Dear BPCWA worshipper, We thank God for Reformation Sunday last week, commemorating Martin Luther’s posting of his 95 Theses on the church walls on 31 October.  During this period, we may have also noticed the ghoulish décor around some houses in our neighbourhoods and the sale of Halloween themed candy in supermarkets in preparation for Halloween on 31 October.  Is the common date of the Reformation and Halloween a mere coincidence?  Also, what do you know about the popularly commemorated All Saints’ Day on 1^st November each year?  It is important that the Christian is not ignorant of these “celebrations”.

All Saints’ Day.  During Luther’s time, 31 October was observed as the night before All Saints’ Day.  The church where Luther posted his 95 theses on 31 October was home to over 5,000 relics – one for each saint.  Whether intentional or not, many who would visit the church for All Saints’ Day would inevitably read the theses.  All Saints’ Day (which is also called All Hallows’ Day) is a Feast Day for All Saints.  It is believed to have been started in the 300s AD as a feast of all martyrs in May.  Pope Boniface IV chose 13 May to rededicate the Pantheon (a pagan temple) in honour of Mary and all martyrs in 609 AD.  This festival was later broadened to include all saints during the reign of Pope Gregory III, when it was also changed to 1 November.  As to how Halloween came about, Vatican News says, “the word Halloween refers to the Feast of All Saints. The word itself is taken an older English term, “hallows,” meaning “holy”; and “e’en”, a truncation of the word evening, in reference to the Vigil of the feast.” So, Halloween “comes from All Hallow’s Eve – that is, the Vigil of All Saints’ Day, when Catholics remember those who have gone before us to enter our heavenly home.” As to what this Feast means, Vatican News goes on to say, “it’s a day when Catholics celebrate the triumph of the Church in heaven, and the lives of the saints on earth”.

A triduum (a period of 3 days of religious observance).  Thus far, we have mentioned only 2 days.  However, many traditions keep 3 days of religious observance, comprising All Saints’ Eve (Halloween), All Saints’ Day (All Hallows’), and All Souls’ Day on 2 November.  Citing tradition for the last day, the Vatican claims that Christians prayed for their beloved dead beginning in the 2^nd century.  This later became officially sanctioned by the Pope as the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed.  This last day is to pray for the souls in purgatory.  During the triduum, attendance at masses or services is encouraged, as well as cemetery visits where flowers are placed and candles are lit.  For those from heathenistic backgrounds who know of the Chinese “7^th month” celebrations for the dead, this is hauntingly familiar.  As Pope John Paul II said, “The basis for this prayer of suffrage is found in the communion of the Mystical Body. As the Second Vatican Council stresses: ‘In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in her pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honoured with great respect the memory of the dead’”.  While All Saints and All Souls Days may sound like it belongs only to the Roman Catholic realm, and very remote, it is not so.  “A Service for All Souls Day” is among the WA Uniting Church’s Worship Resources that describes the lighting of candles as “a symbol – both of the prayers we offer for our loved ones, and of Jesus Christ the light of the world”.  All Saints Day is part of the lectionary calendar of the Uniting Church in Australia.  Describing the lighting of candles, a writer says, “Burning as we allow ourselves to feel the absence of some as a chasm. Burning as the walls between the worlds begin to thin. . . Today we invoke them.”  The Anglican Church Diocese of Perth noted that All Souls Day is “recently revived within the Anglican Communion”.   While Wesley “cautioned against holding saints in too high regard. The Articles of Religion that he sent to the Methodists in America in 1784, include a statement against ‘invocation of saints’”, he also “advised against disregarding the saints altogether.”  It is no surprise that in what the United Methodists call the tradition of the church, they follow on the same path as Wesley by “giving God solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints”. 

