Sunday, October 30, 2005

Halloween

So it's Oct 30, and tomorrow is Halloween. I don't know how I feel about Halloween. It's definately a holiday that our culture has made into something that is innocent. Like Christmas or Easter for the Christians, America has definately ignored it's satanic history to make it something that it isn't. So I struggle when I think about how we've made it completely innocent.

November 1st is All Saints day; a Catholic holiday. Like Easter and Christmas the Catholic church took a pagan holiday and made it into a 'Christian holiday.' The barbarians had holidays on these days as they are the sun is at it's peak for length or shortness, or days of the same length. The druids, and others of that background, were very aware of nature and it's quirks, among the quirks is that the spirit world is closer on these days.

When the Roman empire fell, and the barbarians became a large part of the Christian church, they had all these people who had these parties and festivals that were pagan. Instead of condeming these the church figured that this would be a great outreach and they made the holidays 'Christian.' All Saints day was a day that was held in respect of all those who were martyred. Catholics would pray to these saints so that they might interceed for others in pergatory. It's a day when relics and other such momentos that are stored in the church are brought out for everybody to see; and was considered the most holy day of the year.

Halloween is the day when all the evil was let out to prepare for the holy day that was to come. Witches and warlocks came out on this day to do their evil deeds. Many of the practices such as trick or treating, jack-o-lanterns, and wearing costumes were all parts of the celibrating that the members of this culture used in their festivals. Thus the entire holiday was birthed by the occult.

Yes today the majority of the people who celibrate this holiday are not members of the occult. But many of the practices have their origin in this tradition. How should we as Christians deal with this issue? Yes we celibrate this holiday without any attempt to worship any deity, we're just getting candy; and the vast majority of the country has the same intentions.

Should we let Halloween go on? Should we boycott it? Should we educate the church about it's origins? I don't know, I think I'm going to still wear my fake afro and maybe get some candy. What about you?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Well, this is a really interesting subject. My name is Rene and Im a catechist in cd. Juarez Mex. Im actually figuring out why the catholics do celebrate this Holiday, i used to live in Deming, NM in the states and they used to have these carnivals and haunted houses at my church and it was no big deal, however here in Mexico the Catholic Church does not celebrate it, they celebrate Nov. 1st, it is huge here, but they teach that Halloween is bad. Does anyone have more information on this Halloween Holiday and catholism?