It is the one time when the old, seasonal rites of pagan circles emerge, reminding us in the West of what we’d prefer to forget. Of the looming presence of things in the shadows, of wandering spirits and dark gods. Little do we know how they’re watching us from the edge of the greenwood, restlessly awaiting their yearly offerings. One hesitates to speak too loudly of the “kindly ones” or look too closely for what creatures move about amongst the trick-or-treaters on the night of Halloween.
We are passingly familiar, those of us in the West, with the three days of Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and All Soul’s Day, though we hardly know them, rooted as they are in traditions that are quite foreign to the secular, materialist mindset. As a seasonal festival meant to pay homage or appease the spirits of the dead, it is no wonder that the old Celtic Samhain or our current Halloween triptych is celebrated all around the world by other names. For what culture is free of the fear of death and the anger of evil spirits?
If there were any holiday/holy-day in the West that is still tainted with pagan roots to the extent that it could pose the risk of syncretism for the Christ-follower, Halloween would be it. If you’ll notice, I did not follow the same pattern in extolling the holiday in this post as I did with the previous introductions and appraisals to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.
Most of us in America would never even consider the actual existence or homage to false gods during Halloween, just as we would have to concern about the pagan names of the days of the week or months. For us those gods were defeated and long since forgotten thousands of years ago by our ancestors in Europe, except perhaps for Mammon, the god of money, greed, and commercialism. It is vastly different in other parts of the world where such gods are continually invoked and the demand to conform to the community is ever present.
With the Celts, Samhain ("summer's end") was the last of the three harvests. Harvest crops and agricultural abundance are attributed to the blessing of what is regarded as ancestors,
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| If he were a pro-nuclear Japanese character named Pluto-kun |
Incidentally, Jesus was in the earthen tomb for three days. When he arose as the “firstfruits” (1 Corinthians 15:20), he told his disciples to keep praying to the Father and wait for the power of the Holy Spirit, who then came on Pentecost, the harvest festival. But more on this later.
The History of O-Bon
In Japan, closer to the peak of summer, they observe the O-Bon Festival, which is also a three-day period. On the other end of the year, before the cold of winter is quite lifted, they celebrate Setsubun with various quaint exorcism rites. In doing so, they’ve conveniently divided the offerings to ancestors with the former and the offerings to oni/demons with the latter and gotten two holidays out of one.
O-Bon (お盆, or 精霊会), short for Urabonne (于蘭盆會 or 盂蘭盆會), is the Japanese pronunciation of the Sanskrit word Ulambanna (अवलम्बन). Ulambanna means – no lie –“hanging upside down.” In common usage, O-Bon is usually rendered as “Ancestor Day” or “The Feast of Lanterns” – which sounds a lot more friendly than something like “Festival of the Ungrateful Hanging Dead” or, as it’s more accurately known in China, “Hungry Ghost Festival” (盂蘭盆/ 盂兰盆). Since the food for the dead spirits is offered on a special tray, the word “bon” has also come to mean the tray as well.
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| Mah-Na Mah-Na! |
A mix of Confucianism and a veneer of folk-Buddhism, the Ulambanna Sutra is actually a Chinese story masquerading as an Indian Mahayana Buddhist text on ancestor worship, starring Buddha and one of his disciples named Mahamaudgalyayana, or Maudgalyāyana… Mahāmoggallāna… er, something like that. The Japanese were quick to dub him ‘Mokuren.’ Good call there.
The story goes, Mokuren is progressing along in his Buddhism pretty well and gains some special powers whereby he can divine where his dead parents wound up.
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| Mokuren - artist's rendition |
Wait, what? Yeah, the text is really short and glosses over this point pretty quickly. It’s kind of like he’s one of the X-Men, only they’re born with their powers. Kind of a thin plot device, or at least an underused one, but there was no Steve Ditko around at that time to come up with the Eye of Agamotto. (Oddly enough, the Eye was based on an actual Nepali "Amulet of Snail Martyrs." I swear, there is no making this stuff up!) Due to the voluntary nature of Mokuren's visionary powers of "six spiritual penetrations" and being able to journey and meet his mother later on in the realm of the hungry ghost, I can only guess that they are quasi-shamanistic in origin, but I don't know enough at all about Buddhism to make any claims.
