All Hallow's Eve: Difference between revisions
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For the most part, Catholics and mainline Protestants are tolerant of the holiday, seeing any ties to paganism as having long since been buried by centuries of Christian and secular tradition -- after all, does anybody, apart from Jehovah's Witnesses, complain about the connections between [[Christmas in America|modern Christmas celebrations]] and the pagan solstice holiday of Yule? To them, it is a harmless, secular holiday built around imaginary monsters and handing out candy. Catholic schools often hold Halloween celebrations, and a Vatican exorcist has said that the day is harmless. The Catholic and Anglican Churches may emphasize All Saints' Day, the celebration that comes after Halloween, while Protestants may celebrate Reformation Day -- the day when in 1517, Martin Luther started The Protestant Reformation -- which falls on the same day. However, these celebrations are usually held simultaneously with Halloween, rather than in opposition to it. The laissez-faire attitude that Catholics hold to the holiday makes sense -- the Catholic Church was instrumental in Christianizing the holiday, and it was Irish Catholics who brought Halloween to America in the first place. |
For the most part, Catholics and mainline Protestants are tolerant of the holiday, seeing any ties to paganism as having long since been buried by centuries of Christian and secular tradition -- after all, does anybody, apart from Jehovah's Witnesses, complain about the connections between [[Christmas in America|modern Christmas celebrations]] and the pagan solstice holiday of Yule? To them, it is a harmless, secular holiday built around imaginary monsters and handing out candy. Catholic schools often hold Halloween celebrations, and a Vatican exorcist has said that the day is harmless. The Catholic and Anglican Churches may emphasize All Saints' Day, the celebration that comes after Halloween, while Protestants may celebrate Reformation Day -- the day when in 1517, Martin Luther started The Protestant Reformation -- which falls on the same day. However, these celebrations are usually held simultaneously with Halloween, rather than in opposition to it. The laissez-faire attitude that Catholics hold to the holiday makes sense -- the Catholic Church was instrumental in Christianizing the holiday, and it was Irish Catholics who brought Halloween to America in the first place. |
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Some conservative Christians, however, feel that Halloween trivializes and celebrates the occult and is incompatible with the Christian faith. They point to its Celtic pagan connections, [[Useful Notes/Wicca|which they feel to be Satanic]]. There have been many religious challenges to and protests against the celebration of Halloween over the years, particularly in the "[[American Churches|Bible Belt]]" region of [[Deep South|the South]] and [[Down On the Farm|the rural Midwest]]. A recent tradition among conservative Christians has been to hold "Halloween alternative parties" in which people dress up as Biblical characters, and [ |
Some conservative Christians, however, feel that Halloween trivializes and celebrates the occult and is incompatible with the Christian faith. They point to its Celtic pagan connections, [[Useful Notes/Wicca|which they feel to be Satanic]]. There have been many religious challenges to and protests against the celebration of Halloween over the years, particularly in the "[[American Churches|Bible Belt]]" region of [[Deep South|the South]] and [[Down On the Farm|the rural Midwest]]. A recent tradition among conservative Christians has been to hold "Halloween alternative parties" in which people dress up as Biblical characters, and [[wikipedia:Hell house|"Hell houses"]] as [[The Moral Substitute]] to regular Halloween attractions. At Hell houses, the attendees are shown scenes meant to portray the decadence of secular culture, finally ending in a room that represents either [[Heaven]], which is the reward for not behaving in the manner just witnessed, or [[Hell]], occupied by [[Satan]], who claims that all of the characters they had seen (who usually reappear here) are now firmly in his grasp. Afterwards, in order to get out, the attendees must agree to be "saved" (become born-again Christians) or traverse the length of the building. In some cases, the Hell house is marketed as a normal haunted house, thus making it a [[Bait and Switch]] in which unwitting attendees don't realize that they're going to a fire-and-brimstone sermon until they're already through the door. |
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The same dichotomy exists within Judaism and Islam. The Orthodox Jewish and conservative Muslim views on the holiday are similar to the conservative Christian one -- it has deep pagan roots, and is therefore incompatible with observance of Judaism or Islam. It is for this reason that celebrations of Halloween have failed to gain traction in the conservative Middle East. On the other hand, Reform Jews and the more secular and liberal Muslims<ref>They do exist, and there are in fact quite a lot of them</ref> in the US and Canada tend to follow the more "who cares" view of their liberal Christian counterparts, holding it to be harmless fun that lost any semblance of being ''any'' religion's holiday once the marketers got a hold of it. Meanwhile, the Conservative Jews (as usual) stand half-here, half-there on the subject. |
The same dichotomy exists within Judaism and Islam. The Orthodox Jewish and conservative Muslim views on the holiday are similar to the conservative Christian one -- it has deep pagan roots, and is therefore incompatible with observance of Judaism or Islam. It is for this reason that celebrations of Halloween have failed to gain traction in the conservative Middle East. On the other hand, Reform Jews and the more secular and liberal Muslims<ref>They do exist, and there are in fact quite a lot of them</ref> in the US and Canada tend to follow the more "who cares" view of their liberal Christian counterparts, holding it to be harmless fun that lost any semblance of being ''any'' religion's holiday once the marketers got a hold of it. Meanwhile, the Conservative Jews (as usual) stand half-here, half-there on the subject. |
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[[Category:Holiday Tropes]] |
[[Category:Holiday Tropes]] |
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[[Category:Horror Tropes]] |
[[Category:Horror Tropes]] |
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[[Category:All |
[[Category:All Hallow's Eve]] |
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