BURN!

This was no random conflagration I spotted on a street in Penang, Malaysia, a couple of months ago.

In Chinese religious traditions, burning “joss paper” (aka “paper money,” “hell’s money,” etc.) is an age-old practice for the benefit of expired ancestors. Joss paper is essentially squares of gold-colored paper, elaborately decorated with seals, stamps, designs, and other appropriate motifs. Apparently this incendiary process is a means to transfer money to those populating the afterlife, so that those denizens of the other-world will have sufficient purchasing power to live comfortably in the hereafter. Paper credit cards, properly stamped “VISA,” are thought to work well, too, not to mention faux traveler’s checks and other monetary instruments. Sometimes these are made out in specific denominations, usually in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

Things, these days, however, have come to a pretty pass; the non-traditionalists (read: “postmoderns”—woe betide them!) have gone beyond financial items. Such iconoclasts have been known to burn papier-mâché replicas of all kinds of useful commodities, including Mercedes Benzes, laptops, iPhones, passports …. Oh, and Viagra! Paper Viagra is a popular item to be passed on to one’s ancestors, reliable sources inform us. I shall refrain from speculating about the rationale for such a prurient gesture towards one’s predecessors.

Sometimes these offerings in smoke are specifically directed to the Judge of the Dead to bribe that official to release one’s ancestors from the traumatic and less-than-comfortable holding place they might have been confined in.

Indulgences, they used to call it in other places. Of course, Western practitioners of this system were much more sophisticated than humble Easterners. No burning for them. No smoke, no ash. Of course, not! That wouldn’t be environmentally acceptable. Nonetheless, it was a mutated form of burning joss money. In fact, in an undertaking of immense faith these professionals did away with pretence altogether. Why bother with toy money, when you can deal with the real stuff. So they did, with well-meaning descendants attempting to pay off the religious hierarchy in order to win their ancestors a few million years less in purgatory.

Martin Luther inveighed against these devices in no uncertain terms. In fact, his nailing documents to church doors (the ancient version of a flaming post online) kicked off a wake of protests, generating the species of Christianity called Protestantism.

That smart dude was no doubt familiar with Hebrews 9:27.

… it is appointed for men to die once
and after this comes judgment ….
Hebrews 9:27

In other words, not a whole lot we can do for those gone on before. Salvation is function of one’s belief or faith in Christ as Savior before death, not after.

Behold, now is the acceptable time,
behold, now is the day of salvation ….
2 Corinthians 6:2

Here and now is the time for that momentous decision.

Moreover, the Bible does not teach any trans-galactic relocations between stations that are allotted to us in the afterlife.

“… between us
[Fr. Abraham et al. in Paradise]
and you
[a certain rich man in Hades]
there is a great chasm fixed,
so that those who wish to come over
from here to you will not be able,
and that none may cross over
from there to us.”
Luke 16:26

All the more reason for those of us who are believers to labor in proclaiming the Gospel.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ,
as though God were making an appeal
through us;
we beg you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
2 Corinthians 5:20

I pray you will be.