 We've all read and heard from
the fundamentalist Christians in America how sinful and blasphemous and
terrible it is to dress up the kids as ghosts and hobgoblins and send them
out from door to door on this special night begging for candy. We've all
heard of the pagan roots of the celebration, coming from many corners of
the world... of how the jack 'o lantern was to depict the screaming face
of a tortured soul in hell... of how Halloween is the witches night, the
night of the dead, and even Satan's very birthday! All Hallowed Eve, as
it was called, no matter what its arcane and varied roots, is ultimately,
just like Christmas and Easter, a product of the Roman Catholic syncretisms
blending the pagan festivals and folklores with Christian motifs, monikers
and mantles.
-
- Isn't it funny though that from the vast majority of
these same fundamentalist Christian groups who yearly go into an anti-Halloween
frenzy one hears nothing against equally pagan holidays/fests like Christmas
or Easter, both of which have very little to do with Jesus Christ as it
has been culturally adopted into general society and of which these groups
take great pains to make use -- usually for fundraising. Those are the
days, apart from your hot-weather "revivals", when you pack the
churches with your guilt-ridden sinner-saints seeking absolution and reconciliation
for the years debaucheries and backslides. Oh, never mind the equally pagan
roots. Never mind that the Old Testament specifically condemns the cutting
down of a tree to deck it with ornamentation and drag into the home. Slap
a baby Jesus in a manger somewhere nearby and you've got the thing sanitized
of its pagan stench. Now you can get back to your mistletoe lusts and avarice
for presents under the tree (no longer gifts to the elder gods, but Christian
gifts to Jesus... though he never gets 'em). Pah-rump-pah-pum-pum!
-
- And we can't forget fornications very own special holiday,
Easter, with its bunnies and eggs. Even Christ rising from the tomb has
its own naturistic qualities of spring. The great goddess Ischtar of fertility,
which was in early times de-breasted of all but two (she had many, you
see) and had a babe slapped in her arms; the idol was hailed "Mary,
the Mother of God" by some shrewd thinking Romans trying to appease
the pagan majority uncomfortable with the Christianization of everything
under the sun, and the need for some goddess element in the mix. Nah, we
need not concern ourselves with these roots and histories! Not when we
have Halloween to pick on, eh? It's the one Christo-pagan festival where
the church can't make a thin dime! Horror of horrors, you have people GIVING
AWAY candy! And worse, it mocks and laughs in the face of death. Now, we
can't have that! We've worked too hard to instill the woe and fear of death
in the people, to keep them in control. We can't have them running amuck
as skeletons and abandoning the very anxiety of the grave, can we?
-
- You bet.
-
- And for who more perfectly suited has ever a festival
been devised for children than Halloween? Children who think they are immortal,
who feel immortal -- what is death to them? What is a scare? A spook? A
haint? Distant, mythic, imaginary things, toys of the mind, things to play
with. Nothing serious here. Just good ole' fun. Candy, running around in
the night with flashlights, dressing up like whatever your wildest imagination
can conjure, the bite of crisp autumn air, the smell of shaving cream,
spattered pumpkins and flitters of toilet paper high through the trees
and every good hearted house lit up brightly with a welcome orange glow
and decorations.
-
- Ultimately, the Apostle Paul, when taking into consideration
all the festivals and holy days and customs, both of Jews and of Greeks,
among newly converted Christians in entirely pagan nations and cultures
wrote this as advice to the church on such liberties:
-
- "... Let no man therefore be your judge regarding
things you eat, or what you drink, or with respect to a particular festival
or holyday, or of the new moon (festival), or of the sabbath days: Which
are merely shadows; symbols of things to come; but the substance of these
is of Christ. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility
and worshiping of angelic beings, intruding into those things which he
has no knowledge about at all, vainly puffed up by his own egotistical
imagination, and not holding fast to the Head, Christ Jesus, from which
all the body by joints and ligaments having nourishment are ministered,
and knit together, increased with the increase of God. Wherefore if you
are dead with Christ to the rudiments of this world and its system, why,
as though living in the world, would you ever subject yourself to ordinances,
such as 'do not touch'...'do not taste'...'do not handle'; All of which
perish with the using? After the commandments and doctrines of mere men?
And these things indeed have the external appearance of wisdom in worship,
and humility, and discipline of the body: but in the end are of no value
against fleshly indulgence at all.
- 2:16-23)
-
- Have a ball, y'all!
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