Burn A Bible For Halloween

King James Onlyists in NC are planning a big shindig for Halloween by burning all the things they deem heretical. I thought they didn't celebrate Halloween. Anyways, here's Big Daddy Weave's post about it:

Burning Bibles Baptist-Style
OCTOBER 13, 2009

On October 31, Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina will celebrate Halloween by burning Bibles. Here’s the description of this upcoming shindig:

Come celebrate Halloween by burning Satan’s bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.
We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contempory Christian, jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.
We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort, Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll, John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham, Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.
We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Genevia or other translations that are based on the TR.

No wonder we Baptists aren't taken seriously anymore because of all the Fundamentalist nutjobs calling themselves Baptists today.

Edgar Allan Poe Finally Gets A Lavish Funeral

Poe Finally Getting Buried in Style
By BEN NUCKOLS, AP
posted: 18 HOURS 38 MINUTES AGOcomments: 82filed under: National News, Weird News
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BALTIMORE (Oct. 6) -- For Edgar Allan Poe, 2009 has been a better year than 1849. After dozens of events in several cities to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth, he's about to get the grand funeral that a writer of his stature should have received when he died.

One hundred sixty years ago, the beleaguered, impoverished Poe was found, delirious and in distress outside a Baltimore tavern. He was never coherent enough to explain what had befallen him since leaving Richmond, Va., a week earlier. He spent four days in a hospital before he died at age 40.

Poe's cousin, Neilson Poe, never announced his death publicly. Fewer than 10 people attended the hasty funeral for one of the 19th century's greatest writers. And the injustices piled on. Poe's tombstone was destroyed before it could be installed, when a train derailed and crashed into a stonecutter's yard. Rufus Griswold, a Poe enemy, published a libelous obituary that damaged Poe's reputation for decades.

But on Sunday, Poe's funeral will get an elaborate do-over, with two services expected to draw about 350 people each — the most a former church next to his grave can hold. Actors portraying Poe's contemporaries and other long-dead writers and artists will pay their respects, reading eulogies adapted from their writings about Poe.

(Read on: Here).

This is pretty cool as Poe is a brilliant writer and has finally started to get the respect that he deserves. This funeral is a little late but hopefully will be a step forward in helping to preserve Poe's legacy. Here's to the Father of Gothic Horror---may we think of you more than just around Halloween.

Catholic News And Views

This is old news:

Vatican Praises New Harry Potter Film
AP
posted: 83 DAYS 1 HOUR AGOcomments: 83filed under: World News
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VATICAN CITY (July 14) - The Vatican lauded the latest Harry Potter film, saying "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" made the age-old debate over good vs. evil crystal clear.
The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano even gave two thumbs up to the film's treatment of adolescent love, saying Monday it achieved the "correct balance" and made the stars more credible to the general audience.
The newspaper said the film, which opens Wednesday, was the best adaptation yet of the J.K. Rowling series about the adventures of the bespectacled child wizard Harry Potter and his Hogwarts chums as they battle Harry's nemesis, the evil sorcerer Voldemort.
While criticizing Rowling for omitting any explicit "reference to the transcendent" in her books, L'Osservatore said the latest installment nevertheless makes clear that good should overcome evil "and that sometimes this requires costs and sacrifice."
"In addition, the spastic search for immortality epitomized by Voldemort is stigmatized," the review said.
The Vatican's praise follows the sharp criticism of the Harry Potter series by a conservative Austrian priest at the center of a church crisis earlier this year.
The Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner had characterized Harry Potter novels as Satanism, while also suggesting Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged New Orleans and surrounding areas, was provoked by sin.
Pope Benedict XVI promoted Wager to the post of auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria's third largest city, in January. But amid an outcry among Austrian Catholics over his comments, Wagner eventually gave up the promotion.

But I'd like to add when will Fungelicals get a clue: JK Rowling lost out on US medal over Harry Potter 'witchcraft'.

See also: Catholic Nuns Question Vatican Probe and A Catholic Court? Let the Arguments Begin.

Yesterday Evening I Returned...

