Halloween and the festivals of Samhain and Allhallows’ Eve
Halloween is celebrated this evening with carved pumpkins and trick or treating, in a festival marking a fusion of pagan tradition and Christian seasons. In many Pagan traditions, Samhain marks the new year as summer ends, but Jenny Uzzell, who runs the Centre for Pagan Studies, suggests there is no evidence that the Pagan Celts associated it with the dead or with veneration of the Ancestors. She believes the association with the dead came from the Catholic festival to honour the martyrs and the saints, Allhallows’ Eve, which became Halloween and slowly took on the eerie feel that it has today. Folk festivals are taking place throughout Britain, tied to this season. They include the tradition of Mari Lwyd, meaning “white mare”, seen as a guardian of the dark half of the year. The festivities involve carrying a decorated horse skull draped with a white cloth, door to door, giving blessings or creating havoc. The Mari Lwyd festival is growing in popularity, especially in Wales and Cornwall. Fire festivals are also celebrated in Samhain, marking an epic battle between winter and summer. Full report on festivals this Samhain on our website here >>
Refugee charities tell home secretary to dream of a kind, efficient asylum system
More than 110 refugee charities have signed an open letter to the home secretary, urging her to provide a kind and efficient system for dealing with asylum seekers, creating safe routes for refugees and dealing with the backlog in migrant claims. Such a success would be worth dreaming about they say, taking issue with Suella Braverman’s comments at the Conservative Party conference, that her dream and obsession was seeing a plane taking off to Rwanda with migrants. The Press Association reports that signatories including Christian Aid, City of Sanctuary UK, and the Jesuit Refugee Service, pointed out that her desire for only safe and legal routes to be used had not proved sufficient for Afghan interpreters. The letter accused the government of dismantling any previous achievements in tackling people smuggling and modern day slavery.
Evangelicals and Catholics key to Lula’s presidential victory in Brazil
The left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has returned to power in Brazil, beating the incumbent, President Jair Bolsano, by the narrowest of margins — 50.83 per cent against 49.17 per cent. Both had courted the evangelical and Catholic votes, considered key in the tight race. Lula da Silva had to allay fears among evangelicals that he had conversed with the devil or would persecute evangelicals. Bolsano, regarded as Brazil’s Donald Trump, has right-wing social views which fitted with the evangelicals. The majority of Catholics favoured Lula da Silva.
Church initiative for warm welcome centres spills into wider society
The Warm Welcome campaign has found 1,600 places wanting to set up warm spaces for people to shelter in this winter. It was set up by the Churchworks Commission, an inter-denominational group chaired by the Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler. He told the Sunday programme on BBC Radio 4 that the idea had grown and they had a large number of partners, including the Muslim Council of Britain, the Together Coalition, libraries, theatres and local authorities. Churches were urged to work with other partners to provide spaces, where people who cannot heat their homes or use fuel for cooking, can gather, keep warm and be offered hot drinks
Maintaining the nation’s heritage of churches will result in ‘triple win‘
The new chairman of the National Churches Trust, Sir Philip Rutnam, who was a career civil servant spending 15 years at the Treasury, has a message for the current chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt. He told a Religion Media Centre briefing that the government could achieve a “triple win” with modest amounts of money, by entering into partnership with communities and church denominations to maintain the nation’s heritage of 39,000 churches. Communities would have a renewed sense of pride, the heritage legacy would be preserved and there would be a sense of wellbeing for the people involved, especially those on the margins of society. Read the full report on the briefing here and watch it on YouTube here.
Prosperity gospel alive and flourishing in Iowa
The Guardian carries a feature on the Life Surge event in Denver, Colorado, a Pentecostal Christian rally, where people are asked to “surge your wealth” as a Christian duty. Josiah Hesse reports the narrative at the event that “Christianity is under attack in America and God commands people to earn a lot of money in order to fight the culture war and recruit new believers”. He says he grew up in Iowa where the farming community was steeped in a philosophy blending finance with morality and the supernatural. His own family gave more than $100,000 to their church, while living in poverty. The article is here >>
St Bernadette’s relics visit Wormwood Scrubs
The relics of St Bernadette have been taken to Wormwood Scrubs prison on their tour of Britain. A portable shrine encasing her ribs, kneecaps and tissue samples, is usually kept at Lourdes in southern France, where Bernadette saw visions of the Virgin Mary, and where a spring was found which has reported healing properties, now attracting five million visitors a year. The relics were at the prison for four hours on Sunday, as tour organisers told Inside Times that no section of society should be excluded and it was hoped the prisoners were left with a spirit of renewal. The tour of St Bernadette’s relics ends in Britain today, at the Cathedral of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London, in Mayfair.