Anyway, Mokuren's dad apparently made it to Buddhist heaven okay, but his mom unfortunately ended up being re-born in the hungry ghost level of Buddhist hell due to her stinginess in not giving money to Buddhist monks. As punishment, she is tormented and made to hang upside down forever, unable to feed herself since ‘hungry ghosts’ have thin necks.
So Mokuren asked Buddha what could be done to help alleviate her suffering somehow. Buddha tells him to give a bunch of expensive gifts to some monks on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and then she can be released and allowed to be re-born on a higher level. Mokuren follows Buddha’s instructions and, according to one account, his mother was then reborn as a dog. Seriously. Later, he made more hugely expensive offerings and she was finally reborn in as a human again. Although presumably her son must have been pretty old by that time. The original version in the sutra promises that ghosts up to seven generations back (but no more?) that receive such offerings can “enter the celestial flower light and experience limitless bliss.”
These days, however, it would seem that the rites of O-Bon only offer three days of respite from the endless upside-down suffering of one’s deceased family. Through the influence of Confucianism, the offerings that were originally meant for monks are now directed to one’s ancestors, cutting out the middleman. When the ancestral spirits go back to the underworld, they are guided by traditional paper lanterns set up to float in the river. (If you think about it, not too different really from jack o’lanterns at Halloween.) Generally speaking, the three-day O-Bon holiday is meant to be lighter in tone, like a family reunion. However, it’s also quite common to see the month as haunted. With the portals to hell unlocked, so to speak, people avoid making big decisions like buying a car or getting married. Or small things like swimming and going out after dark. After all, who knows what vengeful spirits might follow you home?
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| May the Amulet of Snail Martyrs of Dr. Strange protect you on your way home. |
So there you have it. The Ulambanna Sutra was written to explain why people should be nice to their parents (filial piety or 五常五倫) and pay huge amounts of money Buddhist monks so as to help ameliorate the sufferings of the spirits of the dead. Rather like the practice of indulgences to free souls from Purgatory in Catholicism based on the transfer of religious merit points (功徳).
All in all, pretty spooky. Good thing October 31st is also Protestant Reformation Day, eh?
A Closer Look at the Beliefs Behind Ancestral Rites and Customs
I know that some people, even a few scholars, try to explain ancestral rites away as simply harmless socio-cultural customs, curiosities devoid of any real religious overtones. Sorry, but I call shenanigans. One has to bend over backwards to filter out all the religious meaning in these rites. If I seem to be overly flippant here, that’s because this is a really serious issue. To think that billions of people have been lied to and enslaved by the few paragraphs of this sutra about the true nature of death. I normally soft-pedal these kind of cultural festivals and customs as I discuss the world-changing implications of the message of Christ, but in this case, I almost want to take people by the shoulders and shake them. I want to warn them of the seriousness and terrible dangers posed by these beliefs that have shaped their worldview and identity.
When I was younger, I myself used have an allure to the occult and esoterica, dappling in all kinds of arcane lore. I know something of what lies in the shadows. Now I never went so far as to do any spells or anything – it was mostly antiquarian and academic, mind you. But when I read of Goethe’s Faust, I knew there was more than a little of myself in the story. Thankfully, God was pleased to deliver me from such infernal meditations.
Halloween is quite real and one must be careful about opening doorways to strange spirits. I’ve never run into any ghosts or goblins, and I haven’t seen any demon possessions or visible manifestations like some of my friends have, but the one encounter I had with a demonic presence was more than enough.
Shinto is a typical polytheist, animist religion; having a shrine to the household gods is a natural part of ancestor worship (精霊崇拝 or 祖先崇拝). In older times, the cult of the dead had more shades of shamanism (“cult” referring to the traditional anthropological definition of “a system of ritual practices”). These days, the so-called New Religions of Japan, which are growing as a staggering rate, are basically spirit-possessed shamanistic cults.
The same customs are found the world over in the ancestral cults of ancient Egypt, Rome, etc. Instead of Setsubun and O-Bon, the Romans styled their festivals with names like Feralia and Parentalia. Instead of a butsudan or kamidana altar in their kyakuma room, the Romans had lararia altars in their atrium, along with sacella (or sacraria), and aediculae shrines. The Japanese use memorial tablets (ihai) and sometimes pictures of their deceased, while Romans had pictures and masks called imagines.
