Y Safle

The BBC reports:

More than 300 registered Pagans are in Britain’s prisons Pagan prisoners in Britain are to be given time off work duties to allow them to observe a religious festival on the day of Halloween. Pagans observe the Celtic New Year’s Eve on 31 October, which they see as Britain’s indigenous New Year event.

Now, notwithstanding that they have the wrong day, and what they are actually celebrating is either the night before All Hallows, or perhaps the night before the Roman Pomona festival, there is another major flaw with this woolly headed notion of religious inclusivity.

You see, Pagan Celts (that is Celt pronounced Kelt, for American readers), had a very specific practice on the autumnal fire festival (Samhain in Irish - pronounced something like Sow-[h]in).

According to T D Kendrick’s excellent book “The Druids”, the practice of human sacrifice amongst the Celts probably arose with a need to dispense with prisoners that were a danger to the society and which the community could not support in a prison community. Thus the Celts kept no such prisoners. They sacrificed them.

And they did this, according to the (mostly Roman) sources that are extant, by constructing wickerwork cages or effigies within which the prisoners were caged and then the wickerwork was set alight as a Samhain sacrifice.

So those 300 pagan prisoners who are demanding that their religion be recognised within the prison service should get more than they bargained for tonight, if they really are celebrating the old pagan festivals.

As we approach the end of October, and more and more shops are trying to sell us sweets to hand out to strange children as part of some American end of October custom called “trick or treat”, children are deciding what grisly thing they will dress up as for their halloween party.

Halloween is the eve of All Saints day - celebrated since the ninth century, and much of the superstition surrounding the day developed from superstitions surrounding this date. But the date was not idly chosen. Like many Christian festivals, the date was chosen because of related pagan festivals at or about the same time.

Now which pagan festival was originally on the night before November 1st? Many people will tell you this is Samhain or the Celtic New Year - one of the Celtic fire festivals.

I disagree.

I don’t think the historical Samhain is the 1st November, which would be an illogical choice adapted only to suit the Roman system of counting of the months.

Before I go on, I make the point that November 1st may now be celebrated as the Celtic New Year, in much the same way that April 6th is celebrated as the start of the fiscal year. Not because April 6th is special, but because the start of the year has become disconnected with the reasons for it.

I make this point, because it makes no difference on what day we celebrate such things - but when people make spurious special claims for a certain night of the year as being somehow distinct from other nights, based on Celtic history - then it is worth noting that the night they celebrate is not the night the ancient Celts probably celebrated.

My argument is that prior to the spread of Roman culture throughout the Celtic world, and the Roman calendar with it, the more likely date for Samhain would have been the day that we now call November 5th (although 6th November is also a candidate).

There is good evidence that the Celts of northern Europe kept an accounting of the passing of time by use of standing stones and such like, so whilst we do not need to delve into too much fantasy over how good astronomers they were, there is clear evidence that they would have known the dates of key events such as the solstices and equinoxes. We also know that they held the Beltain and Samhain festivals as especially significant, but prior to the Roman accounting of time there would be no way that we could get an exact record of the date of these festivals except by the astronomical method and counting.

Now consider the calendars I have reproduced below. The Autumnal equinox on 21st September, and winter solistice on 21st December are two well known significant astronomical dates. Recent evidence suggests that the winter solstice in particular was celebrated at Stone Henge (not the summer solstice, as many suppose).

Whilst Stone Henge pre-existed the Celts in Britain, we know that the current arrangement of the stones was carried out by the pre-Roman Celts. Thus it is important information that these Celts held 21st December to be a key date.

In the calendar below I have marked 45 dates starting on the autumnal equinox in orange. I have marked in green the 45 days prior to the winter solstice. Notice that leaves one day unmarked between the two dates - November 5th.

This date, equidistant between equinox and solstice, is - I suggest - the date on which pre-Romanised Celts would celebrate their fire festival, and begin their year. This would be the historical date of Samhain.

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

The Romans had their own festival on November 1st - the feast of Pomona, the goddess of the autumnal harvest and orchards. This festival may have been sufficiently similar to Samhain that the two became conjoined on 1st November in the Roman calendar (a calendar which, in any case, knew considerable drift over time, so that 1st November at this point might conceivably have coincided with the observed and derived date for Samhain).

