Ghost Walk

Posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 3:22 pm

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I’m in St. Augustine (the city) which is always pronounced differently from the name of the person.  The city claims to be the oldest city on the continent, founded in 1565.  As to what actually constitutes a city, and what does not, I will leave that to someone else, but I will say that this is an old city.

I am here with my family, Cindy, my wife; Josiah, my son; and Charity, my daughter.  Since my children are a little strange (I think that they get that from their mother), and since I am thinking of the ghosts in “ A Christmas Carol,” last night we enjoyed one of St. Augustine’s tourist attractions, a “Ghost Walk.â€?  It was a walk around the old city in which a guide dressed in period costume told stories about strange things that had happened in and around the city.

I know that there are some who are reading this and saying “I cannot believe that a minister would go on something so obviously evil as a “ghost walk.â€?  I thought that I would spend a few minutes writing on what is and what is not, as I see it anyway, condemned by the Scripture in the area of “ghosts, spirits, etc.â€?

First, an obvious question: do ghosts exist?  St. Thomas Aquinas seems to think so.  I read (and now for the life of me I cannot track it down so if anyone reading this knows the citation please send it along) St. Thomas’s theory that there are times when events are so strong that they may imprint themselves onto the “atmosphere.â€?  This would account for those tales that we here of soldiers who walk along as if they see no one, soldiers still dressed in civil war uniforms walking the battlefield of Gettysburg or Bull Run.

A second type of spirit that St. Thomas seemed to think existed was an evil one, sent by “The Evil Oneâ€? to cause havoc and trick the unwary.  This would be the equivalent of an evil spirit sent by the god of this world to cause much trouble.  I happen to believe that these evil gods exist and desire worship.  I believe that the ancient gods of Greece such as Zeus or Athena may well have been real entities, passing themselves off as gods (false gods of course) and hungry for worship.  More about that another time.

This leads us to the question of the day: “Should a Christian go on a Ghost Walk?â€?  Let me say that I find St. Thomas’s first category very doubtful, that is I do not think that those kind of ghosts exist.  I must say, however, that I do believe that the second category exists.  I am faced then with the question of whether or not this particular activity has anything to do with the second category.  That is, does this ghost walk have anything to do with evil spirits, the evil god of this world, communicating with the dead, or any other such activity that is directly condemned by Scripture.

Upon examination, I believe that it has nothing to do with any of those things.  It could just as easily be called “story walkâ€? or “history walkâ€? and the title would be just as, and perhaps more accurate.  It would not sell as well, but it would be more accurate.  There is no sense in which the tour is sold with the expectation that anyone would receive word from a dead relative; an answer to a question that God has chosen not to answer; or any other such thing.  The tour is no more evil than the stories that were told around the campfire when we were children.

Therein lies a problem, at least as I see it, for evangelicalism.  Many are so busy screaming at the top of their lungs every perceived “evilâ€? that pops up in society, be it a novel with a witch in it (like the Wizard of Oz) or a movie where a person sees his future (like “A Christmas Carolâ€?) that when real evil comes along, they find that they have lost their voice.

Save your voice; think before you scream; some things are just harmless fun and some things are evil.  It would do us all (and yes I include myself here) a world of good if we could learn to stop, think, and analyze before we started the next “stop the Screwtape Letters campaign.â€?

Next up will be a sermon called “Mary Christmas.â€?  If you have not purchased this book on Mary, you should, it is on my top ten list for best books of the year.  I will post that list next week sometime.

Walk On,

DrSamLam