St. Spurgeon's Day

 

June 19th [or if you like Jan. 31st] is now St. Spurgeon's Day. Celebrating the day *can* include one or more of the following:

- reading or listening to a Spurgeon Sermon or book

 

[e.g. his book "The Soul Winner": https://archive.spurgeon.org/misc/soulwinr.php; or his book "All of Grace": https://archive.spurgeon.org/all_of_g.php ]; 

- wearing orange like some Protestants do on St. Patrick's Day instead of green to emphasize the Protestant Gospel rather than the Catholic one [given William of Orange a noted Protestant]; 

- smoking a cigar and/or moderately drinking alcohol because Spurgeon did both for most of his life;

- eating fish [preferably sturgeon because it rhymes with Spurgeon]; 

- dressing up like one of the characters in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress [because Spurgeon loved it and read the book over 100 times];

- getting baptized by immersion the credobaptist way;

- conceiving twin sons (or daughters) in the hopes that at least one of them will become a preacher or preacher's wife [as Spurgeon had when his twin sons Charles and Thomas were born on 20 September 1857. Thomas became the preacher];

- wearing a crown because he's nicknamed the "Prince of Preachers" [a Burger King crown will do];

- quoting Spurgeon and posting memes of Spurgeon on social media

- evangelizing the lost by sharing with them the basic Evangelical Gospel generally agreed upon by Evangelical denominations like Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans etc. Maybe using the "Wordless Book" method possibly invented by Spurgeon where he used three different colors to evangelize. Other persons and groups added more colors. Gray [instead of black to avoid the charge of racism] representing the state of sin; Red representing the blood and atonement of Jesus; Silver [instead of white] representing the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to the believers; Blue for the need for baptism; Green representing growth and sanctification in the Christian life; and Gold representing heaven after death.

UPDATE: High church denominations who have a liturgical calendar often celebrate the death date of noted Christians rather than their birth date. I had originally picked Spurgeon's birthday to celebrate him and promote Protestantism because his death is during the the cold of winter and celebration would be difficult. But if people wanted to celebrate "St. Spurgeon's Day" on the date of his death in Jan. 31st, that's fine too. Interestingly Guy Fawkes was executed on that date and the "Gunpowder Plot" may have been a Jesuit conspiracy. Though, most modern scholars now doubt that theory.

See also: Charles Spurgeon's Eschatological Views