Halloween

[Suburban Yahoo]

if I may contradict in a daring manner, I think a celebration of the macabre does have a place in life.

There are a couple of apects to this:
1. How Christians / Churches do this. In this aspect, wrt what you say: sure
2. How the world does this. In this aspect: it's looking more and more like a Molech death cult

Also, perhaps part of #1 is teaching your children the horrors of #2.

 

[thinkreadwritecode]

I like carving pumpkins, I'm not sure what is evil about that. My child dresses up and trick-or-treats, typically as a princess or woodland creature, hardly demonic entities. I guess it's each to one's own here. I tend to avoid watching horror films anyway, since they are gratuitously violent, but is The Pacific on Netflix really much different? Honestly, I think most families are too tired to do much beyond basic Halloween stuff, it seems the complaint is against teenagers and college-aged students. But I am reminded of Umberto Eco's book on The Ugly, where humans can derive some value being able to visually juxtapose what is ugly and corrupted from what is good and pure. To my child, I explain Halloween is when we mock the demons because God and good have triumphed over evil.

 

[Elipe]

Is it really that bad if kids dress up as things like Pokemon or Power Rangers?

 

[TrainedLogosmotion]

I don't think we should desecrate the human image by making it look evil, vile, vulgar, gorey, scary, creepy, etc. We are God's creatures. Would Jesus have celebrated halloween with the apostles if that was a thing in Biblical times?

Gathering to watch demonic horror films is also not good. The eyes are the lamp of the body. Jeffery Dahmer used to watch "The Exorcist" to 'get in the mood' for what he did.

Pedos love halloween. Many of the children dress like hookers in scantily clad tight clothing and makeup, then the disturbed adults get to fantasize, flirt, and give them candy. Dream come true.

Certain types of individuals (Demoncrats, feminists, homosexuals, revelers, etc) love halloween more than any other holiday. They decorate their entire house, making a point to show out for it. They spend lots of time and money making the 'perfect' costume to show off to others. I wonder why this is their favorite holiday that gets so much emphasis in their life and they want to spread it so much.

This is the time of the year where many get to be 'trans' and finally be themselves. Some may think the costumes have no meaning but I think many times they are a reflection of the darkness within us, and they glorify that darkness, and it could be blatantly obvious or very subtle. Remember, satan is still a deceptive and beautiful angel on October 31st, a time of the year where he's very active. He's cunning. He will make you think he's harmless. He just wants you to have 'fun'.

I hear people say it's fine just to celebrate culturally and it's fun for the kids. I'm sure that satanic witchcraft parties would also be very fun for the kids and they "wouldn't understand anything". You could also drink alcohol (spirits), eat seed oil/HFCS candy, laugh at funny or "AMAZING" costumes, and pretend that none of the kids and no one else understands anything and the ceremony itself has absolutely no effect on your soul, despite very blatant portrayals of worshiping the devil. The devil wants you to think it's all a big joke and not to take it seriously. It's alot easier to infect us with his poison when we don't squirm away.

Worship means to call attention and focus on something higher. That's exactly what alot of this is. Devil worship - even if they don't realize it! People are elevating their attention and focus and getting "excited" to "celebrate" halloween. They have rituals. They have sacrements. They have iconography. They have hymns.

As Christians we should know that all of this matters. We know that these events and activities have supernatural power.

We should not participate. Protect your vessel and the vessels of your children from this filth.

It makes no sense to point out one seemingly benign thing such as "carving pumpkins" and reducing halloween to that to make it sound innocent (and even that I'm sure you could argue has spiritually bad elements due to halloween). Halloween is a network of patterns, symbols, etc - a total package of connected things that has to be understood in that way. We can't cherry pick it.

You could also say at jeffery eipstein's Island, the kids were 'just' doing this or 'just' doing that. With the help of satan anything can be reduced in the mind and justified in a more and more inverted way.



^ Notice how the woman at 2:30 gives her emotional appeal attempting to paint halloween as wholesome. I love his response.

