Celebrating Halloween

Tarheel Baptist

Tarheel Baptist

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I interacted with a lady recently who believed (it was taught in her church) that Halloween was sinful.
While I’m aware this was once a common belief in some circles, I had not heard of it in years.

Do you celebrate?
Do you know people who believe it is sinful?
 
The only time I hear it is sinful is on social media. It's been years since I've heard in person anyone saying it is sinful. Of course, I quit running in IFBx circles in 2010.

We pass out candy and the grandkids come to our house to go out.

My wife & I are going to a friend's costume party tomorrow night.
 
Nope, as far as celebrating it
 
Calvary Chapels, by and large, bypass the "holiday". Some do so by preference, others substitute "harvest festival" for Halloween, while a hardcore few declare that Christians have no business celebrating it.

The local Naz church is hosting a Harvest/Fall/Trunk or Treat event tonight. CC Lewiston currently does not acknowledge the day at all. We've had parties for the kids in the past with "Drive-in Movie" night where kids design their cars from cardboard boxes with prizes awarded to the most creative designs.

When I was a kid, Halloween decorations were cute... With ghosts, ghouls, witches and jack-o'-lanterns and the occasional haunted house. As time progressed, decorations became more sinister and grotesque. I'm not into that stuff at all. The fact is, I'm relieved when those decorations are taken down afterwards. I just think they're ugly.

At work, some of our drivers dress up... One driver this morning put on a gray knit cap with curlers sewn into it. He wore a robe, pjs and slippers. He looked great. I've dressed as a fisherman and a biker... But haven't done much lately simply because I don't care to do so. I did, however, remark this morning that if I knew which houses were giving out Kit Kats, I'd be knocking on their doors.
 
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We did some very low key trick-or-treating when my daughter was younger. Nowadays, we either pass out a little candy or do the substitute church candy festival at my relative’s church. We never made it a huge occasion, but we allowed it in moderation.
 
I saw this on FB earlier today:

Our Homeschool co-op didn’t have “Halloween dress-up day” today — oh no. That would be too worldly.

Instead, they had “Character Costume Day” last week… you know, totally not Halloween, just happens to involve costumes, candy, and children dressed as superheroes and princesses....

And churches aren’t any better. We can’t call it “Halloween,” but if you slap a pumpkin on it and call it a “Fall Festival,” suddenly it’s holy and sanctified.

“Don’t celebrate darkness, Brenda — but please do bring your kids to our ‘Light the Night Harvest Hallelujah Extravaganza’ on October 31st from 6–8pm!”

I love us, but man… Christians are something else sometimes.
 
Tarheel Baptist said:
I love us, but man… Christians are something else sometimes.
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I won’t retell the story, but it’s about as confusing as Halloween when I was a kid (my dad was a lifelong deacon and Sunday school teacher at our IFB church in South Carolina). We’d go buy bags of candy and hand them out to the kids in their costumes roaming the neighborhood, and we’d even put a few decorations out. But we were strictly forbidden to wear costumes and trick-or-treat ourselves. So it was perfectly acceptable to hand out candy, just not get candy! 🫤
 
In almost 30 years of an IFB old school church I've never heard a message on it, nor participation in it called sin. We've had Trunk or Treat, Fall Festivals, etc, but as far as the dress up thing for our church families and bus-kids we've asked that their costumes be appropriate. Meaning, no immodest or suggestive stuff, and no association with the macabre and/or death.

Having said that, we allowed ALAYBOY to dress up as Mario, Pikachu, a baseball player, etc and went door to door. For the first time, we recently went to King's Island's Spooktacular fall event. It wasn't too over the top IMHO, but I didn't get much out of it. I never did do the haunted house stuff, even as an unsaved teen, though it wasn't out of any moral apprehension then. The older I get the more troubled I am at the preoccupation with death and the occult.

I remember a conversation here on a previous iteration of the forum that involved the subject of a genre of violent film (like the saw series) called "torture porn". It involved, for those who want to go in the way back Nostalgia machine, Patebald (a good guy and former Fundy turned FreeBird) who defended watching that stuff. I thought it was wrong then, and I think it's still wrong now.

There, maybe that'll get this place fired up, lol.
 
I posted this on my FB:

I think Halloween as an American cultural event for kids is no big deal. Dress them up as one of the minions and have fun. It’s just not a big deal from the paranormal or occultic perspective on things. In my opinion, this is an area where a lot of people are majoring on the minors.

It’s not the kids and Halloween that are the problem…it’s the adults.

I think Halloween, as far as the kids go, can still be something innocent. But a word to you adults who have made it “dress like a porn star and act like one” night: You’re the ones making it dark. - James Emery White
 
Tarheel Baptist said:
I posted this on my FB:

I think Halloween as an American cultural event for kids is no big deal. Dress them up as one of the minions and have fun. It’s just not a big deal from the paranormal or occultic perspective on things. In my opinion, this is an area where a lot of people are majoring on the minors.

It’s not the kids and Halloween that are the problem…it’s the adults.

I think Halloween, as far as the kids go, can still be something innocent. But a word to you adults who have made it “dress like a porn star and act like one” night: You’re the ones making it dark. - James Emery White
Click to expand...
I’m glad to see you have a very well balanced attitude towards Halloween. However, I can’t help but wonder if you possessed this same outlook when you were raising your own children as a pastor back in the 70s or 80s.
 
DrHuk&Duck said:
I’m glad to see you have a very well balanced attitude towards Halloween. However, I can’t help but wonder if you possessed this same outlook when you were raising your own children as a pastor back in the 70s or 80s.
Click to expand...

My beliefs about Halloween have not changed.
 
To me October 31 is Reformation Day.
 
Tarheel Baptist said:
I posted this on my FB:

I think Halloween as an American cultural event for kids is no big deal. Dress them up as one of the minions and have fun. It’s just not a big deal from the paranormal or occultic perspective on things. In my opinion, this is an area where a lot of people are majoring on the minors.

It’s not the kids and Halloween that are the problem…it’s the adults.

I think Halloween, as far as the kids go, can still be something innocent. But a word to you adults who have made it “dress like a porn star and act like one” night: You’re the ones making it dark. - James Emery White
Click to expand...
Picking up some stuff at the store after work, I noticed that there was one bag of Kit Kats left on the shelf. I snatched it up in a hurry.
 
Tarheel Baptist said:
I interacted with a lady recently who believed (it was taught in her church) that Halloween was sinful.
While I’m aware this was once a common belief in some circles, I had not heard of it in years.

Do you celebrate?
Do you know people who believe it is sinful?
Click to expand...
this is the first year i can remember that we are not dressing up and going into waikiki for halloween....... ...it was a decision we all made together.... ..me and the group of friends i have always gone with... .....the reason is sad but simple..... .....every year waikiki has become more and more dangerous at night.. ...the entire island has become more dangerous in fact....... .. this year violence and crimes against persons have doubled since last year - and last halloween there were times we regretted being down there.... ..

....it;s not something you will hear in any mainland news report... especially if the hawaii tourism bureau has any thing to do with how news is reported...... ... ... but you will hear it from me - like all blue states hawaii has become a dangerous place .... and no city in the state more so than honolulu...........
 
Speaking of the imposition of standards of decency...

( ⚠️ The opening would be PG for sensuality, but the rest of the clip is fairly mild by today's standards.)​


Explore the channel, but only with the missus. Were the codes imposed on the motion picture industry in the '30s prudish, adequate, or lax?

How might you have preached concerning pre-Code Hollywood?
 
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