I think I should write a blog post by this title, but would anyone recognize the reference(s)? Or am I just an old geezer?

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter.

“Halloween” is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word “hallow” means “saint,” in that “hallow” is just an alternative form of the word “holy” (“hallowed be Thy name”). All Saints’ Day is November 1. It is the celebration of the victory of the saints in union with Christ. The observance of various celebrations of All Saints arose in the late 300s, and these were united and fixed on November 1 in the late 700s. The origin of All Saints Day and of All Saints Eve in Mediterranean Christianity had nothing to do with Celtic Druidism or the Church’s fight against Druidism (assuming there ever even was any such thing as Druidism, which is actually a myth concocted in the 19th century by neo-pagans.)

In the First Covenant, the war between God’s people and God’s enemies was fought on the human level against Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. With the coming of the New Covenant, however, we are told that our primary battle is against principalities and powers, against fallen angels who bind the hearts and minds of men in ignorance and fear. We are assured that through faith, prayer, and obedience, the saints will be victorious in our battle against these demonic forces. The Spirit assures us: “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20).

The Festival of All Saints reminds us that though Jesus has finished His work, we have not finished ours. He has struck the decisive blow, but we have the privilege of working in the mopping up operation. Thus, century by century the Christian faith has rolled back the demonic realm of ignorance, fear, and superstition. Though things look bad in the Western world today, this work continues to make progress in Asia and Africa and Latin America.

Read the rest: Biblical Horizons » Concerning Halloween. Great essay!

(Thanks to Chris for sharing an image with me.)

If you are OK with R-rated action movies, go back and watch the original DieHard. Takes you back doesn’t it? No, not to when Bruce Willis had hair. To when Japan was considered an amazing economic superpower…

Now click on this image.

top_20_banks.jpg (JPEG Image, 1029×541 pixels).

Here is the article that uses it. Don’t know what to think of it all, but it seems possible that American Zombie Banks will be just as dead as the Japanese ones.

“I note that my enemies have written a great deal about me, yet they rarely quote me directly. Why not? If I am so disreputable myself, I must at least occasionally say disreputable things. Is it possible that what I say is more cogent than they like to admit?”

via The World’s Greatest Writer – Ann Coulter – Townhall Conservative.

Hear this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
saying, “When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

via Passage: amos 7-8 (ESV Bible Online).

Ignorance is often hidden behind an urbane surface. Many otherwise educated people lack the most elementary understanding of certain subjects. One of these is religion.

When I was an aspiring Shakespeare scholar during my college days, I was surprised to find that most commentators on Hamlet missed the play’s religious aspect. Prince Hamlet is evidently a Catholic, but he has been a student at Wittenberg, home of the Reformation. He puns on the Diet of Worms. His father’s ghost laments that he was murdered without a chance to receive the sacraments, a fact Hamlet recalls when he hesitates to kill his uncle at prayer; Hamlet later sends two former friends to their deaths without confession. Ophelia, an apparent suicide, is given a Christian burial, to the scandal of her gravediggers.

None of this would have been lost on the ordinary Elizabethan playgoer. Whether the ghost comes from purgatory or hell, whether the old sacraments are efficacious, whether Ophelia is damned — these are questions that would have occurred to everyone in the audience, Catholic, Anglican, or Protestant. Modern scholars consign them to footnotes. But Elizabethans would have agreed with the Anglican Samuel Johnson (writing two centuries later) that Hamlet has descended to a diabolical level by seeking the damnation of his enemies.

Read the rest: Joe Sobran On Christianity and History | the mind-body politic.

This sort of neurotic theater has gone on for years. I remember the boy expelled for pointing (so help me) a chicken finger and saying “Bang!” another for bringing plastic soldiers to school, another for drawing a picture of a soldier with a gun, another for swatting a girl on the butt on the playground. This last resulted in the calling of cops, a handcuffed kid, and compulsory psychiatric treatment instead of an admonitory, “Don’t do that again, Bobby. Do you understand me?” How does a society come to this?

I can make guesses that sound vaguely plausible. The United States is not a happy country. People waste their lives in meaningless jobs, trapped by the credit card, the mortgage, the student loan. They know they are wasting their lives. Racial anger runs high. Women resent men. Divorce screws up kids. There is the two-hour commute to the cubicle and back to the sterile box in the anonymous subdivision, the lack of influence over their lives, life from paycheck to paycheck. And anger at affirmative action, either because they suffer from it or because they need it. Life is just flat stressful.

People get spiteful, mean, like mistreated dogs. They want to make others as miserable as they secretly are themselves. So they torment a little boy. I’m going to change my phylum.

via Lunatics to the Left, Lunatics to the Right, and Not a Drop to Drink by Fred Reed.

The history of America as a country is quite different from that of America as a State. In one case it is the drama of the pioneering conquest of the land, of the growth of wealth and the ways in which it was used, of the enterprise of education, and the carrying out of spiritual ideals, of the struggle of economic classes. But as a State, its history is that of playing a part in the world, making war, obstructing international trade, preventing itself from being split to pieces, punishing those citizens whom society agrees are offensive, and collecting money to pay for all.

via War Is the Health of the State by Randolph Bourne.

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.

Ayn Rand