Old Pagans and New Paganism
It was somewhere around 2013, maybe 2014, on a warm fall day in New York City, that a friend and I walked into the Discovery Times Square exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls (from the Qumran caves). I had never stood so close to something so culturally ancient before. I mean, I talk about it, and now write about it. But that’s not the same thing. To be honest, I couldn’t process it all. The lives, the history. The sheer volume of Scripture fragments alone boggled my mind. Then add a ridiculous amount of artifacts and earthenware, tools and furniture, and the overload was sensory. It felt something like a time warp on the one hand, and a spotlight on the other.
As we slowly made our way through the exhibits, a thought occurred I did not expect. Something I wished wasn’t true. But it was. Let me explain.
When a naïve disciple of the Scriptures walks into an exhibit that claims to show Israel’s covenant life, there rises (almost without thought) an expectation: here, surely, I will witness ancient holiness, reverence, a people set apart. I imagined that the Bedouin shepherds at Qumran had uncovered a frozen-in-time capsule of Hebrew devotion and fervor.
Silly me.
That romantic daydream disappeared rather quickly, in a jarring way. Because, amid the fragments of Scripture and covenant life were row upon row upon row of household idols. Little ones, big ones, skinny ones, fat ones. Mammalian and seraphic, short, tall, ornate and ordinary, placed right beside Scripture fragments. The entire exhibit was bejeweled with little figurines that cried out: “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone!” (Hosea 4:17). The exhibit was a shrine to compromise. That’s why it was jarring. To see family altars erected to demonic gods side by side with the knowledge of Yahweh was discomforting.
I wish I could say it was the Word of God that marked my memory that day. But it was the paganism. It was the realization that even in devout homes where God’s Word is written, idols sit nearby. That experience has stayed with me. Then it pierced me: “These idols never really left Israel’s heart.” In truth, they have never quite left ours either.
Old Paganism New Terms
Our culture embraces its own style of paganism. We feel its cold wind, even when we can’t say its name. Ours doesn’t match the standard definition of paganism, either. We’re too enlightened, modern, too grounded in reality for silly idol worship. Yet we have plenty of symbols and rituals, curated algorithms, fantasy, sci-fi, Marvel and DC epic demi-gods and saviors. Coliseums erected for our sports gladiators, amphitheaters built for our music stars, golden busts crafted of our Hollywood, scientific, cultural, and political icons. Our priests are the “truth tellers,” professors, politicians, influencers, artists, journalists, and celebrities of every stripe, who mediate meaning and truth for us. Likes and shares are our bread and wine, baptizing us all into a single, common sense experience. Antichrist is on the move.
And that’s only the surface. The paganism we can see. There’s no time for me to open up the real monsters, the ideological, theological, or sociological anti-Christian leviathans below.
History grieves us with the truth: we have not changed. The human heart has always reached for the carnal, visible, culturally celebrated thing, especially as it stands in opposition to God. I could tell you about the origin of this pagan day, how it began as Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the boundary between harvest and winter, when people believed the veil between the living and the dead was thinnest. I could tell you how fires were lit, costumes worn to ward off spirits, sacrifices offered, and fortunes told. Later the church tried to overlay it with All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, giving us “All Hallows’ Eve,” and from there Halloween. But I don’t need to. You already know this day is not from the Lord. Our greatest enemy is not the devil. It’s the pull of the flesh. And while it does not pull on all equally, it leaves none out. It pulls here for me, there for you, and at times both together in the same direction. And if enough people have the same sense experience, the church herself changes. Think of divorce’s acceptance in 1925 and compare it to 2025. Or fornication. Or homosexuality. We lament our nation. And like a good narcissist, we blame “them.” But history proves: as the church goes, so goes the nation. As the family goes, so goes the church. As the parents go, so goes the family. Somehow we have stopped bearing witness to our children of the dangers of our culture. We have folded our arms in comfort. We have conformed, slowly, almost imperceptibly, to the patterns of this world. And it may be the end of us. If this continues, in 50 years, there may not be a living church left in our nation, to witness of Christ’s saving wonder.
I’m not writing to be preachy or to hand out rules for Halloween. You are adults. Our consistory asked me to give you some biblical thought tools, and I am glad to oblige. Our young people, and especially our young families, are striving to live and raise little ones in this incredibly complicated world. Why not begin with something quite simple? Something completely in our control. This series gives me the chance to invite us all, flock and shepherd alike, to walk “not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind” (Eph. 4:17). And to remind ourselves that we need not become the next Qumran cave exhibit of Pompton. We have something far better.
We have Christ.
And if we have Him, then we won’t add to our faith the toy idols of our age. What fellowship can light have with darkness, anyway? Has His cross not yet broken the spell? Has His resurrection not lifted your eyes beyond the grave? These are questions worth asking.
I also learned that day that idols crumble. Kingdoms fall, cultures die. Do we walk as strangers and pilgrims here, with hearts set on a better country? Christ’s kingdom begins in the heart, you know. And seamlessly transfers into the next life which is life eternal. Are you preparing for that better country?
Focus, then. The flesh and the world are pressing you to blend, to believe its lie that Halloween is not really idolatry, just harmless fun. Perhaps after this series, you will resist. Defending it tells you more than you want to know about where your heart is. Will we, dear congregation, walk through this world as those on the move, only passing through, bound for another home?
If our houses are ever dug up and put on display, may they not tell of hidden idols kept, but of a people kept by grace.