 

[Iacobus]

if I may contradict in a daring manner, I think a celebration of the macabre does have a place in life. In fact, there are a whole lot of people who think of Christians as being macabre, Orthodox and Catholics in particular. After all, we do traffic in stories of brave men who met an untimely and horrifying death and there are monasteries with catacombs full of skulls. Jonathan Pageau has this great take, that, really, most things that exist as symbols have a place, but only Christ can show you where they are to be placed.
Halloween being tacky and gaudy, I think, is very much an outcome of Pharisee rule over the Western culture, the US in particular. I would have to say the same about Christmas. However, humorously encountering the darker aspects of human spiritual experience is something very worthwhile on a cultural level, and I think it's good when children are familiar with that.
In the absence of Christianity, it runs risk of becoming a fetishization of the horrifying, but confronting the horrifying can otherwise be very beneficial to a Christian life, in my opinion. Actually, what drew me to Orthodoxy among other things was that it seemed to acknowledge the twisted, rotten nature of our spiritual life more head-on than other confessions.
Romania is probably one of the most consistently Orthodox nations in the world, and they actually have a multitude of festivities in each region which include a type of scary dress-up, in one way or another, symbolizing the encounter with the demonic, usually as bears or weird demons.
Whether or not you should let your children partake in such festivities in Western countries is another can of worms. It's probably not even a good idea to let your children go to birthdays or even protestant confirmation celebrations if you are worried about negative sinful influences. I think what's way more important than keeping bad influences away, is maintaining the influence of the Church above all. I am a very sick and corrupted man, and I don't think going trick'r'treating on Halloween did it. The absence of religious education and my parents not being married, more so. Consult a priest about these things, obviously, but I frequently find myself surprised that my priest seems to be less concerned about cultural hygiene than me. Just never allow Christ to get out of the picture I guess.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a macabre horror flick to watch.

I hear what you're saying, confronting death and evil is a very important concept that kids (and adults) need to reconcile themselves with.

I think for me the distinction between a Christian encounter with the macabre vs. the Halloween take on it, is that it is proper to commemorate martyrs and to recount their grisly deaths, even to depict such in icons sometimes... but it would never be appropriate to dress up like a martyr at a party, you know?

I definitely agree that trick or treating or dressing up like superheroes isn't corrupting any kid's soul per se, it's more a question of 'spiritual min-maxing' so to speak.

 

[TrainedLogosmotion]

When I was more active in a church and when I had a bigger Christian social circle, this question came up annually. I tended to find that men were more against their children celebrating Hallowe'en (i.e. the Celtic, Galician and Manx Samhain) than their wives, who would often accuse their husbands of being spoil sports against harmless fun.

All Hallows' Eve = a festive, spirited, nighttime holiday where all the 'eves' (women) get deceived by inverted demonic hallows (a saint or holy person) and indocrinate children into the occult.

Curious to see the ladies forum halloween thread juxtaposed to this thread. I think it'll be insightful if it actually takes off. Perhaps it won't after they read this thread.

 

[TrainedLogosmotion]

It's one of the many ways in which they blithely disrespect American culture and it makes me think that they have to go back.

What do you mean by this? I'm imagining Latinos dressed up in degrading halloween costumes of American heroes and trying to speak in goofy american accents. Lol.

 

[Raskolnikov]

I hear what you're saying, confronting death and evil is a very important concept that kids (and adults) need to reconcile themselves with.

I think for me the distinction between a Christian encounter with the macabre vs. the Halloween take on it, is that it is proper to commemorate martyrs and to recount their grisly deaths, even to depict such in icons sometimes... but it would never be appropriate to dress up like a martyr at a party, you know?

I definitely agree that trick or treating or dressing up like superheroes isn't corrupting any kid's soul per se, it's more a question of 'spiritual min-maxing' so to speak.

