Love Not Fear

So we're into the Christmas season officially now that we're past Thanksgiving. One thing that always strikes me as odd this time of year is how many people seem to have confused God with Santa Claus. In a way, I guess I can understand the confusion. The famous editorial "Yes, Virginia, There I a Santa Claus" reads pretty much the same if you substitute "God" for "Santa Claus". (Except the part about the fairies. I never did get that part anyway.) Neither God nor Santa Claus can claim to be readily available for interviews on CNN. Still, it's amazing to me how much confusion there is. For example, some say God is a man with a long white beard. That's Santa Claus. I've never heard of anyone saying that God lives at the North Pole and wears a red coat, but if they do, well, now you know. Some say that God has a special affinity for little people, that God somehow treats children better than adults. Again, that's Santa Claus. (The g

We talked about this week before last, but I wanted this on the blog too, especially for folks who weren't there. I think Halloween has the potential to be an incredibly effective, meaningful, and joyous Christian festival. Now, most of the times when you read a statement like that, the proponent is imagining re-styling Halloween into some kind of "Fall Festival", scrubbing it clean of all ghost stories or anything scary, and maybe using it as some kind of "morality tale:" a variation on the Christmas-time song "you better watch out." That's not what I'm advocating. I think that there is a great Christian witness in sitting in a dark room and telling ghost stories. I think there is something more than morality to be gotten from October 31. (Not that there isn't morality there: just look at any pre- Scream horror movie and watch who gets massacred first, and who makes it through.) Halloween, more than any other festival, is about story-tell