to ask someone to explain to me the issues surrounding Hallowe'en from a religious point of view?

[Permanentlyexhausted]

Just that really. I understand that the celebration of Hallowe'en is offensive/unacceptable to many Christians but I don't really understand the specific reasons why. The only people I know who actively disagree with Hallowe'en are Christians but maybe it is offensive to other/all religions. I'm just interested in finding out a bit more about the situation.

Please enlighten me.

Worldgonecrazy, thanks for this information.

I was friend with a girl a Uni who's parents were evangelical Christians. She was much more relaxed about religion than they were but she truly believed that Halloween was evil, and no amount of telling that it was just a bit of fun for kids would convince her otherwise.

On Halloween they'd either go out for the evening to avoid trick or treaters, or close the curtains and hide away so that they didn't have to deal with it.

She also thought that horoscopes and fortunate tellers were "evil" (exact word she used). It felt as though she'd been brainwashed.

Trick or treating - you spend all year telling your kids not to accept sweets from strangers but then suddenly it's ok to actively go knocking on people's doors to ask for them.

Everyone I know goes out with their own kids- in fact, it's one of the only times of the year you get to say hi to people in your community (beyond your next door neighbours). We only go to houses with some 'Halloween' sign so we are only interacting with those also who like Halloween, it's always great fun and very sociable.

Plus, I never say to my children don't go near strangers/accept things from them- I tell them to come and ask me first. That's what they do at Halloween! I hate all this stranger danger simplistic message anyway, a stranger helped my dd to walk round the corner a couple of days ago when she came off her bike and hurt her leg riding round the block- should I have rushed out and hustled her away or thanked them? A pizza delivery man asked them the way to no 12- again a dangerous stranger or a normal interaction? I teach mine never to go off with strangers, to always ask before accepting anything, but they may need strangers to help them when out in public so I don't hold to a stranger danger message anyway.

Murky, yes I agree with you that there is nothing wrong about life, death, good and evil and this is all symbolic in the Christian faith. I was just trying to explain why some Christians will choose to opt out because good and evil still exists today (even though Christ has died) and as a Christian we are also called to live a life that's holy and a acceptable and for some Christians celebrating Halloween is opposite to that.

Wallison, speaking in tongues definitely does not happen in the COE. I'm just chuckling to myself trying to imagine that happening. I mentioned the horror films because I personally noticed an increase over the years of new horror films being released around this time. I guess this just adds to the whole dramatical effect of the holiday. Didn't mean that everyone will copy in these films, I just mean they are bound to have an effect on some people whether it's to educate, scare, or influence. Sounds silly I know but media does have an influence and some people are silly enough, especially children to copy. One high profile case in the UK that I can think of was influenced by a such a film!!!

I too used to love horror films (could never watch Excorcist though), but over the years I realise the glorification of evil, is not one which would allow me to walk closer with Christ. Even though other will disagree, Halloween for me echoes the same sentiment even though it is brushed over as just fun and eating toffee apples. But each to their own.

ddubsgirl said . . ."This is probably in part due to Halloween becoming more popular, but also very much due to American-inspired conservatism, which doesn't really have much truck with traditional folk festivals of any sort."

I thought Halloween as currently 'celebrated' in the streets was an American-inspired traditional folk festival. When I was a kid, the only pumpkins I ever saw were in the late Charles Schultz's Peanuts strip cartoons.

mumsy off topic but I completely agree and have never taught DS to not accept sweets from strangers, it's far, far too simplistic and he doesn't like sweets.

Much much more important to teach him to never go away with an adult, even one he knows, without checking with his grown-up and to trust his instincts and to never keep secrets that feel funny in his tummy from mum and dad. Our lives are built round interacting with strangers, far more important to teach them how to do that safely than to say 'don't do this'

Agree Mumsy I think its sad to teach your children to view all "strangers" with suspicion. The majority of people are decent in my experience (I had serious SPD while pregnant and could barely walk and was on crutches so many "strangers" helped me out).

I think Halloween is a good way of bringing communities together. Last year one neighbour had a party for adults and kids and we all went trick or treating on our street only. I chatted to neighbours I didnt really know previously.

I always assumed some Christians feel threatened by Halloween as it is one of many pagan festivals and they have hijacked a lot of them eg they take Yule and call it Christmas they are worried we might take them back!

Plenty of Christians (both actively practising and 'cultural') don't care either way - there are many different 'flavours' of Christianity.