Roman cultural life revolved around the mos maiorum, or way of the elders, which informed and shaped all aspects of their life. Culture is a mixed bag. Essentially man-made, its language and customs shift around. Sometimes they change for the better, sometimes not, but all of it is woven together in a tightly-knit matrix. Some traditions are admirable, while others are misguided, or mere superstitions.
The holiday of Lemuria, for example, just like Setsubun in Japan, is about children throwing beans outside the house to wish away bad luck and evil spirits. Of course, this light-hearted tradition, while perhaps entertaining, has no effect on protecting the family from evil spirits. It’s like wiping one’s hands on a towel that says “Healthy” in the hopes that you won’t get the plague. That’s a rather ridiculous example, but even so not far off from the reality of these customs. Let me use a real-life example then. Japanese kids will often cover their thumbs when funeral car rides by. The word for thumb in Japanese is “oya-yubi” (親指) or parent-finger. If they don’t cover their thumbs, then their parents will die soon.
Even if such actions as bean-tossing did have some magical protective power, the fact that the festival recurs every year belies the idea that it couldn’t be really effective. If such an action must be done over and over each year, that would mean sometime between the festivals the bad luck/evil spirits are able to come into the house again.
The truth is, offering food, incense, and prayers, burning joss paper or “Hell Money”, or any other external act of bribery cannot erase the bad things people have done. Not for others and not for ourselves.
If one truly wishes to express filial piety, it must be done while one’s parents are still living. Once they die, it is too late. Buddha himself failed to show honor to his parents when he left them and his wife to see if he could figure out the meaning of life in a materialist universe. He ought to have practiced what he preached. One would do better imitating Aeneas than Buddha. It’s ironic that Christianity is so misunderstood in East Asia; in reality, to be a Buddhist monk means to turn your back on your family.
Of course, the historical Buddha, Mr. Siddhārtha Gautama, didn’t really talk about ancestors and the after-life at all. He was an atheist who denied the supernatural. From dust to dust was his philosophy. So why are Buddhist priests hired to perform Japanese funeral services? Well, as Buddhism spread it also changed into a variety of different beliefs and practices. It was not the more original or authentic branch of Theravada Buddhism that made its way to the shores of Japan with the Taika reform in A.D. 645, but the fuzzier mystical religion of Mahayana Buddhism. And a diluted Japanese-version of Mahayana at that. Japanese Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land Buddhism), for example, might reluctantly tolerate ancestor worship, but it does not endorse such beliefs.
As missiologist Dr. Choon-Sup Bae points out, the butsudan (Buddhist altar) found is most Japanese homes today was originally set up, not for the worship of ancestral spirits (祖霊), but for buddhas and bodhisattvas.
In the "clean-unclean" principle of animistic Shinto, any contact with the dead was thought to contaminate the shrine precincts and the priests. So Shinto, the native religion, gave little attention to the dead. Already having accommodated ancestor worship in China, Buddhism was fast to shoulder services for the dead to gain a foothold in Japanese society (49).
In a way, in addition to the addressing the emotional needs of the family in showing gratitude to the deceased, one might think of the butsudan as functioning as a spiritual vending machine, the same way that fortunes, talismans, and amulets are sold at shrines and temples.
Honoring one’s parents in Asian culture, especially from Confucianism, is a matter of propriety, what the Chinese call “li” (禮). So too in the Bible, where the duty is enshrined in the Ten Commandments as the first and most fundamental of obligations man has to others. The first four commandments address man’s obligations to God.
In Japan, as in much of the East, ancestor worship (精霊崇拝) is “the basic element of religious consciousness” and is “essentially a ritualized manifestation of filial piety” (Bae 10, 79). Unfortunately, the customs involved in ancestral rites and, more importantly, the underlying beliefs to this practice take the idea of honoring one’s parents a few steps further, and in the process cross over into breaking the first two commandments against idolatry.
In Asia, the practice is blended evenly with folk religion, animism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and shamanism, depending on the country. In the “Christendom” of the West, the dead were typically buried in the churchyard. Under the Tokugawa regime, in an effort to stamp out Christianity, Buddhist temple registration and funeral rites were compulsory for Japanese. Even though most Japanese I meet are avowedly non-religious, as a matter of course they still continue to practice Shinto or Buddhist religious customs, visiting shrines and temples, giving offerings, buying charms, doing pilgrimages, etc. And, of course, ancestor worship at the family altar is a given, the foundation beneath it all.
