Re: Halloween - shouldn't Christians refuse to participate?

Question

You do know that Halloween, All Hallows' Eve, is a REAL old-time religious holiday, right? Celebrated in many pagan cultures for centuries. Why do Christians then feel that it's okay to celebrate?

Daughter: yeah- halloween as it is called may be christian, cupcake, but Samhain is 100% pagan. I didn't use the terminology because I didn't want a bunch of rabid x-tians spouting crap. I AM a pagan; and I KNOW we don't believe in saints - did I mention anything about saints? Email me if you'd like to discuss.

CR - who said anything about worshipping satan? I didn't. I'm a pagan, and I don't worship satan.

PrairieCrow - thanks for the input. Was it really just the Celts? I guess within the neo-pagan movement, more people are melding different old ways.

Answer 1

I've done some studying on this, and it isn't samhain that is being celebrated, but Halloween, aka, all hallows evening (Oct 31st). It is the celebration of all saints day Nov. 1. Pagan celebrations are not hallowed, they are profane. The reason why any of Samhain or any of the other pagan accouterments have found their way back into the images of Halloween is because the date for Halloween was moved from May to October to kill off the evil revelry. Nonetheless, Halloween is a Christian Holy Day, not a pagan synonym for Samhain or any other false religion. I tell kids to stay away from the witchcraft and evil designs, and focus on the things of God. He created black cats, bats, and spiders, the colors orange and black, and since the whole thing is about Christian Martyrs, the element of death can't be avoided, but it can be looked at with less of an evil-dead sort of tone and more of a superhero-sacrifice kind of thing. Any way you look at it, Halloween is Christian. This same sort of criticism comes up when we celebrate Christmas as well. Nobody knows when Christ was born, so we chose Saturnalia to celebrate the day. Why? Because it gives glory to God rather than some pagan celebration that should never have been put on God's calendar in the first place.

Added: By the way, in Protestantism Halloween is also called Reformation Day because Martin Luther chose the hugely popular church celebration of Halloween to nail his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg, denouncing the ungodly practices of the Roman Catholic Church that had crept in. Since everyone would be there for Halloween, everyone would read Luther's complaints.

Answer 2

All Hallow's Eve is a Christian holiday.

Originally Christianity celebrated its holidays from sundown to sundown. In a world without clocks, this makes sense...you know when the sun is set and it's dark, but without a clock how do you know when it's midnight exactly?

All Saints' Day is part of a time of remembrance of the dead (All Souls' Day is the following day) in traditional Catholic beliefs.... All Saints' Day is for all the minor saints who don't have their own feast days, and All Souls' Day to remember all the Christians who have died in the faith, martyrs and non-martyrs.

The cultures into which this was introduced had its own customs around a fall holiday about the same time. Certain customs got attached to the holiday, just as Christmas Eve has its own importance and traditions.

Modern Pagans have a holiday that is celebrated about the same time to remember their dead, people who have been important to their lives, and say goodbye to dead relationships, old bad habits, et cetera. I make my grandma's fried chicken and remember what it was like when everyone lived in the same town and got together after church for Sunday dinner. Nothing more sinister than that. And absolutely not Halloween.

Halloween's as commercial as Christmas or Easter is for people who aren't Christian. Most Protestants just don't remember it's their own holiday, since they cut themselves off from a lot of their own seasonal rhythm and history during the Reformation.

If you're not comfortable with the kids dressing up as a monster or supernatural creature of some sort, that's fine. That's no worse than a parent saying they won't have toy guns in the house, so please don't give them as Christmas presents. But they're not going to do anything that will imperil their souls. You could always have them collect canned goods to go to a food bank, if you want it to have a point.

Answer 3

Yeah... I remember my Church used to say it was wrong to celebrate it, so instead of a Halloween night we had a party called Hallelujah night with (friendly) costumes and everything and I remember the invitations were black and orange, the traditional Halloween colors. All they were doing was changing the name... everything else was pretty much the same don't you think? I mean, they ARE making a celebration. My opinion is, that as long as you don't get involved in witchcraft or anything of the sort, you can still celebrate it, I know some Christians say it's wrong to celebrate it 'cause it evolved from a pagan holiday, but so did Christmas... you draw your conclusions...

Answer 4

Well why not? I mean Christmas has no connection to the time the man generally recognised as Jesus was born - that was in August. It was "shifted" to correspond to the Pagan Yule, so as to maximise conversion potential of Pagans by early Christians, just as the Resurractionfest is linked to the Pagan Oestera - or festival of fertility - bunnies and eggs and the like. So why not shove All Hallow's Eve onto the Pagan Samhain - it was just a convergence of rites thing. I do feel it's just sliiiiightly hypocritical for some extreme Christians to then make out that Pagans worship "the Devil" at Hallowe'en, given that we don't believe in him in the first place, but hey, whaddaya gonna do?

Answer 5

If you base it on that then Christmas should not be celebrated because it was used to cover "Zeus's" birthday. I have found that those Christians that try to "demonize" Halloween and other holidays have never really tried to read and understand the bible. There are faiths that do not celebrate birthdays, some even say celebrating Christmas is against the bible. It reminds me of what Christ said about straining at a nat and swollowing a camel

Answer 6

My mom replaced into Catholic, my father replaced right into a Nazarene. all persons teenagers participated in Halloween. It replaced into between the funnest nights of my existence and nonetheless is. I enjoyed attending to be something i wanted for one night. I nonetheless take part in Halloween with my niece and nephews. Halloween is now not seen a pegan holiday. it is mutated into purely a relaxing day teenagers get unfastened candy for donning unique costumes. this is how i might clarify it to you teenagers in the event that they ask, yet opportunities are high each and every pal they have or would have participates and that they won't even question it. I continually felt sorry for little ones that did not get to connect interior the relaxing, think of how left out they had sense. i comprehend some churches have their very very own Halloween festivities the place teenagers can gown up almost as good issues like angels. i think of this is extra hypocritical than permitting teenagers to circulate trick or treating. it would be all or not something.I instruct the youngsters approximately God and Jesus, they comprehend how i believe with regard to the commercialism of Christmas and Easter as I threw the hugest fit in Walgreen while they have been choosing out easter baskets and appearing like it replaced into Christmas. in addition they comprehend that Holloween is purely an afternoon of relaxing.

Answer 7

HALLOWEEN is not the holiday for Pagans. The holiday is Samhain, and is celebrated halfway between the Autumnal Equnox and Winter Solstice. That this day is most usually on or about the end of October is merely coincidental.....

Answer 8

Actually, Samhain (which provided many of the customs associated with present-day Halloween) was really only celebrated in one culture -- the Celtic culture. So you're wrong right off the hop.

The modern practice of Halloween has about as much relationship to those religious practices (or the practices of NeoPagans who today celebrate Samhain) as the Tooth Fairy does to the practice of dentistry.

So let your kids go out, dress up, have fun, and eat too much candy. Trust me, they're NOT engaging in any religious practices.

Answer 9

I celebrate Halloween. I'm a Christian. I also celebrate Christmas and Easter, both of which originated as Pagan holidays. Many Christian customs and holidays have Pagan origins, if people would bother to research it. I'm not doing anything evil on Halloween, so why shouldn't I celebrate it? It's one of the more fun holidays. It also leads up to the more solemn All Saints' Day, which my church observes.

Answer 10

Probably but who are we to judge, I think there are worse sins somehow, immature christians likely see nothing wrong with it but as they grow in Christ they will see it for what it is something unpleasant, it doesn't involve the worship of pagan gods these days or anything like that so why not just pray for people who are involved in it...?