...from a weekend (Sat.-Mon.) with my sister---while I was in Winston-Salem, my sister took me to the library at Wake Forest University as she had research to do for her lesson plans. While I was there, I stuck my buisness card in three random books: a copy of Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake, a copy of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe and The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Vol. 1: Heretics, Orthodoxy, the Blatchford Controversies (Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton)---so whoever checks them out will find my Blog.

Anyways, I had one more Halloween related post that I didn't get to post, so here is the gist of it:

Was Dracula a Christian Hero?

Elizabeth Kostova's new best-seller offers readers a Dracula concerned not just with blood, but with the fate of his soul.
BY: Interview by Rebecca Phillips
To fans of the Bram Stoker novel "Dracula" or the dozens of Hollywood adaptations that have followed it, Dracula, the legendary Eastern European vampire, is usually viewed as an enemy of Christianity. But in her new best-selling novel, "The Historian," Elizabeth Kostova offers a surprising look at a Dracula whose choices are often informed by faith. Kostova's Dracula is based partly on the Stoker legend and partly on the 15th century Balkan ruler known as Vlad the Impaler who inspired Stoker's 1897 Dracula tale. Her book tells the story of a father and daughter in search of the real Dracula, taking readers on a journey through contemporary Romania and Bulgaria, Ottoman Turkey, and medieval Christian Europe. Along the way she reveals a great deal about the historical relationship between Christianity and the Dracula legend. Dracula's name, for instance, came from the Order of the Dragon, originally founded to protect Christian Europe from invasion by Muslim Ottomans. In Kostova's book, Dracula helps build monasteries, befriends monks, and ultimately is concerned not with blood or young women, but with his own salvation. Kostova recently spoke with Beliefnet about the Christian leanings of this longtime horror-story favorite.

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Home > Entertainment > Books > Was Dracula a Christian Hero?
Was Dracula a Christian Hero?
Elizabeth Kostova's new best-seller offers readers a Dracula concerned not just with blood, but with the fate of his soul.
BY: Interview by Rebecca Phillips

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Resize - Minus Resize - Plus To fans of the Bram Stoker novel "Dracula" or the dozens of Hollywood adaptations that have followed it, Dracula, the legendary Eastern European vampire, is usually viewed as an enemy of Christianity. But in her new best-selling novel, "The Historian," Elizabeth Kostova offers a surprising look at a Dracula whose choices are often informed by faith. Kostova's Dracula is based partly on the Stoker legend and partly on the 15th century Balkan ruler known as Vlad the Impaler who inspired Stoker's 1897 Dracula tale. Her book tells the story of a father and daughter in search of the real Dracula, taking readers on a journey through contemporary Romania and Bulgaria, Ottoman Turkey, and medieval Christian Europe. Along the way she reveals a great deal about the historical relationship between Christianity and the Dracula legend. Dracula's name, for instance, came from the Order of the Dragon, originally founded to protect Christian Europe from invasion by Muslim Ottomans. In Kostova's book, Dracula helps build monasteries, befriends monks, and ultimately is concerned not with blood or young women, but with his own salvation. Kostova recently spoke with Beliefnet about the Christian leanings of this longtime horror-story favorite.

What attracted you at first to the Dracula story?
I've been drawn to the legend of Dracula since childhood. Like a lot of children, I was intrigued by it, and then kind of forgot about it for many years. Then about 11 years ago when I was writing and publishing short work and just beginning to think about writing a novel, I remembered Dracula tales that my father had told me while I was traveling with my family as a child in Eastern and Western Europe, and how much I had loved these tales, which were loosely based on the Hollywood classic films that he grew up with. I wondered if they would make a good structure for a novel.
Was it the scariness of the stories that drew you in?
Yes, I liked the creepiness of the Dracula legend, as many children do. But I think what really drew me in was that I associated Dracula with travel, and with history and beautiful historic places because of the settings in which I had heard these stories. I also had already spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe, since childhood, and I wanted to find a way to write about that history.

