Can you give me a good reason for ghosts?

Do ghosts walk the Earth?

No, of course not. They sort of glide.

I've seen lots of pop explanations for why ghosts would roam our streets in the first place, which mostly boil down to an assumption that they don't have anyplace else to be.

To my Christian core, this seems unlikely. What, the devil - who I'm told is prowling like a famished lion - just can't find these poor souls, so that they have to hang out forever in some creepy Victorian house? That either makes the devil incompetent or way too selective.

I'm not saying ghosts exist, and I'm not saying they don't.

I am saying, though, that to be consistent with my overall faith, any explanation of why ghosts are about has to include some sort of authorization by God Almighty. You can't just theorize that they've slipped under God's radar; in that case he's not very almighty, is he?

So why might God consent to allow a sprinkling of ghosts in this mortal world? The Bible offers a few possibilities:

1. To whisper in our ears about lessons we have a habit of forgetting. "Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth," warns the prophet Isaiah, writing about a siege that would destroy the City of David for its sins.

2. To give us sound advice. That's what happened when King Saul hired a medium to call forth the dead prophet Samuel. Samuel seemed annoyed, as if he'd been in the shower, and told Saul only what he already knew - hard times have come "because you did not obey the Lord." For that we need ghosts?

3. No. 2 is mirrored when Jesus tells the story of a rich man who dies and finds himself in torment. He argues with Abraham to let him haunt his friends and family so they don't follow him. No, Abraham says, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

4. To keep us awake at night. That's what happened to Job, who says, "Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on men, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face and the hair on my body stood on end." And when this ghost had Job's attention, it whispered a question for him: "Can a man be more pure than his Maker?" Think Job ever forgot that point?

You begin to see the pattern. So, scriptwriters, if you want me to believe in ghosts, you need a viable explanation for why said spooks exist. The Bible does leave you a little room, but it has nothing to do with the reasons I've seen you propose so far.

So, I say, boo-hoo to you.

Doug Mendenhall, instructor of journalism at Abilene Christian University in Texas and author of "How Jesus Ended Up in the Food Court," started this weekly column in 2000 when he was an editor with The Huntsville Times. E-mail him at doug.mendenhall@acu.edu.