The various hoji/hoyo (法事) or butsuji (仏事) ceremonies along with Higan (彼岸), the festival at Spring Equinox, and various memorial services for transferring merit to ancestors (先祖供養, 追善,回向文) with much earnestness and pressing of the hands (合掌) and chanting are meant to help the deceased gradually transform from Buddhist purgatory (中陰) into a fully-fledged ancestor and eventually part of the collective mass of indiscriminate hotoke spirits in Buddhist heaven.
If we stop and think about it, part of the reasoning here is quite understandable. In any such worldview which denies Creator God, there are gaps to fill. Even if they believed in Him conceptually, He still could not be addressed or approached directly anymore than the Emperor would invite you or me before his throne or into his home. Therefore, since there is no concept of any possible intimacy of relationship and an intimacy of language with a personal Creator God, there is a sense of the great gulf.
The keenness of His absence in their lives is such that to dwell too long on this truth would be unbearably painful and so the wound must be numbed and suppressed. Consequently, they need to fill the void with personal intermediaries that are more relatable, part human and part divine (Bae 28). Ring any bells? It should. The book of Hebrews speaks of such a God who in His empathy shared in our humanity, facing all the pressures and temptations and weaknesses that we do, and, remaining pure, tasted death for us, and stands available to be our perfect intercessor (2:14-18; 4:14-16).
“Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
Defining the Boundaries of Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis
Some people seem to have a hard time differentiating between having a memorial service for one’s ancestors and committing idolatry. Remembering/honoring versus venerating/worshiping. The line of syncretism, they say, seems rather blurry to them. We need not stumble or dissimulate over words.
Simply ask yourself: do you talk to your ancestors with the idea that they can hear or respond to you? Are you seeking guidance, favors, blessings, protection, or some other form of intercession from them? Do you kowtow or make noises in the hopes that they will hear you or wake up? Do you offer food, drink, money, sacrifice, or some other kind of valuable commodity, wishing to help them to have a better time in the after-life?
The Lord God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, has not left us ignorant of such things. Nowhere in Scripture are we enjoined to pray for the dead. Indeed, divination, necromancy, and any such contact with the dead or offerings to them is forbidden as an abomination (Leviticus 19:31; 20:6; Deuteronomy 26:13-15; Psalm 106:28-29). Sacrifices could only be made in one location to the Lord (Leviticus 17:7-9).
"The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29).
“When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead" (Deuteronomy 18:9-11).
Moreover, God has expressly spoken in His Word that such actions are idolatrous and a repudiation of His role as judge. “It is appointed for a man once to die and after that to face the judgment.” There is no changing of the Judge’s decision; it is irreversible. I’m simplifying things a bit here for the sake of explanation, but the basic message of Scripture is that from the Judgment, the dead either enter into the Kingdom of Heaven or into Hell. Once there, they do not have any connection to those still living on earth, nor are they allowed to move from Heaven to Hell or from Hell to Heaven or to Earth or the Lower East Side of Manhattan or the Bronx or anywhere else.
There is no such thing as accumulating merit before the holy Lord God Almighty anymore than there is such as thing as transferring merit from one person to another. We are not to seek any but God alone for guidance or protection. He is all the power and wisdom we would ever need.
In our ESL Bible class as few weeks ago, almost out of the blue, one guy from Taiwan asked me what I thought about the practice of ancestor worship. It’s a big issue to address and there were only about three minutes left in class so I didn’t have much time to consider and explain things. I basically listed off a few quick points to keep in mind, which I repeat here with some elaboration and examples under each bullet point.
-The Bible is deeply concerned with honoring one’s parents, obeying them and loving them and showing our appreciation for them (Leviticus 19:32). God is interested in one’s whole family following Him (Acts 16:31), indeed this extends to all families in the whole earth (Genesis 12:1-2). Customs of our ancestors ought to be honored unless they are against God’s word (Mark 7:8-13, Acts 28:17). For, after all, no man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Therefore…
- Christ promised that there would be divisions, rejection, and ostracism for following him. In other words, there is always a cost to take into consideration before one makes the decision to become a disciple. It might mean losing our job or being rejected by our family or friends or losing our life (Matthew 10:34-39).
“What’s the big deal?” one might contend. “Why does it have to be all or nothing? Surely, God is big enough that He doesn’t mind sharing some of His infinite glory? Can’t the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts and man-made idols simply co-exist in the same dwelling?”