Sir James Frazer notes that every European fire festival other than the Celtic fire festivals was linked to a significant astronomical date, and it is he who (in chapter 62 of the Golden Bough) suggests that the Celtic dates are more siginificant to the herdsman, although he credits another with the revelation.

It seems that Frazer was not aware of the significance of the date of November 5th though, and his survey of customs that were still extant puts most of them on the night of 31st October. That does not, however, mean that throughout history the date was always 31st October, but only that this has become the significant date in modern consciousness, and that - I suggest - is owing to the feast of Pomona, and the spread of Roman culture.

We note that this could also explain the date of Christmas being 25th December - this being also the date of the Roman Saturnalia feast, which again may have drifted from a solstice date on 21st December pnce the Romans introduced their calendar.

Someone may object that we have a Celtic calendar - the Coligny calendar from 1st Century Gaul. Their year was shorter than ours, and they used intercalary days and months on a regular basis to maintain a balance between the lunar and solar year.

Festival days drifted during the course of a calendrical cycle, and could vary as much as month earlier or later in relation to where they fell during the first year of the cycle.

What we don’t know is whether this calendar with its festival drift was representative of an earlier Celtic tradition, or something that arose only after the Roman influence caused these Gauls to start accounting time with a calendar.

If we suppose that the Coligny calendar is representative of original Celtic tradition then the dates of these festivals would drift. Further it would suggest that a full moon was indeed chosen to recognise the date of Samhain.

If this is so then my thesis that November 1st is not Samhain, but the nearest Roman festival to Samhain would remain, but my thesis that the correct night is November 5th would be wrong - it would rather be a full moon close to 5th November (perhaps the first full moon thereafter). We cannot know for sure - and I think that is a good thing.

Whilst the calendar is not itself in any respect Roman, it is certainly quite possible that the whole concept of a calendar (and thus intercalary months) was derived from the Roman practice, and that an older celtic tradition would not necessarily have placed the bonfire nights within specific months at all. I admit that beyond the recognition that Halloween does not seem to historically fit exactly with Samhain, all else is speculation based on whatever pieces of archeological evidence one wishes to cite in support of ones thesis.

However, if a pagan says to you (as one said to me, some years ago) “Halloween is Samhain, and that festival is one of ours”, politely point out to them that Halloween is not the real date of Samhain, and that All Saints day is very much a Church festival, and has been for nearly 1200 years.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph we read,

A Muslim chemist repeatedly refused a mother the “morning after” pill because of his religious beliefs.

Now the woman in question was not denied this pill. She simply had to visit her doctor to be supplied it, but she was angry because, in her words:

“I am a 37-year-old woman, not a daft girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing, and the chemist has no right to tell me whether I can or can’t take the pill”

Now she may not be a daft young girl, but if someone needs emergency contraception because of their own decisions, then they are indeed more than a little culpable. Age is not protection against daftness (as I realise more and more as I get older but no less daft myself ).

As for her assertion that the pharmacist had no right to withold the pill, it turns out that he was entirely within his rights:

A “conscience clause” in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain’s ethics code, [says]: “It states that if supplying the morning-after pill is contrary to a pharmacist’s personal, religious or moral beliefs they are entirely within their rights not to supply it.”

The sad thing is to see that people like Stephen Pollard, the biographer of David Blunkett (a biography that seems to be less than factual, and somewhat knowingly understated according to today’s news), have said things like “Do you think that maybe this chap is in the wrong job?”

Why? Because he wants to help people and not harm them? Or is it because he does not accept a secular interpretation on the definition of human life? But how then is Pollard’s secularism superior to this Muslim’s faith?

If only more people were willing to stand up for what they believe in, rather than internalising the double standards of our society. This woman did not agree with the pharmacist, but she still could obtain emergency contraception. But the man’s actions would give her a chance to consider what she was doing.

A muslim bartender who will not serve drinks might well be in the wrong job, but a muslim pharmacist who refuses to act in such a way that he sincerely believes would kill a human life - we need more of these.

On this week’s Point of Inquiry podcast, Sam Harris was interviewed about his atheistic beliefs. Now one of the points he made was this: that if Christianity is good for a nation, why is it that more atheistic countries do so much better? He compared the USA with Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Canada as examples of atheistic countries (whilst noting that these were not atheistic in their entirety).

