A South African missionary and pro-gun lobbyist has been charged with assault over a Halloween paintball incident.
The charges stem from 31 October when Rev Peter Hammond took his children out for a "counter Halloween" outing in the suburbs of Cape Town
What interests me is Rev Hammond's motivation for shooting Halloween celebrators with paintball guns.
He said he and his family did not approve of Halloween, which they saw as an "occult holiday celebrating human sacrifice, witches and goblins".
The sheer irony of a representative of a religion based entirely on the human sacrifice of its Deity complaining about human sacrifice is mildly amusing.
Halloween is not really practised in the Southern Hemisphere, mostly because the Northern Hemisphere's harvest time coincides with our Spring, which makes pumpkins hard to find. In addition, human sacrifice and Halloween have not shared the same gallows since the time of the Celts - the time during which the Hebrews also practised human sacrifices, give or take a few hundred years.
Since the preacher man is objecting to the celebration of witches and goblins, does he then entertain the idea that witches and goblins both exist? By doing so, does he not acknowledge the existence of the gods of the witches - and hence the existence of deities other than his own?
One can not help but conclude that the supernatural world of fable is very real to the preacher, and one can not help but ask: What is next? Impaling Santa Clause at Christmas? Easter bunny handbags? Tooth fairy fly fishing?
Regardless, I think the preacher man gave the Devil his due by going out and having a whale of a time during Halloween. Party on, preacher man!