I’m being a bit facetious again here, but I hope it’s clear what is at stake here. No, in spite of our modern age of relativism and pluralism, the Lord does not share His glory with others (Exodus 20:3; Isaiah 42:8; 48:11). And no, He doesn’t much care for lifeless graven images and pagan statues. Often in Scripture, the literal word for idol is a pejorative word, such as “little pellets of dung” (Jeremiah 50:2, Ezekiel 6:4-6, 9, 13, etc. Leviticus 26:30). Actually, it’s used about 40 times in Ezekiel. In the same manner, Elijah contested the gods of Baal and Asherah, and when there was no response from the gods, exclaimed, “Cry out louder to your god! Maybe he’s napping or busy going to the bathroom!” (1 Kings 18:20-46). Remember the case of Dagon (meaning either “fish” or “grain”)?
I’ll let you read the story for yourself (1 Samuel 5:1-5), but the long and short of it is that in the end only one god will be able to demonstrate greater power over the other.Elsewhere in the Bible, God’s people are faced with situations where they are forced to either compromise their allegiance to God or else face persecution. The prophet Daniel chose not to defile himself by eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols (Daniel 1:8-9; see Acts 15:20, 1 Corinthians 8:17-13; 10:14-28; Revelation 2:14, 20). Instead of merely outright refusing it, Daniel wisely offered an alternative to demonstrate the superiority of God’s ways. Far from being seen as naïve or legalistic, God commends Daniel’s devotion and raises his status as far above all the magicians and sorcerers and wise men (1:17-20).
Later, when Daniel is confronted with King Darius’ command to worship false gods and bow to idols, and his friends were confronted with King Nebuchadnezzar’s command to worship false gods and bow to idols, they meekly and respectfully, yet boldly, explained why they could not in do such a thing before the one true God (3:16-18; 6:1-16, 21-22). God was pleased to rescue them from certain death and the king commended them (3:26-30; 6:25-28).
When Paul spoke of his imprisonment and possible impending execution, his only concern was the fact that he would have enough courage to face death squarely, or else that he could remain and be of help in growing the believers (Philippians 1:20-30).
Which overlaps with the next point: there was no question about where he would go after he died. It was understood that at the moment of death he would immediately join Christ in heaven. The entrance fee has already been paid, amen – Jesus provided that by suffering the shame and punishment of our sins as he hung there naked on the cross. Christ chose to go and hang O-Bon-like from that tree and become a curse so that we would not have to (Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Paul’s struggle then was that heaven is a one-way trip; once there he will not be able to do any more work in sharing the gospel and helping believers on earth. Thus, he had an urgency for the mission of the gospel in that small window of time (Ecclesiastes 9:4-10).
- It is clearly stated for us in Scripture that there is no concourse or communication between the living and the dead. In the Old Testament, they knew that their loved ones would not return to them because of the finality of the grave, but only that they could go to meet their loved ones in heaven (2 Samuel 12:23; Job 7:7-10; 10:21; 16:22; Psalm 6:5). Probably they are not even conscious of the vicissitudes what transpire on earth (Job 14:21), so consumed are they with the beatific vision of being in the presence of God (Job 19:26-27). Jesus tells us a sutra of his own explaining that those in heaven cannot come down to help the suffering of those on earth or in hell (Luke 16:19-31) and he knows such knowledge firsthand.
“When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isaiah 8:19)
Neither should it be expected that we on earth can somehow give those in heaven a better time than they already enjoy in the eternal bliss of the presence of God. “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). For those in Heaven, where there is no pain or sorrow, they would not want to return to earth even if they were permitted to. For those in Hell, where it is only torment and suffering, they are not allowed to return to earth for a rest from their punishment.
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| I guess, you could even dress up as a flower. |
- Ancestors can and should be shown respect in other ways besides prayer, incense, etc. We might speak of them often and of the influence of the legacy they left us. We might visit graves and clean their tombstones and put flowers on the grave simply as a sign of our respect, not as a means to please them as if they were still near or could hear and respond to us.
To these brief reminders, I would add that Jesus explains to a woman of Samaria that he is greater than Jacob, who is the ancestor of both of them (John 4:12). In fact, he is greater than Abraham, the founding father of the nation (John 8:58). He redirects her spiritual focus away from those ancestors and traditions and back to himself, declaring, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:22-24; see 14:6).
