Saturday 30 October 2010

Is Halloween Evil?

[...] Sure it is, if it involves the glorification (or, worse, the trivialization) of things satanic, and playing nasty pranks on neighbours who simply forgot to pick up a bag of sweets earlier in the day. Beyond that, a community dress-up involving opening our doors to each other and giving sweets to kids in fancy dress is a lovely idea. It might even build friendships in a society hungry for community.

For my part, I am sad that Halloween no longer has much to do with honouring the faithful departed and learning from their example. But that shouldn’t stop believers from making it so. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer of 1662 has the perfect Halloween prayer: “And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.”

One last thing. I’m not sure that Christmas in the wider Australian context is any more pleasing to the Almighty? If there are grades of sins, I reckon the Aussie worship at the shopping mall in the build up to Christmas and the consequent neglect of the poor until we’ve paid off the credit card are much more ‘satanic’ than allowing our kids to dress up as goblins. And what is a goblin, anyway? Read more

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.