Navigating Halloween

[AgileGreenSeal]

Any Christian parents / grandparents here? How do you navigate Halloween in regards to your children?

I'm a Christian and I love Halloween. I love how people open their homes and give to strangers. It's more if a time of giving/ community than even Christmas which is so centred on family/friends and not everyone in the community. I love the creativity it brings out in costumes and the joy of the children.

Personally, Jesus is my role model. He always saw into the heart of things and behaved accordingly, regardless of religious 'restrictions'. Eating meals with prostitutes and tax collectors was OK, healing on the sabbath was OK. Things which sent the religious crowd into a frenzy! Peter later struggled with Jewish rules on food vs gentiles.

Of course it's up to your conscience but if you're not celebrating necromancy, and neither is anyone you know, then you are taking part in something which is a wonderful community event of giving and creativity. Only you know what's in your heart.

I'm a Catholic and see nothing to 'navigate'.

We celebrate the RC feasts of All Saints and All Souls at Mass both days, and also participate in the secular festivities which are based on the old Irish (and Scots) Samhain. Many of the themes dovetail.

In my observation, it's only fundamentalist Christians who have an issue with it. One of my DDs had a friend whose Baptist mother thought it was the devil's birthday.

@Goxhound

AI?

I’m conflicted, before i became a strong Christian I used to love Halloween because it was how I got to meet most of our neighbors bringing their kids around for trick or treating. So I associate it with community building. However now I am keenly aware of the efforts to promote Halloween to rival Xmas while at the same time removing Christianity entirely from Xmas

SO true.

Some people think the other world is closer at the eve of All Hallows and on May Eve. But I've never known of any necromancy , unless ghost stories count. If people think the veil is briefly parted and our deceased loved ones are with us what harm? Although I don't get on with the Hollywood horror version of the occasion - that's about as subtle as a flying mallet.

As Christians we avoid it but let other Christians decide for themselves. A friend often does a light party for the children instead. Don't like the focus on death and fear of death which is so against the hope written about in the Bible, horrible costumes designed to scare others, the dark undertones, knocking on old people's doors and scaring them, the monumental waste with horrible plastic decorations, including incredibly tasteless ones with hanging bodies - why would you think that was nice to put in your garden? Basically only the supermarket wins.

The Celts believed that on the night of Samhain, spirits could return to the earth, leading to customs aimed at appeasing or warding off these spirits.

OP, the tradition of dressing up as ghosts etc was to disguise and protect oneself on this night when the veil between worlds was thought to be thin...so that tradition is in fact the very opposite of embracing evil.

Samhain just translates as Summer's End.

Dressing up and trick or treating is pretty benign - here we only visit houses that are brightly lit up with Halloween decorations, so those who don't want to take part are left in peace. For the vast majority it's dressing up, trick or treating, sweets, party games. If there's any divination etc going on it must be pretty niche.
I'm Catholic btw.

‘For many Christians, the spiritual atmosphere of Halloween can indeed feel oppressive. This may stem from the overt focus on death, the macabre, and supernatural elements that have little to do with the Christian understanding of life, death, and the afterlife. The focus on fear, darkness, and sometimes even evil imagery can be unsettling, particularly when contrasted with the Christian call to walk in light and live in the hope of the resurrection.’

…because the predominant symbol of the Christian faith isn’t at all macabre. I mean, come on.

It depends how you celebrate. We attend church weekly but also enjoy Halloween. We decorate the house with autumnal leaves, pumpkins, candles, black cats and bats. We pick and decorate pumpkins and make food, like pumpkin pie / pumpkin and guava muffins. The dc will dress up and Trick or Treat with the neighbours and we all tend to get together as a street at one of the houses after dark. The children share sweets and the adults catch up over a drink. I don’t teach the dc that witches or monsters are real, it’s just a bit of silly fun and no more serious than when we dress up as characters for world book day.

I’m Catholic and I like the American approach to Halloween. As a previous poster said, it is a Hallmark holiday like Valentine’s Day. But with fewer greetings cards (although I have seen some!).

I think I’d have been a lot more nervous answering the door to the ghosts and zombies trick or treating if necromancy was actually real.

It’s a big communal party for kids, OP. Jesus loved parties. I never got the impression he was a fun sponge.

Of course I’m speaking for myself, as a follower of Christ.

You do you.

Necromancy is real.

You have surely heard of ouija boards, seances, spiritism, mediums using ‘spirit guides’ in their fortune telling.

Of course within the practices of all of those there are the counterfeits, the charlatans, the money grubbers.

There are also the genuine practitioners.

Involving oneself in any of these activities, even as ‘just a bit of fun’ is extremely risky in terms of identifying oneself to the spirit world as ‘open’ to interaction.

You have surely heard of ouija boards, seances, spiritism, mediums using ‘spirit guides’ in their fortune telling

Yes I have. It’s parlour tricks, wishful thinking, and charlatans preying on the credulous.

No, OP, Necromancy is not real.

(That’s not a sentence I ever thought needed saying! Mumsnet certainly exposes one to new perspectives)

The dead are staying dead, and nobody’s shade is stalking the earth. No malign spirits are looking for entries into the mortal realm.

Exactly. Mn does expose one to new degrees of delusion on a regular basis. @AgileGreenSeal, next thing you’re going to tell us is that you believe gospel accounts of Jesus ‘casting out demons’ are literally true, rather than a pre-scientific way of talking about mental illness.

People don't produce a ouija board for the kids to play with at Halloween anyway....

I find it really interesting that someone who seems to be devoutly and rigidly Christian, to the point of net engaging in Halloween, actually believes that necromancy is real? That there are 'genuine practitioners '.

I mean you sound quite judgemental of people who dress up and play at Halloween, and yet you're the believer in contacting spirits - a belief which is surely in conflict with your Christianity OP?

I grew up Catholic in Ireland and there was never any conflict between dressing up and trick or treating, and belief in God and Jesus.

We will have to agree to disagree on this then.

For clarity, the ‘malign spirits’ to which one opens oneself through such practices are nothing to do with deceased humans.

But I won’t explain further as I know you’re not interested.

“yet you're the believer in contacting spirits - a belief which is surely in conflict with your Christianity OP?”

I believe that while there are counterfeits that on occasion the practice is real. There are people in the world who engage in necromancy.

I don’t believe it is a good practice and certainly would not involve myself in it or condone it. It is expressly forbidden in scripture.

I'm a Christian and don't celebrate hallowe'en. Do a light party at church so the kids still get to do apple bobbing and mainline sugar

Ah understood. You believe that there are people who genuinely attempt necromancy and divination and believe they can do it. Not that you believe they can do it!

That makes more sense!