Pastor Apparently Selective In What Pagan Practices He Condemns
In a sermon titled “The Satanic Deception Of Halloween” posted at SerrmonAudio.com, Pastor James Cooley details the history of how black cats came to be connected with this autumnal celebration as the spirit familiars of witches and as a result of an alleged Druidic belief that cats were the reincarnated souls of evil people.
To this, the podcaster interviewing Pastor Cooley remarked that he knew there was a reason why he did not like cats.
Pastor Cooley concurred with an “Amen.”
But who is it that created cats?
Surely it was not Satan.
Was it not the God that we are supposed to be so dedicated to that we can't even participate in a festival that does not possess any meaning for most other than dressing up in a silly costume to collect candy from door to door?
Cats are not inherently evil.
That is merely the connotation they have been imbued with from a cultural and literary standpoint derived from subjective existential or psychological sources.
In other words, from nothing more than what someone happened to think or feel regarding them.
Should something be abandoned because a number construe a conceptual or ontological category to be evil rather than it actually being so?
So does this include Fundamentalist Baptist Churches?
For years, that form of ecclesiology's most ardent adherents rightly condemned the pedophile scandals that wracked the Roman Catholic Church.
However, it turns out that nearly the same perversion had gripped a number of hardline Independent Fundamentalist ministries.
Therefore, isn't it logical to contend that there have been more innocent people hurt in a spirit of appalling wanton sin perpetrated by those that should have known better than were ever hurt by cats exhibiting a similar degree of deliberate malice?
So does that mean we should refrain from attendance at these particular houses of worship to avoid offending the weaker brother?
Often, the conspicuously pious will homiletically insist that Halloween ought to be avoided altogether not so much to refrain from actual wrongdoing but to avoid the appearance of such and out of the necessity to separate from unclean things as counseled by Scripture.
As such, shouldn't we also consider the source of this sentiment against cats if the propriety or impropriety of a thing is to be determined not so much by how it is practiced today but rather by ideas affiliated with it at the time a custom came into existence?
By the pastor's own admission, this particular prejudice is supposedly Druid in origin.
Thus, if we are to severe all connections with Halloween for being pagan in origin, why not this unfounded contempt for felines as well?
Frederick Meekins is an independent theologian and social critic. Frederick holds a BS in Political Science/History, a MA in Apologetics/Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and a PhD. in Christian Apologetics from Newburgh Theological Seminary.
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