A Theology of Carnival and other Provocations

Just mention the word, 'Carnival', and a host of negative comments ensue from puritan-minded churches and pastors relating to all the biblical vices of lust, lasciviousness, licentiousness, revelry, and debauchery. These are no doubt taken from the Pauline world-view of the then Roman Empire with its pagan rites of Bacchanalia, intended as actual worship of the god of wine, Bacchus. Many would agree with Reformed liturgical scholar, J.J.Von Allmen that Carnival in its very essence has not so much to do with culture as it has with pagan Roman religion and that the participant, unwittingly so, gives oneself over to the influence of demon spirits and influences.

This outlook stems from the classic Augustinian worldview that divides the world into two sharply opposing and distinct ways of being; the sacred and the secular or sometimes, the profane; the Christian, refined and destined for eternal glory, and the non-Christian, perverted and doomed. As Augustine himself would be accredited with saying, "Extra ecclesia nulla salus est." (Outside the Church, none is saved). Indeed Von Allmen concurs by saying, "The [non-Christian cults] have therefore nothing to lose by self-renunciation, by consenting to die in Christ. What they have perverted will be reborn, will arise again in a purified state and their deep purpose, their appeal, their readiness to give themselves, their summons to the materials of the world that [they] might be made to serve art and culture-all that, cleansed, reborn, redirected, will be restored to them." (2). An argument such as this serves well the intentions of official Christian [Reformed] liturgy, and of one's renouncing former non-Christian ways upon becoming Christian.

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