This reasoning is bogus on several counts, most notably the careful selection criteria involved. In particular, one wonders why we don’t compare the USA to countries like China, where state sponsored atheism goes hand in hand with a rejection of the liberal post war consensus on issues such as human rights. China - the country where if you are accused of a capital crime, you have a 99.9% chance of being convicted of the crime (and then executed, only to have your organs harvested).

There are issues here though. Leonard Ravenhill said that if God did not judge America he should apologise to Sodom! If the percentages of people who claim a religious faith in the USA are reliable, we must ask why it is that Christianity does not bring about a moral change in the nation, and that is an indictment on the lackustre nature of so many of our Churches. We should write Ichabod over our doors: the glory has departed.

But let us have no more of this woolly thinking that atheistic states can bring about greater moral standards or improved nations. Human nature is evil to the core. Inasmuch as Christians are no better than the world, we stand indicted. But Jesus remains the answer for the world today.

When it comes to Church schools, it seems that some atheists can’t help but tie themselves up into some unfortunate knots of inconsistency.

A case in point this morning on BBC News 24’s coverage, where they invited two people into the studio to attack the Church school system (notably without anyone to defend the schools against their attack). One of the invited guests was a rather shrill woman of the type that really ought not to be invited onto programmes seeking to inform rather than entertain.

It seems that this woman was an avowed atheist who is annoyed that when her children reach secondary school age, they will not be allowed to go to a Church school on account of the fact that they are being brought up as vehement atheists, by their mother’s own admission.

Why should she care? Well it turns out that whilst only 18% of school places in England and Wales are in Church schools, such schools occupy 44% of the top 200 schools in these countries. Thus this woman wants her children to benefit from the better faith based schools in her area.

But what is she arguing? That such schools should not be allowed to select based on the faith of the families entering them! She (and others who commented to the programme) essentially think successful faith based schools should be removed from our system and that we should have a totally secular system, as they have in the U.S.

The inconsistency lies here: when considering whether it was the faith based teaching or backgrounds of the children in the school that contributed to the school’s success, the argument made was that it was neither, but rather that the schools were selecting the best pupils by interview, and that the teaching was no better than in non faith schools.

Now this is an interesting point. Because if this argument is correct, and that the schools - despite being higher placed in league tables - are providing no greater improvement on their pupils than secular state schools, then this woman will not benefit her children by sending them to these schools.

And that is the inconsistency. If this woman really believed that faith based schools conferred no advantage on the children who go there, then she would not be annoyed that her offspring would be ineligible for entry.

Leave the faith schools alone. They were the foundation of our education system, long before the state got into the education business, and this is why we have these Church schools.

Richard Dawkins writes that “Even moderate religion is a menace, because it leads us to respect and cherish the idea that certain fantastic propositions can be believed without evidence”.

The problem for Dawkins is that he imports his atheism into his argument. He is an atheist, and clearly believes there is no evidence for the existence of God. Note what he does not say. Dawkins does not say there is no proof for God, nor that God can be disproved. It is impossible, I believe, to construct a logical proof for God’s existence or non existence, and all such attempts at proofs are fallacies. Dawkins knows this, but he is frustrated that people persist in holding to their belief – their faith in God – a fantastic proposition - in spite of what he sees as a lack of evidence.

So he rages against religion that encourages people to believe without evidence, without considering that it is entirely possible that some people believe because of the evidence.

Christians claim they have met the risen Lord, and that he answers prayer. Dawkins no doubt looks for naturalistic explanations of religious experience, and he would argue that answered prayer is just coincidence, and that Christians are more likely to forget instances of non answered prayer than answered prayer.

Now many readers of this piece will agree with Dawkins (or a Dawkinslike person – I don’t wish to put words in Dawkin’s mouth) on the above explanations, but notice that even if you take that line, you are arguing against evidence of the work of God in a believer’s heart.

So Dawkins is wrong to say that Christians believe something fantastic in spite of the evidence. There are evidences of God all around us, and through history. We may disagree on where the evidence takes us, what it means, and how to interpret it – but let us have no more nonsense that there is no such evidence. There is plenty.

Much of the modern Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement in the church seems to assume that there are two kinds of speaking in tongues: that there is private speaking in tongues and public messages in tongues. Furthermore, they argue that public messages in tongues are like prophecies.

