Checkmate Christians
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (53)
sorted by:
Are Christians that against Halloween that much? It feels like it was just adopted by them as a fun event than anything of relevance like Christmas or Easter.
This feels like trying to start a fight with Christians because they're less likely to punch you in the face like other religions, even the Buddhists.
Many Christians don’t care, but the ones that do aren’t so concerned about the origins but rather the substance of what is being celebrated.
Fear, horror, violence, murder, suicide, resentment, revenge, paganism, witchcraft, sorcery, superstition, the occult, demons, monsters… these things are all associated with Halloween. For a non-believer these are just silly bits of fanciful fiction but for a Christian these things are very real and very evil.
For a Christian, seeing these things celebrated is like grandparents who escaped from Stalinist Russia seeing their grandchildren supporting communism. You know they’re doing it out of naive ignorance and they don’t actually have a clue what they’re supporting, but it grieves your heart to see them supporting it nonetheless.
My understanding is that the festival tradition of dressing up originally developed as a way to scare away any evil spirits and hide behind masks to avoid them, not to celebrate them. Now it's been taken over by non-Christians, so no one remembers the original festival.
One Halloween in the early 2000's I was at Lake Como in Italy and the Halloween parade consisted of people largely dressed normally, carrying candles through the town while distributing candy to the kids, and ended up in the church itself for midnight mass. Some people in costume joined in, but the main thing was the walk to the church.
After all it is All Hallows' Eve. It's not a super important day for Catholics. The next day and the day after that are far more important days to them. November 1st, which is All Saints Day and especially November 2nd, which is The Feast of All Souls. The three days together are known as Allhallowtide and all three are holy days of obligation.
All Souls is such an important feast in Catholicism that one of the early colleges at Oxford, for example, was called All Souls, founded in the 1438 (its full name is The College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed). Back when they named organisations and institutions they valued in ways they thought would bless all who would be involved with it.
Even then, I think there's something to making light of such imagery so it doesn't control us. A Skeleton is a fairly morbid thing, when you really think about what it is. But nowadays, we associate them with goofy monsters and cartoony rattling. It takes some of the bite out of mortality and helps you relax.
That's not to say that you should treat darkness and evil like a toy, but a designated time of year to think about spooky things and defang them seems like a healthy thing overall. Especially going into the winter months when life was at it's most dangerous back in the day.
Fair point. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to have lighthearted fun with spooky stuff, but most people have no idea what they’re dealing with so they can take it way too far.
Gruesome stories of murder and torture, spirits of the dead, demons, witchcraft. These aren’t things that should be taken lightly like skeletons or the typical depiction of ghosts (essentially flying bed sheets). People who feel at ease with or even fascinated by such things may find no problem engaging with them further.
Like many things, girls are particularly susceptible to these things. Many young girls and even women find witchcraft and curses and all types of superstitions fascinating and exciting. There’s a reason why there’s a cottage industry of astrology, fortune telling and mediums all oriented towards women. More women than you would expect get into paganism and witchcraft these days. Unfortunately, when it comes to many slippery slopes, women are the first to begin sliding.
Back to your point though, I don’t think spooky fun is necessarily bad, but as a Christian I just want to avoid anything that glorifies such things, especially to children.
When I was growing up, there was some kerfuffle over it, the same way some tried to make a big deal out of DnD and Pokemon cards. Of course, it tended to vary from family to family. My pastoral family just saw it as a chance to make fun costumes and get candy.
Honestly, just like the other examples, I think it was mostly busybodies throwing their weight around for the thrill of authority. Same thing we're seeing now with the Left, just attuned to the culture of the day.
I think it's also people who are just prone to being too sensitive to content that's not 90% "wholesome". Whether it be scary things, violence, vulgarity, or even the mildest of sexual references, they just have an severe and instant aversion and sensitivity to it.
I find a good majority of people who develop such issues turn out to to be women. Though ironically, there's a lot of women who have the opposite response and have an almost grotesque level of interest in horror.
I have seen a bunch of them sharing on social media this idea that it's not ok "to let the devil in, even for 1 night" or that it's "celebrating Satan."
That might be social media bias and you're seeing the smallest group of idiots being broadcasted to represent the majority. Like those pricks that used to harass soldiers funerals with signs.
Me being off most social media, haven't heard a thing about any Christians saying Halloween is evil, the most I see about it is either advise on how to celebrate safely and annoyance Christmas stuff is ALREADY in stores and its not even November.
Only certain Protestant churches, mainly ones in America, claim this. Largely the same ones who claim the foundation of the Catholic Church is in itself "evil".
Not really but some Christians get upset about it.
The same ones that complain about the paganization or secularization of Xmas.
The straw man is just implausible.