I get that point, and I don't want to say that I'm 100% sure in my take. It seems to me that even well-ordered cultures have usually had some weird Dionysian element where people embody something in a fun way they would otherwise be scared of.
I'm not sure how the Orthodox Church receives that, but I generally don't think that replacing scary monsters with Saints would make sense. It's something different. None of us are scared of Saints, we actually like looking at them and feel solace when studying their lives. Monsters are not really scary in the same way that Judgment Day or martyrdom are.
My point goes more to the fact that these scary rites have usually existed in Christian lands and my instinct is that the Clerics would have opposed it in some way if they had thought there was no place for it.

Let me go speculation mode for a second: I think ritually embodying things that are sort of disgusting or scary could be a healthy way of shaking that fear, along the lines of an acknowledgement that these things do exist within us and they are not just scary, but also tend to be ridiculous, and timing their appearance with an exorcism-like feast of the Saints does make sense to me in a way. Fools for Christ have often ridiculed the devil in a sense that might otherwise not seem as restrained and temperate as we would normally expect as lay people. It would only make sense if it actually is accompanied by some sort of redemptive, exorcist event for it to be contextualized as such. Otherwise, I agree, you get into this "Shape of Water"-esque state of confusion where the disturbing and ugly suddenly becomes an object of reverence and desire.

ADDENDUM: I don't usually participate in any Halloween festivities and I would fully agree that most of those that exist nowadays are unwholesome and excessive to the detriment of the souls involved in it. Like carnivals, most of it is just women dressing up like whores and adorning themselves with occult symbols, which cannot be good under any circumstances. So I am not defending that in any way. I just want to point out that, in context, there might be a place for a tradition that could be seen as disturbing, and that disturbing quality even being the point of it to some degree.

 

[Northumber]

This is the best explanation and approach I've seen so far on Halloween (as it's celebrated in modern US).



I think I know what Pageau is trying to do here. One of his overarching observations and themes is inverting the inverted. This is what Christ does.

In regards to Halloween and what it is now - it is an embodiment of clownworld (traditionally this is also known as "the carnival"). All the cheap, thin, commercial aspects actually perfectly bring out exactly what it is. So what should we do? Celebrate it as clownworld. Knowing it actually still follows the patterns laid out by Holy Tradition despite how much it tries to deny it

 

[TrainedLogosmotion]

"Honey child it's halloween and this big-boned mama is literally so freaking excited! I'm absolutely starving to death people!"

 

[TrainedLogosmotion]

"Honey child it's halloween and this big-boned mama is literally so freaking excited! I'm absolutely starving to death people!"

"Me too! Round here the wife is in charge! She runs the show! Whatever makes her and them little devils happy!"

 

[Samseau]

I'm not sure how the Orthodox Church receives that, but I generally don't think that replacing scary monsters with Saints would make sense.

There's nothing wrong with this. It helps little children learn about the Saints in a fun way. As for an adult it could be pretense, but for an innocent child it is great and is far superior to dressing up as a demon, ghost, murderer, etc.

 

[Raskolnikov]

There's nothing wrong with this. It helps little children learn about the Saints in a fun way. As for an adult it could be pretense, but for an innocent child it is great and is far superior to dressing up as a demon, ghost, murderer, etc.

Yeah I don't know, but I guess I've never seen anything like that, maybe it's awesome.

 

[Samseau]

Yeah I don't know, but I guess I've never seen anything like that, maybe it's awesome.

Your Church doesn't do a Christmas pagent each year with little kids dressed up as Mary, Jesus, and the 3 Wise Men?

 

[Unending Powerhouse Match]

By the logic of those who don’t believe in celebrating Halloween because it’s Samhain or whatever, we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas because it’s Sol Invictus.

I disagree. All Saints Day is one celebration, and Halloween is an entirely separate, completely godless celebration, which involves decorating your house with things like skeletons (which are a subtle mockery of Christ's resurrection) and dressing up as Marvel characters at best and demons at worst. They're on the same day, but you can disapprove of one and be fine with the other.

We celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ. Not Sol Invictus, and ideally not secular "Christmas" either. I despise secular "Christmas", with its awful secular music, its drunkenness, and its mockery of Saint Nicholas of Myra as a gluttonous morbidly obese man that works with elves (which are considered, in most cultures including mine, to be evil creatures, or grudgy tricksters at best) in order to give largely useless material goods to kids. Oh, you want a PS4? The fat sorcerer will get you one. Miss me with that. Call me the Grinch because I am going to steal your Mariah Carey CD and hide it in my crawlspace.

 

[SeaEagle]

Your Church doesn't do a Christmas pagent each year with little kids dressed up as Mary, Jesus, and the 3 Wise Men?

When I was very young (4 or 5) I was tasked to be Saint Joseph for our Nativity play. I goofed around and didn't pay attention at all during rehearsal.

When the actual play commenced I had no idea what to say and stood at the microphone totally humiliated, muttering "..I forgot".

Luckily (?) everyone erupted into laughter and the show went on.

 

[Raskolnikov]

Your Church doesn't do a Christmas pagent each year with little kids dressed up as Mary, Jesus, and the 3 Wise Men?

My Orthodox Church? No. Never even heard of it in any of the parishes I've been to. I did partake in the plays they do in protestant churches as a kid and I remember the forced wholesomeness of the whole thing being a total drag. I think I saw the last one 6-7 years ago and feeling bad for the kids having to do a performance in front of a couple of dozen strangers who otherwise don't attend services.

 

[Unending Powerhouse Match]

The only thing I’ve ever liked about Halloween is that gives me the opportunity to be the only person at work, or at a social event, not in fancy dress. This gives me such tremendous, inexplicable pleasure. To hear them say “oh why didn’t you dress up?!” Is music to my ears. I don’t know what this says about me as a person. I revel in it, I’ll often confirm beforehand that I will dress up, and then don’t do it.

The absolute pinnacle is if you’re invited to a party that’s fancy dress and you turn up in ordinary clothes. You walk into the room and just feel like a Chad.

Hahaha same. I wear glasses, so if people ask me why I didn't dress up, I say I'm dressed up as Clark Kent.

I agree. Maybe it is childish but it's OK to be childish sometimes to some extent. Some might spin it as "young at heart."

Nothing good about being "young at heart". This should not be glorified. Glorify being an old curmudgeon at heart instead. Shout at those kids playing in your lawn. Keep that soccer ball that fell into your property, it is legally yours now. Scold young women for dressing immodestly. Intimidate rude people with your sturdy and heavy mahogany cane. Grandpa was right about everything.

 

[Thomas More]

My Orthodox Church? No. Never even heard of it in any of the parishes I've been to. I did partake in the plays they do in protestant churches as a kid and I remember the forced wholesomeness of the whole thing being a total drag. I think I saw the last one 6-7 years ago and feeling bad for the kids having to do a performance in front of a couple of dozen strangers who otherwise don't attend services.

I remember having fun doing that stuff, and think it is charming to see the little kids do that kind of thing now. It's funny how perspectives differ. I remember some kids thinking it was lame back in the day, but there were others like me who enjoyed it.

 

[KulturedKaveman]

We celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ. Not Sol Invictus, and ideally not secular "Christmas" either. I despise secular "Christmas", with its awful secular music, its drunkenness, and its mockery of Saint Nicholas of Myra as a gluttonous morbidly obese man that works with elves (which are considered, in most cultures including mine, to be evil creatures, or grudgy tricksters at best) in order to give largely useless material goods to kids. Oh, you want a PS4? The fat sorcerer will get you one. Miss me with that. Call me the Grinch because I am going to steal your Mariah Carey CD and hide it in my crawlspace.

Historical nativity date moved or not - secular Christmas hurts my soul. Also, who decided to enshrine a specific “bad Christmas music” canon? I’ve noticed it’s all music from the mid 20th century. No historic tunes or anything more recent is blared non stop starting thanksgiving.

I think the Halloween debate might be a good time to invoke 1 Corinthians 8:13. If the holiday is a source of discomfort or causes you to stumble, don’t celebrate it.