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Halloween
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13-10-2017 11:57pm#1
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solodeogloria wrote: »Good morning!
Our church runs a light party for the kids, which is an alternative event which involves some of the dressing up part rather than the scary bit.
Our church is going big on the Reformation 500 this year as well. We've got some people from the Bible Society coming in to do a Reformation drama, and we've been going through some of the lives of the English Reformers and what they sacrificed in rediscovering the truths of Scripture and bringing them back to public consciousness in England our kids slot in the morning.
On Halloween / Reformation Day itself, I'll be in Lutherstadt Wittenberg enjoying the Reformationtag festivities! I've been planning that for the last year.
I definitely think Protestants in particular should be making more of the link between this time of year and the Reformation and the rediscovery of Biblical truth in Europe.
Much thanks,
solodeogloria
So glad that when I was saved that God didn't make me a Protestant
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Julien Mammoth Chrome wrote: »So glad that when I was saved that God didn't make me a Protestant
Good morning!
You are free to identify as you wish.
I'm personally thankful for the Reformation itself because it put Biblical truth at the centre of the church again. I'm thankful for the Reformation for actively putting the Bible in peoples hands so that they could read it for themselves, and could encounter Jesus for themselves through it.
Even if you don't identify as a Protestant - it is still worth giving thanks to the Reformers who suffered and died at the hands of wicked people for trying to give people the opportunity to hear about Jesus directly for themselves in the words of Scripture. Jesus spoke to me through the Scriptures when I was a teenager and opened my eyes to the truth through His Spirit - that's how I was saved in the first place.
I'm not saying all the Reformers were perfect by any stretch. They weren't. They were broken sinful people who offered the glory to Jesus Christ alone.
Much thanks,
solodeogloria0 -
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Jellybaby1 wrote: »Thank you everyone. My question has been well and truly answered by all here so at this stage I shall retire before the touchpaper is lit!
Hope yourself and your kids have a great Halloween and don't scoff too much candy! Except for jellybabies that is
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ezra_pound wrote: »This is just deluded.
It's a pagan festival that the Christians couldn't destroy. Get over it.
Facts are stubborn things.
All Hallowstide (including All Hallows Evening) originated in parts of Europe where the pagan festival wasn't celebrated. That's a historical fact. Get over it.
All Hallows evening was originally celebrated at a different time of the year in Ireland. That's a historical fact. Get over it.
The Roman Church persuaded the Celtic Church to adapt to its dates for holy days, festivals etc. That's a historical fact. Get over it.
As I said, pagan practices became part of Halloween folklore. That's a historical fact. Get over it.
Today most of Halloween is fuelled by commercial interests. The majority of people who participate couldn't give a flying fig about paganism or Christianity. That's a fact. Get over it.
As for me, I don't need to get over anything. I view one day as being about as important as another day, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest what holidays people choose to celebrate and how they do it. Fair play to them.
However, I am interested in history, particularly church history, and I will continue to post facts on here, even if you don't like it and have to get over it.
Have a nice evening. Don't eat too much chocolate. 0 -
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Peregrinus wrote: »I disagree. Christian and pre-Christian cultures can celebrate, e.g., the harvest alike, and for the same reasons. When a culture is Christianised, we expect harvest celebrations to continue, since they are entirely consonant with Christianity. There will be some additional elements, some modification around the edges but, basically, they'll continue. Its pre-Christian antecedents dont' make the celebration "non-Christian". From a Christian perspective, the harvest is God-given, and celebrating it is an inherently godly thing to do, even if your concept of "god" is quite different from the Christian concept. All creation is through Jesus Christ, and celebrating any aspect of Christian is therefore entirely consonant with Christianity, even if you've never heard of Christ.