The argument is based on a reading of 1 Corinthians 14, but I do not see it myself. Now let us be clear on this, nowhere in 1 Corinthians 14 do we read that tongues is anything but a speaking to God enabled by the Holy Spirit. Thus all tongues must be prayer and praise.

How often in a Pentecostal church does someone stand up and deliver a “message” in tongues and someone else delivers an interpretation that goes on and on, and claims to be prophetic on the lines of “I am watching over you my children, do not worry, I will be with you and you will come to no harm”.

I note that these prophecies as given to us are so bland that I sometimes feel that I know why the sender wanted to give it away! They lack specifics, they fail to convict and sometimes cut right across what the preaching in the Church service was all about.

But could they be genuine?

I think they fail the scriptural test on several grounds. If unbelievers are not convicted by a message puportedly from God, then I have to doubt that it was from God that they came. But more specifically, I think such messages fail, because biblically tongues speaking is prayer and praise to God. The interpretation of that prayer and praise allows the congregation to say the ‘amen’ and join with the tongues speaker in that prayer and praise. That is why only interpreted tongues are allowed when we meet communally. Otherwise tongues simply excludes others, and the purpose of joining together is frustrated.

So in these same Pentecostal meetings, I suggest it is equally errant to all pray in tongues together (for what is the non tongues speaker to do?)

But someone might object:

1 Corinthians 14:21 states: ‘In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.’

Verse 21 is a quote from Isaiah, wherein we read a passage that speaks of judgement upon the Jews. It would seem then that Paul is saying that tongues are a sign of judgement.

Now consider Cornelius, who with his household did speak with tongues. We read of no interpretation here, and even if there had been I think the interpretation would have been praise of God, for these people had just received the baptism with the Spirit.

Nevertheless, the tongues were a sign to the unbelieving Jews (especially Peter) that God’s grace was poured forth upon all men. We thus see that the quote from Isaiah is not specifically saying the words of the tongues are prophecy, but rather when people speak in tongues they fulfill prophecy and are a sign to the unbelievers amongst the Jews.

Our objector might then continue:

Paul appears to be talking about two different aspects of speaking tongues. The first being, as you stated, the individual’s spirit speaking to God. The other aspect being God speaking to the unbeliever through tongues as in Acts 2. Verses 22-25 would make me wonder if Paul didn’t get ‘tongue-tied’ himself.  He states that tongues is a sign for the unbeliever. Then in verses 24-25 proceeds to explain that it is prophecy that will convict the unbeliever.

Paul did perhaps cause some confusion here, but I think that the best interpretation for this verse is that where Paul says “tongues are a sign for unbelievers” he is referring to the unbelief of the Jews (cf. The above, especially the Isaiah quote), whereas when he talks just one sentence later of prophecy being for unbelievers and tongues for believers, he has switched context.

He is now saying that prophecy is a sign to a total stranger who enters the church and has the secrets of his heart laid bare (as true prophecy should do). It is obvious here that an unchurched, and non Jewish stranger who entered the assembly would be convicted by words of prophecy, whereas if we all spoke in tongues he would think “Hold on here, these people are not entirely sane!”

Our objector may have finished up:

My conclusion is that the gift of tongues is related both to personal prayer and to prophecy. I feel, and my experience is that, what is spoken in tongues is similar to the content of the psalms where we find petitions, lamentation, praise, proverbs, intercession, prophecy, etc.

I feel that this gift is related most strongly to personal prayer, but I do not think the above is wrong in its analogy to the psalms. If there were a prophetic element to an interpreted tongue which was essentially of praise, worship and prayer then I would have no argument against such an interpretation.

Nevertheless, I have never heard an interpretation to a tongue which really sounded remotely like a psalm! (And I ought to perhaps say that I have heard a lot of these so called interpretations). The question we are left with is where do these tongues come from? If they are from God then why are they not more powerful, or at least “psalmlike”?

My conclusion is that much modern tongues speaking owes more to psychology and the expectations of the Pentecostal community than to God. On the other hand, I see no reason to preclude the possibility that God could gift people with a spiritual gift of tongues - and indeed I believe he does so.

So we should take seriously Paul’s words: “Prove all things, hold fast to what is good.”

