N.T. Wright Project

The church I grew up in didn’t observe the liturgical year, nor is it part of the larger evangelical tradition I come from. Other than Christmas and Easter, I never knew there was something called the “Christian calendar.” Strictly speaking, the church’s liturgical year revolves around the key events in the life of Jesus: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Over the past few years, as I’ve learned more about this liturgical tradition, I’ve also come to understand the reluctance that many Protestant streams have in going down this path. Stemming back to the Reformation of the 16th century, many Protestant leaders chose to preach through whole books of the bible rather than follow the church’s liturgy which bounced around in different books of the bible each week. The  liturgy of the Catholic church was blamed (and rightly so) for much of the biblical literacy permeating the Christian landscape of the time, infecting both clergy and parishioners. The liturgical year was limiting (such as not including any Old Testament passages) and had become empty ritual rather than tradition loaded with significance.

Reform is good. In fact, it’s essential. Christianity has an element of self-critique built into itself, dating all the way back to Israel’s prophets.

But, as always, one mustn’t throw the banana out with the skin.

Over the past few years I’ve begun to reclaim some of the ancient liturgical tradition that Christians down through the ages have observed. I’m learning how to anticipate the gift of Christ long before December 25th, remember death while having ash smeared on my forehead, repent and make a sacrifice during lent, and party like it’s 1999 when Easter rolls around. And part of my learning curve has been figuring out what the heck All Saints Day is. So last week I read Wright’s small book, For All the Saints?, and saw just how goofy we are in America for dropping the real celebration at the end of October/beginning of November (’All Hallows Day’ or All Saints Day on Nov 1st) for a pagan offshoot of it instead (’All Hallows Eve’ or Halloween on Oct 31st). Not only have we embraced this weird pumpkin-carving, death-dressing festival with open arms, we’ve cultivated it into a full-blown money making scheme. Sounds like one big fat adventure in missing the point (instead of tossing the banana out with the skin, we ditched the banana and are eating the skin). Ah, it’s times like this that make me proud to be an American.