it a part of our conversation today.

Part III

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How Can We Keep Christ at the Center of Our Wedding in Every Way? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, that’s from a young woman who’s 16, I heard at the same time from a young man who’s 20. And I appreciate this because there’s also candor here. This is a young man who clearly has a wedding on his mind and that’s a holy thing. And as he has wedding on his mind, the young woman he’s going to marry, he says, and he, well, they’re planning to get married soon and they have concern about weddings as they are currently conducted in our society and in particular how well elaborate they become, how expensive they have become, quite honestly, how confused they have become in terms of the point about a wedding in the first place.

And so this young man writes “Even though your wedding is your special day, that seems a bit selfish. We want to know how we can keep Christ at the center in each aspect of a wedding.” Well, I’ll just simply say to this young man and to his fiance, the sweet thing here is that the traditional Christian Protestant marriage ceremony I think does exactly that. And just to give an example, without knowing it, most American Protestant or evangelical pastors use some form of the Anglican form of the wedding from the Book of Common Prayer right down to the language that just about everyone recognizes from the traditional, say, wedding vows.

And I think the one thing that is missing if you look at this is that the Book of Common Prayer in the order for Christian Weddings includes a lot more biblical content and a lot more prayer than is found in most modern weddings. Most modern weddings just abstract the vows, and some people even want to rewrite those mischievously. But you have the modern wedding often just wants to take the vows. Even many Christian weddings, they just want to take the vows out of this. And I mean, who needs all those prayers and Scripture and all that?

Well, Christians do. So I appreciate this young man writing and I just want to say I’m praying with others who are listening right now. We’re just not even knowing you. We are praying the Lord will bless both of you and bless your union together and bless your wedding. It’s a sweet thing. You ask a very sensitive and I think rightful Christian question and I would just say lean into the traditional Christian wedding ceremony and include scripture and prayer.

But I also want to remind you of something else, and here’s kind of the bomb dropped at the end, here is the big closing credits when it comes to weddings. The whole thing is actually an image of the gospel, the whole thing. Because the church is the bride and Christ is the bridegroom and his coming sets the stage for the marriage supper of the lamb. Our weddings, even among believers, our weddings are just little hints of that which is to come as Christ establishes his kingdom. And we all experience as believers together the marriage supper of the lamb.

Part IV

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Do You Get the Ordo Salutis Wrong in Your New Book? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, next I’ll turn to a question from Oklahoma. It’s a very kind question. It references my new book, Recapturing the Glory of Christmas, and he refers me to page 117. And he has a question. Okay, you got to love this. As an author, as the voice of this podcast, you got to love this. He says, you write, “Salvation and the new birth come to sinners who believe in Jesus Christ, repent of sins and trust in Christ alone.”

He then asks, “Is the new birth out of order theologically in this sentence from a reformed perspective? Wouldn’t a reformed position say that the new birth regeneration precedes the acts of repenting our sin and placing our trust, our faith in Christ?” And I would say you are exactly right, but sometimes when we talk about the gospel, we’re not talking sequentially. Sometimes we are speaking experientially. Just to make that distinction. And Reformed Theology also recognizes that.

So if you are talking about the ordo salutis, which is that wonderful Latin phrase for the order of salvation. The sinner is incapable of responding to the gospel unless the gift of God’s act of regeneration takes place within the believer. And that results in two things, the sinner seizing upon Christ and repenting of sin. So yes, that’s the right order of salvation. The experiential order of salvation often comes down to believing in Christ first and then repenting ofsin.

And it’s all summarized in trusting in Christ alone. I got to love a careful reader and a careful listener. And I’ll simply say for the sake of speaking of the biblical order of God’s work of salvation in the believer, yes, regeneration precedes all the rest. But I don’t think the Christian is wrong. Who when asked, says, “When did you become a Christian?” And when that person says, “When I believed in Christ and trusted in Christ for my salvation and repented of my sins.” I think we have a real firm biblical understanding of the order of those things. That isn’t always the way Christians speak of the gospel experientially. And I don’t think that’s wrong either.

Part V

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What’s the Difference Between the Social Gospel and Liberation Theology? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Another good question, a man wrote in and asked, what’s the difference between the social gospel as it was popularized in the late 19th century and liberation theology as I described in a recent installment of The Briefing? And I’ll tell you the immediate answer to that question is what’s different is Marxism. And that is to say that liberation theology was pretty explicitly based in a Marxist analysis of how liberation would come through economic transformation.

The social gospel was based on something that was before the influence of Marxism. It wasn’t before Marx in this respect, but it was before Marxism was incorporated as the liberation theologians did. And it was based upon a human idea of progress through human labor. And the social gospel said this was all for the glory of God. But in reality it was a transfer of the basic gospel focus of the church onto a social focus of the church. And you look at it now and you say, “It’s hard to believe people actually thought that was the way Christ intended for his church to minister.”

And I think the evidence of that is the fact that liberation theology came along and because the social gospel had not produced what had been promised, I think people thought, “Okay, well maybe this new version of the social gospel informed by Marxism will be more successful.” And I just want to say it’s not more successful and I don’t think it’s faithful to the gospel. And I appreciate this question because the linkage between the social gospel and liberation theology is not accidental.

Part VI

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Why Didn’t God Make Us So That We Know Everything When We’re Born? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a 10-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

And I have to tell you as we get ready to close, my favorite question of the week comes from a 10-year-old girl as her parents wrote about a question that their 10-year-old asked, I am told, “We were struggling through her math lesson a bit, and she asked the following question, ‘Why didn’t God make us so that we know everything when we’re born?'” As the parents insightfully said, “You could probably guess that math is not her favorite subject.” And here’s where I think I can give a short answer that may be encouraging. One of the questions we need to ask is if sin hadn’t happened, how would these things exist in the garden?

And so we know that before sin in the garden, God gave to Adam and Eve the order to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, which meant they would’ve had children. And if they had children, they would’ve been born as infants, and they would’ve had to develop through different phases of life until they reach adulthood. And you know what? Evidently that is not a consequence of the fall, that is actually God’s intention for human beings. And that’s made clear in the fact that Christ who is without sin increased in knowledge and in stature and in favor with God and man.

Jesus came as a baby and he lived through all these phases of life as well. But I want to say to these parents, you need to let your 10-year-old little girl know that you don’t know everything either because she asked, “Why didn’t God make us so that we know everything when we are born?” Well, here’s the thing, we won’t know everything when we die. We’ll only know all things as we’re meant to know all things when we see Christ face to face in glory. Until then, we are all learning.

I think it’s also clear that God wants us to learn things over our lifetimes because it brings him glory as we learn. And if God is pleased as we learn, we need to be pleased to learn. And the last thing I want to say in all kindness is this, do your math.