Is the Dracula story still a big part of the culture of Romania?
The Dracula legend was known for centuries in Eastern Europe through folk songs and epic poetry. It was reintroduced in its new supernatural form by Hollywood. Now Romanians are very aware of Dracula because he's become a major export and a tourist attraction. For some Romanians that's a discouraging thing, but for others it's a way to attract western tourists. Many Romanians are proud of Dracula as a national hero. The historical Dracula is a very complicated figure.

The historical Dracula, who most historians think the Stoker novel was based on, was a cruel ruler who tortured thousands of people. It's hard to know about Vlad Dracula's history as a torturer and impaler and reconcile that with thinking of him as a hero.
That's true. One of the things that really interested me in examining Eastern European history for this book is how wildly perspectives on one figure or event vary, according to the ethnic group you ask.

For Romanian Orthodox Christians in the Byzantine tradition, Dracula was a hero who held back the invading Ottoman armies longer than most leaders managed to do. He was a Christian hero, in spite of his sadism toward his own people. Of course for the Ottomans he was a barbarian, who was attacking the fringes of their civilization. It's very interesting to see him from all these points of view.

Your book gets deep into the history of the Christian origins of the Dracula legend. Even his name comes from the Order of the Dragon, which was supposed to protect Christians from the invading Ottomans.
Yes, that's right.

It's pretty clear in your book that the historical Dracula considered himself a pious Christian. Can you tell me anything more about Vlad Dracula's actual beliefs? How much of this part of your book is based on history?
It's very hard to know what the actual beliefs of a medieval figure were, unless that person was a cleric or a religious writer who would be likely to record those beliefs. There are stories about Dracula that were written down by his contemporaries, or diplomats who went to his court, or scribes.

One thing that several different sources report about him is that he did have some doubts about where he was going to end up after he died. He seems to have been aware that his deeds of torture and murder of his own people, at least--and who knows how he felt about torturing and murdering Ottomans, he may have felt very differently about that--caused him some doubt about whether or not he could actually enter heaven, as it was viewed in the traditions of the time. He gave a great deal of money to several monasteries to rebuild them or to enrich them, including the monastery where he's buried, as you saw in the book.

It's hard to tell from the record whether he was genuinely pious, or just a shrewd leader who was worried about what was going to happen to his soul.

So if the inspiration for the Dracula legend was a believing Christian, why did it become traditional for religious people to wear crucifixes to ward off vampires?
Well, that's a completely separate tradition. Nobody believed, in Dracula's lifetime or in many centuries after his lifetime, that he was a vampire. That connection--putting the Dracula name on a vampire--was completely invented by Bram Stoker, in his 1897 novel "Dracula." But there was, and still is in places, this very strong Eastern European belief in vampires. The vampire is an incarnation of evil in East European folklore, and can be opposed only by a mixture of rituals, some of which are Christian and some of which probably pre-date Christianity.

The non-Christian ones include the use of garlic?
Yes, like the garlic. The idea of the vampire appears in world history long before Christianity. Many of the regions of Eastern Europe probably had vampire beliefs that came out of just being agricultural societies, long before they converted to Christianity. So Bram Stoker took all these different elements and conflated them. But actually in life, Vlad Dracula would have been much more likely to have worn a Christian symbol himself.

See also: Vlad III the Impaler.

Also, a thumbs up to Tripp for the great Reformation Day Podcast and the cool Martin Luther pic!

Memento Mori: A Halloween Related Post

Post-mortem photography (also known as memorial portraiture or memento mori) is the practice of photographing the recently deceased.

From the above link:

The invention of the daguerreotype in 1839 made portraiture much more commonplace, as many of those who were unable to afford the commission of a painted portrait could afford to sit for a photography session. This cheaper and quicker method also provided the middle class with a means for memorializing dead loved ones.

These photographs served less as a reminder of mortality than as a keepsake to remember the deceased. This was especially common with infants and young children; Victorian era childhood mortality rates were extremely high, and a post-mortem photograph might be the only image of the child the family ever had. The later invention of the carte de visite, which allowed multiple prints to be made from a single negative, meant that copies of the image could be mailed to relatives.

