Reclaiming Halloween

For many, many people, Halloween remains a celebratory time which children and families look forward to each year.
Halloween has become a major cultural event for families each year. An estimated 157 million Americans will celebrate the holiday, spending on $7 billion in the process!
Once upon a time, folks knew that Halloween was connected to All Saints Day (like Christmas Eve to Christmas Day). Alas, that is not recognized so much today.

Halloween begs to be reclaimed by people of faith. I have assembled a small collection of resources to help stimulate thinking about a more appropriate and faithful celebration of the holiday.
I invite you to check it out and share with others: http://www.newcelebrations.com/allsaintsday.html

PS. Be sure to check out the 20 Alternative Halloween activities.

Celebrating America's Independence Day in Days gone By

http://www.history.com/topics/july-4th/videos/fourth-of-july-history Discover how and when Americans celebrated Independence Day in the past. Although Benjamin Franklin thought we'd celebrate the 2nd of July; the 4th of July is closest to our hearts. 

Check it out:   http://www.newcelebrations.com/independencedayusa.html

America's Independence Day

America officially celebrates the anniversary of the Declaration Independence from Britain each year on July 4.  

Celebrations are varied; but, usually consist of community parades, outdoor picnics and gatherings, with food and music - and community displays of fireworks.

 Churches have an opportunity to tell a story not usually heard in schools - or churches for that matter.

It’s not a story easily found on television or film.  

It’s a great opportunity to remind folks of the place of the church in the lives of most of the colonists in those early times.  

Some of these resources here could inspire the preacher and/or worship leader to engage the congregation in a real uplifting experience.

Important to consider in the planning for a new celebration of Independence Day should be the realization that not all inhabitants of the New World would celebrate Independence.  

The population of Africans brought to this world as slaves did not see and could not celebrate independence.

Nor could most of the Native American population.  To the credit of the British (and discredit of  the Colonists) each Native group was seen and treated by the British as separate “nations” with certain respect and dignity and rights granted therein.  

Most colonists viewed the Natives as a problem to be eradicated.  There would be no celebrating of independence  amongst them.  

May you find inspiration here for a New Celebration of Independence Day.

Check it out:   http://www.newcelebrations.com/independencedayusa.html

The Single Most Powerful Voice to Inspire the Colonists Was the Pulpit

Clergymen surveyed the events swirling around them, and by 1775 liberals and evangelicals, Congregationalists and Presbyterians,
men and women – 
all saw in British actions grounds for armed resistance.
 
In fact, not only was it right for colonists to resist British "tyranny,"
to hear the preachers, it would actually be sinful not to pick up guns.
 
They latched on to Parliament's 1766 Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament had sovereignty over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."

You see, for the ministers, this phrase took on the air of blasphemy.
These were fighting words –  not only because they violated principles of representative government but even more because they violated the logic of their fundamental Presbyterian belief of sola Scriptura  ("Scripture alone"),
and God's exclusive claim  to sovereignty "in all cases whatsoever."

You see, from the first colonial settlements, Americans –  especially New England Americans –  were accustomed to constraining all power and granting absolute authority to no mere human being.
 
For Presbyterian and Reformed colonists, these ideas were tied up with their historic, covenant theology.
At stake was the preservation of their identity as a covenant people.
Not only did Parliament's claims of control “in all things whatsoever”  represent tyranny, they also represented idolatry.
For colonists to honor those claims would be tantamount to forsaking God and abdicating their national covenant pledge to "have no other gods" before them.

So, to the question as to who determines whether government is "moral and religious",
In the Revolutionary era, the answer was simple: the individual.

The political and religious connotations were so closely intertwined that it was virtually impossible for colonists to separate them.
 
Throughout all the colonies, the preachers goaded, consoled, and impelled colonists forward in the cause of independence.

The pulpit served as the single most powerful voice to inspire the colonists.
 
For most American ministers and many in their congregations, the religious  dimension of the war was precisely the point of revolution.

Would our faith be so strong
that if we were confronted with a proclamation of someone declaring sovereignty over us in all cases whatsoever, would we be moved to do anything about it? 

Well, we are here today, so we can thank God that there were some who were moved to proclaim that God has exclusive claim to sovereignty in all cases whatsoever.  

And, there can be no mere human beings who have absolute authority over us.

And, so let us rememeber that there was a time when religious beliefs greatly affected political and social issues. 

Check it out:   http://www.newcelebrations.com/independencedayusa.html

Lest We Forget: The Role of the Preacher in the American Revolution

Folks in colonial America heard sermons more than any other form of communication.

The colonial preacher was prophet,
newspaper,
video,
Internet,
community college,
and social therapist all wrapped in one. 
Their  influence on all aspects of life in those days was so great, that even contemporary television and personal computers pale in comparison.

Day after day,
week after week,
ministers drew the people into a rhetorical world that was more compelling and more immediate than the physical settlements surrounding them.
Sermons taught not only the way to personal salvation in Christ, 
but also the way to temporal and national prosperity for God's chosen people.

Events were perceived not from the mundane, human vantage point
but from God's perspective.

The vast majority of colonists were  Presbyterian
to whom things were not as they might appear at ground level:
all events, no matter how mundane or seemingly random, were parts of a larger pattern of meaning, part of God's providential design.
The outlines of this pattern were contained in Scripture and interpreted by discerning pastors.
Colonial congregations saw themselves as the "New Israel,"
endowed with a sacred mission that destined them as lead actors in the last triumphant chapter in redemption history. 

Check it out:  http://www.newcelebrations.com/independencedayusa.html

A HYMN- PRAYER FOR THE NATION

For Freedom, Christ Has Set Us Free

ELLACOMBE 8.6.8.6 D

("I Sing the Mighty Power of God")

"For freedom, Christ has set us free!"

What joy is ours to claim!

No more enslaved, humanity

Finds life in Jesus' name.

We try, Lord, to be justified

Through all the works we do.

Yet you adopt us, saying, "Child,

It's Christ who makes you new."

We're clothed in Christ and we belong;

Now no one waits outside.

In him we find our common song;

Old ways no more divide.

"It is no longer I who live,

But Christ who lives in me."

He died for us, new life to give —

And new identity.

Now, Spirit-filled, may we be led

From ways that would destroy.

May we your people turn instead

To lives of love and joy.

May we find peace that makes us whole

And patience everywhere.

God, give us kindness, self-control,

And hearts and hands that share.

Biblical Reference: Galatians 5:1, 19, 22-23

Tune: Gesangbuch der Herzoglich Wirtembergischen Katholischen Hofkapelle, 1784 ("I Sing the Mighty Power of God"; "Hail To the Lord's Anointed")

Text: Copyright © 2000 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved.

Copied from Songs of Grace: New Hymns for God and Neighbor by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette (Upper Room Books).

Email: bcgillette@comcast.net Hymns: www.carolynshymns.com

The American Revolution Was a Religious Event

Next week we in the United States of America  will celebrate our 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
It is significant for us to remember, many historians agree that when understood in its own times,
the American Revolution was first and foremost a religious event.
At the forefront of the revolution were the preachers.
Think about the influence of the preachers:

Over the span of the colonial era, American ministers delivered approximately 8 million sermons, each lasting one to one-and-a-half hours.
The average 70-year-old colonial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 sermons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 10,000 hours of concentrated listening.

No matter what denomination,
folks in colonial America heard sermons more than any other form of communication.

Check it out:
 http://www.newcelebrations.com/independencedayusa.html