His disciples returning, astonished to see him talking so with a woman, not to mention, she also happened to be a Samaritan and likely even a harlot, they nervously try to change the subject and have lunch. But Jesus continues to unfold his teaching about the true nature of worshiping God, curiously speaking of the Samaritan village as a harvest field whose fruit is now ready to be reaped.
Showing Respect to Ancestors in a God-honoring Manner
Every single day Christians in Japan and China and countries around the world face similar crossroads during holidays and festivals or funerals or simply being in a house with pagan altars. Concerning the Roman household gods, Tertullian in a letter to his wife advised of the dangers of Christians marrying pagans. Surely, a Christian wife would be “tormented by the vapor of incense each time the demons are honored, each solemn festivity in honor of the emperors, each beginning of the year, each beginning of the month” (Ad Uxorem, 6.1.).
As a sacramental ritual, ancestral rites are to traditional folk religion and animistic cultures what the sacrifice of the Mass is to Catholic cultures. In both cases, the use of intermediary spirits is used to help bridge the gap between them and the Most High God. For Japanese, the emphasis is more on either propitiating or somehow seeing to the needs of deceased relatives. The deceased in turn can provide protection, guidance, and such. Even for self-professed atheists, the practice is cathartic and psychologically fulfilling.
Well, Christians have their own sacramental ritual that also involves mystical union or fellowship. Two rather potent ones, in fact: Baptism and Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper. Instead of celebrating the Lord’s Supper only a few times a year, in an individualist manner with all parties facing toward the podium or front, it could be done as it originally was, like the love feasts of old, with believers eating together with whole loaves of bread rather than just wafers, facing each other around tables. Feet-washing optional.
“It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat” (Hebrews 13:9-10).
In addition to these regular celebrations of participating in the Lord’s Supper, Japanese Christians can have more memorial services or liturgies that provide opportunities for family get-togethers or reunions in order to focus especially on the deceased. Furthermore, for them to visit graves for funerals or on their own to show respect is to be commended. They can show their respects by cleaning the gravestones and bringing flowers, though food or drink or incense offerings, of course, would not be appropriate. For attending family members that are not Christians, it would be good for them to see the Christians give a speech explaining their actions and sharing the hope of the gospel, or a prayer to the Lord expressing gratitude for the loved one.
Japanese Christians should also remember how important genealogies are in the Bible. Family histories are listed regularly, from Adam our first ancestor, to the genealogies of Christ. It might be good for them to record their own family tree in a family Bible as an heirloom or to have available at funerals or in the place of a butsudan. Often there is such a blank page already provided.
While I'm not specifically addressing the missiology of encountering pagan festivals here, I lately came upon Simon Cozens post "Beating the Bounds", and while I often don't whole-heartedly go for all such conclusions, his point about festivals that are "public, celebratory, inclusive, participatory, and bestowing blessings widely" is simply not to be missed.
To the Non-Believer: Is There any Real Hope that Lasts Beyond the Grave?
My take-away from Halloween is this. It reminds us that evil spirits are very much real and dangerous, but at
the same time, the power of the Lord Jesus is far stronger.
Indeed, strictly speaking, pagan gods are no gods at all, but merely evil spirits with masks (Isaiah 37:19; Jeremiah 2:11, 5:7; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6; 10:18-22; Galatians 4:8; 1 John 4:1).Jesus casts out demons all the time with but a word. Yes, that includes Hindu Pretas, Roman Manes, and even Japanese Yomotsu-shikome (Matthew 11:4-6).
Jesus is the true Lord of the Harvest (Matthew 9:38) to whom all prayers must be directed.
He is the only one who was conquered the power of sin and death (Romans 6:8-10; Colossians 2:13-15; 2 Timothy 1:10; Hebrews 2:14-15).
The Greeks spoke of there being a judge who is the “holder of the keys” to the Underworld, the kleidouchos (κλειδοῦχος). In Japan, they have statutes of an angry-faced Emma (閻魔), a borrowing of the Yama of Hinduism/Buddhism. Lord Jesus lives forever and holds the keys of death and Hades. (Revelations 1:18). He is the Lord and Judge of the Living and the Dead (Acts 10:34-43; Romans 14:9; 2 Timothy 4:1). And thus He speaks lion-like with all the authority of a king in his royal imperatives (Luke 9:60; John 5:25).