The ones that get all whinyarsed about it are the people who have picked an imaginary friend and myth system that suits their joyless, whinyarsed, illogical personalities. They fuss because they resent the fact that other people are under no obligation to 'respect' their particular mythology and are generally having more fun than they are.

It's an ancient Celtic festival that was there to celebrate the thin boundary between life and death at the autumn equinox.

In scotland and Ireland, brittany and wales, we celts have celebrated Samhain for aeons. the festivals of imbolc are celbrated in february, and bealtaine in may and lughnasa in August.

There's nothing Christian about it, it's the Celtic festival marking the dying of the year.Here's a wiki page on it

The solstices are times of celebration, Christians appropriated winter solstice as Christmas. Valentine's day is imbolc and mayday is bealtaine. Lunasagh is the autumn August bank holiday.

The world is a bigger place than Christian /Anglican calendar events would have you believe!!

No need to get all devil worshippy and exorcist on it. It's a celtic festival, and predates Christian festivals by a long shot. Enjoy! And next year, come to a celtic country to have a bit of fun!

'speaking in tongues definitely does not happen in the COE'

It certainly does! The charismatic part of the CofE is pretty big and you've got New Wine etc.

Anyway, it seems that the Christian concern over halloween seems to be a pretty recent phenomenon. When I was growing up my (christian) parents didn't mind us going trick or treating, but over the years there have been more objections to it.

I'm personally not that fussed about it. I'm not a fan of certain aspects (e.g. "give us sweets or we'll throw eggs at your house" and the ever creeping commercialisation) but I wouldn't make a big deal of it either.

:) SGB, we celts have a lot of fun- I'm hoping to get up to Scotland for the debauchery that is Beltane next year!
Must be awful to be a po faced Anglo Saxon with all this fun happening!

I was always taught that the bible says God disapproves intensely of anything to do with spiritism, divination and contacting the dead, and that if you did any of those things you would be beyond saving.

Halloween is all about the above stuff, therefore God disapproves.

Just explaining what I was taught, not saying it's true or that I agree!!

I have been wondering about this too - trying to get the difference between something like Valentine's Day - also Christian in origin, also now over-commercialised and over-hyped and the very real concern some Christians seem to have over Halloween.

To me (bog standard C of E Christian) its an old Festival, to do with holding our dead close at this point in the year, and remembering them before All Saints day. The commercialism is separate and optional - I don't really like it (I don't really like commercialism in any form), but I don't have a problem with the DDs dressing up and having fun.

Some of the replies and links on this thread have gone some way towards explaining it in the view of the Christians who have a problem, but I do think it's hard to separate the fundamental disagreement that it's "encouraging the occult" from the basic parenting disagreements like "its encouraging kids to misbehave and accept sweets from strangers" which are more akin to just not agreeing with something - like making a big deal out of a 'prom' - which is for everyone to decide for themselves.

GhettoFabulouz - My post wasn't in response to yours but I agree with you. Themes such as death and goodness are more than symbolic Christian historical throw-backs and are part of a current living faith and relationship with Jesus.

I wanted to be careful to show to those here who aren't a Christian, that faith in Jesus doesn't require religious rules, because it's about the swap of our sin for Jesus' righteousness and that has happened and is done, if we've asked. So I just wanted to make sure I came across as saying that avoiding evil (or occult) things is important in the Christian faith, but not a condition of Jesus' grace and forgiveness.

So, in summary - I agree with you, I just worded it differently.

FIL was a Baptist minister and would tell his congregation that Christmas and Halloween were diametrically opposed and you could celebrate one or the other, but you should not celebrate both. He would also tell this to anyone who knocked on his door on October 31st. On a personal note, a friend of mine lost her mum on Halloween three years ago and finds the day very difficult. I think if you are going to 'trick or treat' only go to the houses of people you know, you don't know peoples' personal history.

Toadinthehole although you're right that it wasn't a straight hijacking of established local festivals it's too simplistic to say that the common people reinterpreted the Christian 'blending' that occurred. Many of the festivals were deliberately chosen, Christmas being the main one, with the Saturnalia/birth of Christ - the 'coming of the light' was rather blatantly obvious.
Hallowe'en/Samhain could be obvious too, Samhain being the end of harvest and the start of a Winter, a time to take stock of what has passed and what is to come and honouring the dead. Hallowmass which is a Hallowe'en, all Hallows Day and All Souls day is also the remembrance of the recently dead and praying for their quick entrance to Heaven.
It's all very fascinating