While Halloween originated as a harvest festival and celebration of the end of the summer, it no longer seems to have any particular agrarian links as most people aren't involved in agriculture. These days its ghosts, ghouls, bonfires and an excess of sugar. While you might consider the event broadly Christian, I would imagine most of those taking part don't. Even since the time I used celebrate it as a child where it was apples, nuts, parlour games and ghost stories, it has transformed into yet another opportunity to consume to excess largely inspired by our friends across the pond.You're seeing Christianity as something fundamentally opposed to non-Christian religion, seeking to destroy or erase it or, if it cannot do that, to completely conceal it. Christians see Christianity as completing or perfecting or fulfilling non-Christian or pre-Christian religion, so they are entirely unembarrassed at pre-Christian elements turning up in, or in association with, Christian practices.; if what Christians believe is right, then this is pretty much what you would expect.
I beg to differ. In my experience Christianity has been violently opposed not just to other religions, but even to unacceptable variations within itself, e.g. as in the various crusades (or the protestant vs Catholic thread here
). Looking at the work of Christian missionaries, their intent is replacing indigenous religions and culture with their own. Locally, non-Christian statues such as Sheela-na-gigs have often been concealed in churches where they were considered an embarrassment. Even in this thread, I note that Tatranska is not allowing the kids 'do halloween', which suggests that the event is unwholesome in some way. From where I'm sitting Christianity is very intolerant of conflicting traditions, and has used a carrot and stick approach to assimilating them throughout history. 0 -
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All harvest festivals are opportunities for feasting, smacl; that's pretty much the point. You're celebrating nature's bounty, food-wise. There's nothing un-Christian about that.While Halloween originated as a harvest festival and celebration of the end of the summer, it no longer seems to have any particular agrarian links as most people aren't involved in agriculture. These days its ghosts, ghouls, bonfires and an excess of sugar. While you might consider the event broadly Christian, I would imagine most of those taking part don't. Even since the time I used celebrate it as a child where it was apples, nuts, parlour games and ghost stories, it has transformed into yet another opportunity to consume to excess largely inspired by our friends across the pond.
Nor, of course, is there anything distinctively Christian about it. And I think if you take a very dualist, that-which-is-not-with-us-is-against-us approach to the world, then you end up thinking that that which is not distinctively Christian is necessarily un-Christian. But, clearly, the very fact that Christianity does borrow so much from other religious traditions points to the fact that that isn't a normative Christian approach to the world.
Well, I cautiously suggest that the reason Sheela-na-gigs have been concealed is not because people were embarrassed by their pagan origins, but because people were embarrassed by their sexual explicitness. You can chalk that up to puritanism, rather than to a root-and-branch rejection of everything with pagan connections. The very fact that they were in churches in the first place points to the incorporation and absorbtion of pagan and pre-Christian relgious tradition, not to its denial.I beg to differ. In my experience Christianity has been violently opposed not just to other religions, but even to unacceptable variations within itself, e.g. as in the various crusades (or the protestant vs Catholic thread here ). Looking at the work of Christian missionaries, their intent is replacing indigenous religions and culture with their own. Locally, non-Christian statues such as Sheela-na-gigs have often been concealed in churches where they were considered an embarrassment. Even in this thread, I note that Tatranska is not allowing the kids 'do halloween', which suggests that the event is unwholesome in some way. From where I'm sitting Christianity is very intolerant of conflicting traditions, and has used a carrot and stick approach to assimilating them throughout history.
More generally, Christianity certainly seeks to alter culture, and it only incorporates elements of pagan traditions that it finds to be consonant with Christianity. But that's a great deal, is my point. And, yes, this can involve conflict, but radical cultural change often does. Christianity might simultaneously take on a lot of pagan practices and rituals, and at the same time challenge the power of an existing pagan hierarchy or ruling class; in fact that would be a fairly common combination of circumstances. (And you could say the same thing about struggles within Christianity. The sixteenth-century wars of religion were fairly horrible affairs, but in fact the reformers were seeking to affirm and absorb the great bulk of the Roman Christianity with which they were in conflict.)0 -
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