All Souls Day

Today's All Souls Day, so I've read up on it a bit. Apparently today some people pray for people that have died, to try and make sure they get into Heaven. According to some people this is heretical, and that it has pagan origins. I'm not sure it's heretical (I could be wrong), although I do think the Catholic doctorine relating to Purgatory is reasonably dodgey.
Anyway, one of the reasons I'm not sure that it's heresy is that the scriptures say Jesus 'went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.' (2 Peter 3:19-20) So perhaps prayers for the dead would influence how they respond to Jesus preaching? Anyway, I don't think it's definitely heretical. I also don't know particularly much about it.
As for the pagan origins, I think that perhaps we should better acknowledge that Christianity has had a lot of pagan influences as well as Jewish. Same sort of thing as I was talking about yesterday, about being familiar with our spiritual ancestory.

Who's the addict?

One question we asked a few times this week at Urban Seed was, 'Who's the addict?'
Twenty-five percent of Melbourne's heroin use takes place in the laneway behind Collins Street Baptist Church. At the same time, near the front entrance, someone is spending thousands of dollars on a shirt or tie. However, these two addictions are seen very differently.
This led to talking about how our addictions to consumption effect other people (like the people who make our clothes or grow our coffee) and the idea of getting addicted to good things, like prayer or reading scripture or recycling. Marcus told us about this guy who got off heroin by getting addicted to Catholicism.
At lunch yesterday I talked to a guy who's been off heroin for seven months, with the help of more socially acceptable drugs: alcohol and marijuana. He's hoping to eventually get down to just tobacco, and then give that up too.