The practice eventually peaked in popularity around the end of the 19th century and died out as "snapshot" photography became more commonplace, although a few examples of formal memorial portraits were still being produced well into the 20th century.

Examples:

Syrian bishop seated in state at his funeral (ca. 1945).

---see: Victorian post-mortem photography.

---Guess who is dead in this photo?

See more examples: Here. While post-mortem photography seems morbid and spooky to us, at the turn of the century, it was one of the only affordable methods of photography for poor families at the time. Post-mortem photography seemed to have waned around World War 2, but has been revitalized by The Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation to provide comfort, hope and closure for parents who lose their babies in child birth or through other birth defects.

See also: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Post-mortem+photography&x=13&y=25.

Jack The Ripper: A Halloween Related Post

Find out about Jack The Ripper, who terrorized Whitechapel and gave London nightmares over 100 years ago:

Jack the Ripper is an alias given to an unidentified serial killer[1] active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. The name originated in a letter sent to the London Central News Agency by someone claiming to be the murderer.

The victims were women allegedly earning income as prostitutes, who were killed in public or semi-public places at night or in the early morning. Each victim's throat was cut, after which her body was mutilated. Theories suggest that the victims first were strangled, in order to silence them, which may explain the reported lack of blood at the crime scenes. The removal of internal organs from three of the victims led some officials at the time of the murders to propose that the killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge.[2]

Newspapers, whose circulation had been growing during this era,[3] bestowed widespread and enduring notoriety on the killer because of the attacks' savagery and the police's failure to capture the murderer (they sometimes missed him at the crime scenes by mere minutes).[4][5]

Because the killer's identity has never been confirmed, the legends surrounding the murders have become a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory. Many authors, historians, and amateur detectives have proposed theories about the identity of the killer and his victims.

Gruesome crime scene photo:



See also: Casebook: Jack the Ripper for an extensive collection of contemporary newspaper reports related to the murders as well as articles by modern authors.

Somehow silly Halloween songs such as Screaming Lord Sutch's aptly named Jack The Ripper:

1963 version:


1977 version:
---do not seem to evoke the sheer sense of terror and panic London felt all those years ago.

For another Jack that terrorized London's city streets see:

Spring Heeled Jack (also Springheel Jack, Spring-heel Jack, etc), is a character from English folklore said to have existed during the Victorian era and able to jump extraordinarily high. The first claimed sighting of Spring Heeled Jack that is known occurred in 1837.[1] Later alleged sightings were reported all over England, from London up to Sheffield and Liverpool, but they were especially prevalent in suburban London and later in the Midlands and Scotland.[2]

Many theories have been proposed to ascertain the nature and identity of Spring Heeled Jack. The urban legend of Spring Heeled Jack gained immense popularity in its time due to the tales of his bizarre appearance and ability to make extraordinary leaps, to the point where he became the topic of several works of fiction.

Spring Heeled Jack was described by people claiming to have seen him as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy that included clawed hands and eyes that "resembled red balls of fire". One report claimed that, beneath a black cloak, he wore a helmet and a tight-fitting white garment like an "oilskin". Many stories also mention a "Devil-like" aspect. Spring Heeled Jack was said to be tall and thin, with the appearance of a gentleman, and capable of making great leaps. Several reports mention that he could breathe blue and white flames and that he wore sharp metallic claws at his fingertips. At least two people claimed that he was able to speak in comprehensible English.

Pearl Curran: A Halloween Related Post

Here are some tidits about one of my distant relatives by marriage, despite the "an" ending instead of an "in" ending:

Patience Worth was allegedly a spirit contacted by Pearl Lenore Curran (February 15, 1883–1937). This symbiotic relationship produced several novels, poetry and prose which Pearl Curran claimed was delivered to her through channelling the spirit, Patience Worth.

About Pearl Curran

Curran was born Pearl Lenore Pollard in Mound City, Illinois. The family moved to Texas when she was eight months old and she started school when she was six. She was an average but uninterested student, eventually dropping out in her first high school year, later stating she had a nervous breakdown due to the strenuous academics. She later returned to classes at St. Ignatius Catholic school.

