The Internet Monk has a great rant on Halloween here.
My position is, basically, I agree with him. But I fear we’ve gotten to a place where it doesn’t matter anymore. The holiday has been coopted by the occultists–largely because we allowed it to be.
Hat tip: The Thinklings.
A general fear of the occult, manifesting itself in Satanic ritual abuse mythology, crept into evangelicalism and took a deep hold on many churches.
The proper response to the occult is often not fear, but mockery. And that is precisely what Halloween does. Halloween is about seeing things that scary in a cute, harmless context and learning there is nothing to fear from them.
I like that. It reminds me of the quotations C.S. Lewis placed at the beginning of The Screwtape Letters:
“The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”–Luther
“The devill.. the prowde spirite .. cannot endure to be mocked.”–Thomas More
I’m not old enough to remember back to when Halloween was OK. But when my husband and I got married, we thought it through ourselves and decided to go for it. It seemed a shame to sit home with the blinds pulled and the lights off the one day all the neighbors were out chatting.
So however much it shocks our parents, we’re doing Halloween with our kids. And I guess it’s still OK for Mormons, because my husband’s boss throws a big family-oriented party every year, which we also attend.
I’m growing ever-more fond of Halloween, because it’s one of the few times when our youth-obsessed culture acknowledges death.
And while I generally dislike Salon.com, they have a pretty good article about the so-called pagan roots of the celebration.
Good article, Loren. Most of that was new to me. I’d noticed, however, in reading on folklore, that the practices we associate with Trick or Treating are more commonly connected to the Christmas season in most cultures. We Norwegians had “Julbukking,” in which costumed kids went around the neighborhood on Christmas Day, led by a ragged figure with a goat’s head, demanding food and drink at each house they visited. The procession generally ended with everybody too drunk to walk.
I also think of carols like “Here We Come A-Caroling,” which, if you pay attention to the lyrics, describes just such a procession in England.
I’m just curious–who are these occultists who have supposedly coopted Halloween?
Most people I see seem to associate Halloween with horror movies, scary festivities, and the fun of trick-or-treating. Certainly, the holiday is now domesticated enough that the show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” had to invent a quasi-mystical reason that Halloween was NOT associated with monsters, ghosts and demons. My guess is that a holiday which the audience of Buffy can’t take seriously is probably not a holiday that has become irrevocably linked with the Real Dread Powers of Satan. Except, of course, in the ever-cautious (and sometimes rightfully so) mind of Evangelicalism.
Well, it’s my impression that every year at this time we start seeing articles like this: http://www.detnews.com/2005/religion/0510/31/B01-366194.htm I think the historical reasons are weak, but the connection has been made in the public mind. Or so it seems to me.
I thought about that quote too. Evil exists, but to treat it too seriously only gives it extra strength. Besides, as you wrote, when the devil brings out his most visible troops, it’s to distract us from a sneak attack somewhere more important.
Oh Ori, thank you for remembering that. That’s one of the chief things I’d like people to take away from Wolf Time.
BTW, if anybody is going to hand out bible tracts for Halloween, may I recommend they be Halloween bible tracts?
You could use I Samuel 28 and 31, or Ezekiel 37.
I’m sure there are Chick Tracts that cover the material…
I’M JOKING! I’M JOKING!
For the record, I hate Chick Tracts, and would not care to know the guy who draws them.
Friends, Halloween is chump change. The real danger to our children is the fact that the names of the days of the week and of the months are rooted in PAGAN BELIEFS! It’s true!
If you’re a True Christian (TM), you’ll stop using pagan names like Thursday (which refers to the Norse God, Thor) and March (named for Mars, the God of war), and just use . . .
Well, I’m not sure what you should use, but if you keep using the regular names, YOU ARE ON THE HIGHWAY TO PERDITION!
I seem to recall that the early Quakers (or somebody else, but I think it was the Quakers) actually did try to abolish traditional day-names, substituting First Day, Second Day, etc.
By the way, Roy, you posted the 13th comment on this thread, which proves that you’re the Antichrist.
I’ve always suspected that about Roy. There’s something unright about him, not that he’s a liberal or anything.
No, no. Certainly not. Satanic, yes. Liberal, no.
And now that you think you know the truth about me, you’ve been looking over your shoulders more often, right? Waiting to discover the ivory netsuke that looks like Karl Rove hanging from the kitchen faucet, the cluster of chicken feathers dipped in YooHoo tied to your car’s steering wheel, and a cd-rom tucked under your pillow, which when played has only a strangely nauseous four-note phrase played on a nose whistle, repeating over and over and over….
But the shocking twist, the one that nobody ever expected, is soon to be revealed!