We must all stand before him and give account of our life (Hebrews 4:13; Matthew 12:37; Luke 12:15-21; Romans 14:10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:10-11; 1 Peter 4:5).
He is the only mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5-6; Acts 4:12), whom we must turn to in repentance and put our trust in him.
We need not fear any demon when Christ has come and given “incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked” (Ephesians 1:19-21).
Like Paul teaches, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)
If the name of Jesus is the highest there is, we would do well to heed him, to come to him for the life he offers and thereby escape the kind of judgment that Mokuren's mother suffered so much. Let us bring all of family to hear his voice and live:
“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” - John 5:21-29
Reference: "Ancestor Worship and the Challenges it poses to the Christian Mission and Ministry", Dissertation by Choon-Sup Bae, University of Pretoria, 2007.
Appendix:
If there’s one common refrain in the Old Testament about the people of Israel, it is that they were prone to syncretism, that is, to be unfaithful to God by prostituting themselves out to the worship of others gods. In the days of the early church, Christ-followers living in the Roman world had the same kind of pagan atmosphere. Sometimes the threat was overt and life-threatening and sometimes it meant disgrace in one’s family. For example, Pliny the Younger wrote about how the Christians were made to offer a prayer with incense and wine to Emperor Trajan’s image and to curse Christ, or else be tortured and killed. In Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Christians were ordered to step on a stone image of Christ. Would you do it?
Below are some relevant Scripture references. There are far too many to list them all, so only some will be written out. There's a pattern you might see.
Concerning food polluted by idols: Acts 15:20, 1 Corinthians 8:17-13; 10:14-28; Revelation 2:14, 20.
Concerning the abundance of shrines: Jeremiah 2:28; 11:12-13; 2 Kings 17:29-34; 2 Chronicles 28:24-25.
General verses on idolatry and serving the Lord God alone:
Genesis 31:30-35; 35:1-4
Leviticus 26:30
Numbers 25:1-9
Joshua 24:14-24
Deuteronomy 7:26
You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and like it come under the ban; you shall utterly detest it and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned.
Other versions read:
Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing. (KJB)
Never bring a disgusting idol into your house. If you do, you and the idol will be destroyed. Consider it detestable and disgusting. It must be destroyed. (God's Word® Translation (©1995)
Deuteronomy 12:3-4
You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way.
Deuteronomy 12:29-31
29"When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.' 31 You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
Deuteronomy 18:10-14
*Deuteronomy 26:13-15
1 Samuel 12:21
And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.
1 Kings 3:3
Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings (or burned incense) at the high places.
1 Kings 22:43
He walked in all the way of Asa his father; he did not turn aside from it, doing right in the sight of the LORD. However, the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places.
2 Kings 12:3
Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
2 Kings 14:4
Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
2 Kings 15:4
Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
2 Kings 15:35
Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
2 Kings 16:4
He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
2 Kings 17:11
And there they burned incense on all the high places as the nations did which the LORD had carried away to exile before them; and they did evil things provoking the LORD.
2 Kings 17:15
They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them.
2 Kings 18:4
He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan.
2 Kings 22:17
Because they have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods that they might provoke Me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore My wrath burns against this place, and it shall not be quenched.
2 Kings 23:5
He did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the surrounding area of Jerusalem, also those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and to the moon and to the constellations and to all the host of heaven.
2 Chronicles 25:14-16
2 Chronicles 34:4
“The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:4-11)
*Psalm 106:28-29
Isaiah 65:3
A people who continually provoke Me to My face, Offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks;
Isaiah 65:7
Both their own iniquities and the iniquities of their fathers together,” says the LORD. “Because they have burned incense on the mountains And scorned Me on the hills, Therefore I will measure their former work into their bosom.”
Jeremiah 11:12-13
Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they surely will not save them in the time of their disaster. For your gods are as many as your cities, O Judah; and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.
Jeremiah 18:15
For My people have forgotten Me, They burn incense to worthless gods And they have stumbled from their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in bypaths, Not on a highway,
Jeremiah 32:29
The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will enter and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses where people have offered incense to Baal on their roofs and poured out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.
Ezekiel 6:4
Jonah 2:8
Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
Hosea 4:13
Hosea 11:2
But the more they were called, the more they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.