Curran was a normal girl and was sensitive about her looks, considering herself to be ugly. She admitted to having little imagination and few ambitions, except to be successful as a singer. She had a short attention span and read very little during her formative years.

Her family moved to St. Louis when she was 14. She made a last attempt at attending school but was discouraged when placed in a lower grade based on her academic skills. However, she took music lessons and training in piano and voice and aspired to be a prima donna. About that time the family moved again, to Palmer, Missouri. As Curran's musical talents blossomed, she was sent to Kanakee, Illinois for voice training, before moving to Chicago for tuition from J.C. Cooper. She worked at the McKinley Music Company addressing envelopes for $6 a week, then the Thompson Music Company selling music. From the age of 18 to 24 she worked at assorted jobs in Chicago during winter months, and during the summer she taught music at home in Missouri.

Pearl married John Howard Curran when she was 24. Though by no means wealthy, they lived a lifestyle which gave Pearl free time for movie going or playing cards with her husband or neighbors. The Currans had an average education for that time and owned few books; neither of them had travelled extensively. The first seven years of their marriage were uneventful.

[edit] The Appearance of Patience Worth

Beginning in July 1912 Pearl Curran and her friend Emily Grant Hutchings were making a call on a neighbor who had a ouija board and during that call there came what purported to be a message from a relative of Mrs. Hutchings. Mrs. Hutchings then bought a ouija board and took it to Mrs. Curran's house with the idea of continuing the communications. Pearl was somewhat indifferent and had to be coaxed to participate at the board. On June 22, 1913 a communication from"Pat-C" began to come through. Then on July 8, 1913 the board seemed to be possessed with unusual strength and supposed communications from Patience Worth began. "Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name. Wait, I would speak with thee. If thou shalt live, then so shall I. I make my bread at thy hearth. Good friends, let us be merrie. The time for work is past. Let the tabby drowse and blink her wisdom to the firelog." When asked when she lived, the dates 1649 - 94 were given and that her home was "Across the sea."

Although Patience indicated that she was from England, she never named the town or village in which she lived although she did give some clues which were deduced by Casper Yost and other intimates of the Currans to indicate that Patience Worth had lived in rural Dorsetshire with her father John and mother Anne. Mrs. Curran had a mental picture of the place in which Patience Worth lived indicating that Patience lived in "...green rolling country with gentle slopes, not farmed much, with houses here and there. Two or three miles up this country on this road was a small village ---few houses." Mrs. Curran then visualized Patience leaving for America on a huge, wood three-masted schooner. Patience was described by Mrs. Curran as"...probably about thirty years. Her hair was dark red, mahogany, her eyes brown, and large and deep, her mouth firm and set, as though repressing strong feelings. Her hair had been disarranged by her cap, and was in big , glossy, soft waves." Mrs. Curran also saw Patience "sitting on a horse, holding a bundle tied in sail-cloth, tied with thongs and wearing a coarse cloth cape, brown-gray, with hood like a cowl, peaked. The face is in shadow. She is small and her feet are small---with coarse square-toed shoes and gray woolen stockings." After a long voyage the ship arrives at the jagged coast of Americia where they could find no landing place for the ship. Several flat boats were launched and Mrs. Curran saw Patience standing in the prow of her boat and one of the first to reach the shore. Patience Worth was later to indicate that she was eventually killed by the Indians.

No authenticated documentation has ever been found to indicate that someone named Patience Worth had lived in Dorsetshire England during the later 17th century nor are there any ship logs from that period with the name Patience Worth. The name Patience Worth does occur in census data of early settlers of the United States but none of them has been linked to the Patience Worth of Pearl Curran.

(Read More: Here).

See also: THE SORRY TALE and Songs of the Spirit by Patience Worth.

Halloween And Christmas

Check out this post---http://www.christiansincontext.org/2008/09/halloween-and-christmas-separated-at.html---from Christians In Context Blogspot and the related posts.