Whilst quoting Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in my last message, it occurred to me to put the rest of his words in context. The Doctor took a balanced position on the Charismatic gifts of the Spirit, arguing against cessationism, but also against counterfeit experience in the Charismatic movement whipped up by false expectations. On the latter point, he said:

“The second position is that of those who assert that the full and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit ought always to abide in the church, and that it is only from want of faith that we do not possess them now. Some of them go further and say that we ought to ‘claim’ these gifts. These people maintain that … [the church] would be thrilling with all these gifts were it not for our lack of faith. They ought always to be present even as they were in the early church.

“I want to suggest to you that this position is also unscriptural and once again finds no warrant in the Scripture itself. The teaching of the Scripture is that these things are to be considered in terms of the lordship of the Spirit. It is he who decides. ‘He giveth to every man severally as he wills.’ It is he who chooses. That was the whole trouble in Corinth, where they were all claiming ‘all the gifts’, as it were. And the answer to them is that he gives one this and the other one that. It is all entirely within his control. He decides when, how, to whom and where.

“Let me put this argument in the way which has always been the most helpful to me. This is exactly the same as the question of revival. A revival by definition is not something permanent. It is something that comes, and goes, and comes, and goes. The history of the church has been the history of revivals. There have always been people who have taught that you can get a revival whenever you like. All you have to do is pray, or to do certain things and to claim it, and you get a revival. But the simple answer is, You cannot! I have known some of the best, most honest and saintly men who have fallen into that error; you cannot decide when revival comes. It always comes in the sovereignty of the Spirit. It often comes when you least expect it. It can come in the most unlikely quarter, and the man used can be the most unlikely sort of man.

“The same principle applies to the gifts of the Spirit. We must not legislate on one side or the other. We must not say ‘only’ for New Testament times nor must we say ‘always’. The answer is, ‘as he wills’, as the Spirit wills. It is always right to seek the fullness of the Spirit - we are exhorted to do so. But the gifts of the Spirit are to be left in the hands of the Holy Spirit himself. “

See: “Prove All Things”, D. Martyn Lloyd Jones.

Someone I knew prayed for healing and did not receive it. I recounted this to another Christian and his reply was: “it would seem he never claimed his healing, which would make me totally unsurprised that he didn’t receive it. You can’t receive something you don’t receive. “

One might suppose that this person passionately believed he knew something about this subject that was not known to myself and my friend, but to me it seemed insensitive - as though we must understand the secret formula required to see God heal.

It may be that Christian TV evangelists and purveyors of “TV dinner” Christianity are to blame for this, making it look as though one can simply turn on blessing from God as though the Holy Spirit were on tap.

Fortunately we can turn to the common (or is it uncommon?) sense of a man such as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who said (when discussing the gifts of the Spirit):

“Secondly, we must never use the word ‘claim’. It is incompatible with sovereignty. People say, ‘Claim this gift; claim healing.’ You cannot claim healing. The Apostle himself claimed healing three times and did not get it. Never claim; never even use the word. We are to submit ourselves - it is the Spirit who gives. The claiming of gifts, or claiming even the baptism of the Spirit, is something that is clearly incompatible with the whole of the New Testament emphasis. No, no, he is Lord, he controls and he gives. You can supplicate but you must never claim. Never!”

The doctrine of Sandemanianism (named for Robert Sandeman) is the view that one can accept Jesus as saviour and later accept him as Lord. More formally, Sandeman maintained that justifying faith is a simple assent to the divine testimony concerning Jesus, differing in no way in its character from belief in any ordinary testimony.

Now the Sandemanian sect, dating from about 1730 is now almost totally defunct. There are now no Sandemanian churches, but at one time the teachings of Sandeman were becoming so prevalent that the Welsh preacher Christmas Evans famously had to preach against it after first coming under their influence.

But whilst Sandemanianism has vanished in name, it seems that it is with us still. There is a teaching widespread in evangelical churches that one becomes a Christian through a sinners prayer, but that it can be at some later date that one accepts Christ as Lord. I have heard many a testimony of the type: “I accepted Christ as saviour, but it was only after X that I accepted Him as Lord.” To quote Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones : “as if you can accept the Lord in little bits”!

If salvation is not a life changing thing which makes us want to have fellowship with Christians, search out God’s wword and do his will - then it is really not salvation. If the sinner’s prayer does not involve deep repentance and a change of heart, then it is mere words.