The gradual erosion.  The great danger often lies not in the moment, but in how it can lay the groundwork for future errors.  Major Protestant denominations today link All Saints’ Day with Halloween (All Hallows Eve) and praying to God for the dead (though at present still denying purgatory).  Shocked? Please read on about the erosion.  In a recent writeup on All Souls’ Day, the Perth Anglican Church acknowledges, “At the Reformation, All Souls Day was dropped from the liturgical calendar of the Church of England in reaction to erroneous medieval views and practices concerning Purgatory, however, the Articles make no direct objection to remembering the dead in prayer.”  Despite agreeing “we find no explicit mention of prayers for the dead in the canonical scriptures”, it adds, “remembering the dead in prayer and at the Eucharist has been a normative part of the Church’s practice since its earliest days, and it finds support in the writings and homilies of the church fathers”.  They justify this by saying, “all the faithful – living and departed – continue to be a ‘work in progress’ until Christ’s return.”  A common thinking in celebrating this occasion provided the basis for the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh to join hands for an ecumenical service to mark All Saints’ Day in 2020.  The UK Methodist Church Resource Hub posted an article suggesting hymns for both Halloween and All Saints’, puts forward “a case for reclaiming Halloween as an intrinsic element of the Christian celebration of All Saints” because, “taken together, the festivals . . . remind us that we are connected to our past, and that those who have gone before us still live with us and may help support us into our future. Using vivid and unsettling imagery, the twin festivals insist on the wholeness of creation – God is God of the dead as well as of the living”.  The United Methodist Church combines the observance of All Saints and All Souls Day on the first Sunday in November, where the latter occasion remembers “‘everyday saints’ who have gone before us and have entered into God’s rest . . . ‘the least and the lost.’”. 

The progression of the erosion.  Theologian N.T. Wright, supporting All Saints Day, justifies it by saying, “Since both the departed saints and we ourselves are in Christ, we share with them in the ‘communion of saints.’ . . . When we celebrate the Eucharist they are there with us, along with the angels and archangels.”  He says that since we love the departed saints, “Why then should we not pray for and with them? The reason the Reformers and their successors did their best to outlaw praying for the dead was because that had been so bound up with the notion of purgatory and the need to get people out of it as soon as possible. Once we rule out purgatory, I see no reason why we should not pray for and with the dead and every reason why we should – not that they will get out of purgatory but that they will be refreshed and filled with God’s joy and peace. Love passes into prayer; we still love them; why not hold them, in that love, before God?” 

The path to errors is often paved with good intentions.  As we can see from the above, the initial generations may not fall, but later generations take it many steps further, finally falling into grave error.  The use of religious statues in the Roman Catholic Church is one such example of “good intentions” gone wrong.  Without a doubt, as the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 25 states, “The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all”.  We see false religions leaning toward ancestral worship, veneration of dead saints, or seeking to communicate with the dead.  We also see in them the desire for the dead to protect and help them, and expressions of gratitude for these.  What must concern us is our race here while we are alive.  We depend solely upon Christ and His mediatorial work.  A typical example of prayers on All Saints’ Day is such a one from the Catholic Life website, “All saints in Heaven, I thank you for the holy witness you each have given to the Church and rejoice in the blessings you now enjoy in Heaven. Please pray for me and for all people, that every one of us will become holy, bearing witness to Christ with our lives, and one day enter Heaven. May God pour forth an abundance of grace upon the world through the example you set and the prayers you now pray before His throne. All saints of God, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.” 

The believers’ response.  As we consider the triduum and where Protestants have regressed to, how should we think and respond?  God, as the writer of the world’s history, has in His providence used many of His elect before us to do His work, men and women whom we read of in church history or autobiographies.  All who make up the Invisible Church are but God’s instrumentalities.   The Scripture is always sufficient for our present living.  When the rich man in hell repeatedly asked for Lazarus to be sent back to speak to his brethren, the reply came back to the focus on the Word of God, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (Lu 16:29). We see where the major denominations that celebrate All Saints Day are today.  There is no necessity for Christians to set aside a day (which has become so intermingled with All Hallows’ Eve and All Souls’ Day) on the religious calendar to remember the saints who have passed before us.  God has left for His people the witness of the hall of faith in Hebrews 11.  Let us not get distracted from the sufficiency of the Scriptures to live and end this life well for His glory alone.  As we have been studying in the book of Hebrews, God had to take the admiration and view of the Jews away from the “greatness” of Moses to fixate their eyes on the greatest, our Supreme Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  Peter sums it up well on where our eyes should be fixated:

“For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:  25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” (1Pe 1:24-25)

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor