Halloween Perceptions

Halloween Perceptions

John R. Houk

© October 31, 2018

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid in small town America, Halloween was an event to look forward to. I and friends or relatives walked our neighborhood and neighborhoods our little legs could take us, looking for treats (the hope was candy) to feast on for days to come. And yes my buddies and I dressed up what was then (1960s) considered the traditional monsters, witches/warlocks, goblins, ghosts, etc.

My family was not Church-going but we considered ourselves Christians. My relatives were pretty much in the same boat. My founds though were a mix of relative-Christians (as myself) and actual Church-going families (both Catholic & Protestant Denominations).

None of us thought we were celebrating death, the occult or some kind of evil anti-Christian Holiday. Indeed, None of us realized as kids that Halloween was the day before All Saints’ Day. Halloween was actually a shortened version of All Hallows Eve.

Christianity.com provides Mainline Church perspective of All Saints Day that mentions Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox but really is a Mainline Protestant perspective:

What is All Saints Day?

All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, or Hallowmas, is a Christian celebration in honor of all the saints from Christian history. In Western Christianity, it is observed on November 1st by the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church, and other Protestant denominations. The Eastern Orthodox Church and associated Eastern Catholic churches observe All Saints Day on the first Sunday following Pentecost.

The Christian festival of All Saints Day comes from a conviction that there is a spiritual connection between those in Heaven and on Earth. In Catholic tradition, the holiday honors all those who have passed on to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a national holiday in numerous historically Catholic countries. In Methodist tradition, All Saints Day relates to giving God earnest gratitude for the lives and deaths of his saints, remembering those who were well-known and not. Additionally, individuals throughout Christian history are celebrated, such as Peter the Apostle and Charles Wesley, as well as people who have personally guided one to faith in Jesus, such as one's relative or friend.

In addition to weekly worship gatherings, "All Saints Day" annually reminds us of our connectedness as Christians. It's commemorated every November 1st. Perhaps, you were taught to think of saints as statues in a church building. But the Bible teaches something completely different. Who is a saint? You are. That is if you’re a follower of Jesus. God calls a "saint" anyone who trusts in Christ alone for salvation. See Acts 9:13, 26:10, Romans 8:27, and 1Corinthians 1:2. (ALL SAINTS' DAY, NOVEMBER 1 - MEANING AND HISTORY; By Alex Crain; Christianity.com; 10/31/14)

The rest of the Christianity.com asserts that all people that believe Jesus Christ is the Risen Savior who died and arose alive offering Redemption to all who choose to Believe ARE SAINTS. This contrasts from the Roman Catholic practice of a Papal designation of an individual as a Saint for whatever those conditions set by the Roman Catholic Church (Frankly I’m uncertain of the Eastern Orthodox – the third largest segment of Christianity - Sainthood practice, but I think it is similar to the Roman Catholic practice).

I became a Born Again Christian in 1978 under the Charismatic/Pentecostal traditions of the (too often vilified today) Word of Faith Movement. A huge amount of Mainline Protestant Denominations call the Word of Faith beliefs a New Age Cult EVEN THOUGH Faith people Believe that Christ died on the Cross, was placed in a tomb and arose to Glorified Life to Redeem all who freely choose to Believe – just like all other Protestants (and Catholics and Orthodox for that matter).

What is disdained by Mainline Protestants (and many but not all Roman Catholics & Orthodox) Churches is the belief in being Baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in Tongues (diverse and/or unknown languages – Tongues) as well as the belief that the Word of God also states an element of Faith to receive according to Scripture. (I’m not going to go through the anti-Word arguments because that’s another post while Halloween is the point of this post.)

Because of how I learned the Christian Faith I became convinced that Halloween was a Satanic deception that should be quite anathema to celebrate in any form. Why? Celebrating a Satan influence holiday obviously dishonors God Almighty’s purpose to Redeem us from the curse upon humankind passed on by Adam accepting Satan’s deception in the Garden of Eden as truth rather than obeying God.

The Command

¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you^[a]shall surely die.” (Genesis 2: 16-17 NKJV)

The Lying Deception

3 ¹ Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³ but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

⁴ Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3: 1-5 NKJV)

Human Reasoning to Self-Justify Disobedience to God

⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was^[a]pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves ^[b]coverings. (Genesis 3: 6-7 NKJV)

Side Note – Yup, Adam was there listening to that conversation between Serpent (i.e. Satan) and Eve. AND Adam didn’t say no to Satan and Eve reminding his wife that God said DON’T DO IT! She gave, he ate.

The Result of Opened Eyes: Not Physical Death rather Shame and Separation from God’s Presence – Spiritual Death

⁸ And they heard the ^[a]sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the ^[b]cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

⁹ Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

¹¹ And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” (Genesis 3: 8-11 NKJV)

Self-Justification Laying the Blame for Wrong on Someone Else, Ending with the falsehood – The Devil Made Me Do It! Reality- It was Free Choice

¹² Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”

¹³ And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3: 12-13 NKJV)

The Curse on Adam and Eve to be passed to their Children and Children’s Children until Christ Comes

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”

¹⁶ To the woman He said:

“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be ^[a]for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”

¹⁷ Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
¹⁸ Both thorns and thistles it shall ^[b]bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
¹⁹ In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3: 14-19 NKJV)

Curse Recap in Simple Terms

On Satan:

For deceiving humanity in the form of an enticing trustworthy serpent: Satan you are cursed more than a dumb cow (whose future is now meat for food) and like the animal kingdom (for now the animal kingdom is untrusting and many cases dangerous to humanity which will domesticate or kill according to humanity’s darkened nature). Satan will be reviled just like serpents are now for being slithering/creeping beings. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Satan some day a woman such as enticed in the Garden, will give birth to a man-child that will one day whoop on your head and smack you around so that even your (i.e. Satan’s) feet will feel the pain. And we now know that man-child born was and is Jesus the son of Mary and the Son of God.

On Eve representing all women:

In giving birth to children you will have labor pains. In matrimony you-woman will desire the intimacy of your husband, but he will be the person in charge of family decisions (get over feminists).

On Adam representing all men:

The ground – meaning the earth in nature – is cursed (a Biblical explanation for natural disasters and acts of nature - earth quakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, hurricanes, weather related troubles, etc.). Man will toil to survive in life. Man’s immortality before the curse is transformed to mortality and in death the human body will return to the dust it was created from.

Humanity after the Curse is separated from God’s Presence, but because of the promise of Redemption from this curse noted in Genesis 3: 15 – God does not abandon humanity:

 ²¹ Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. (Genesis 3: 21 NKJV)

I believe it’s safe to surmise from verse 21 that God is displeased with disobedience but has not abandoned humankind. “Tunics of skin” means God Almighty took it upon Himself to kill and skin some kind of an animal to make clothes for the now mortal humankind.

All Hallows’ Eve of All Saints Day in the Early Church began as an evangelistic program by the becoming dominant Roman Catholic Church. All Saints Day evolved from honoring those that died as martyrs for their Christian faith when Christianity was unwelcome and/or illegal in a pagan dominated society.

Pagan domination began to end after Constantine the Great defeated his pagan rival emperors in battle in which Constantine gave credit to Christianity. Constantine ended persecution and set the stage for Christian Evangelization of the Roman world.

The story of the spread of Christianity in a world dominated by Roman/Byzantine influence on the institutional Christian Church begins the emergence of Christianity transforming pagan traditions as an evangelistic tool to spread the Christian faith.

Here are some excerpts that demonstrate this evangelism:

On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted the older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related church-sanctioned holiday. (Halloween 2018; By History.com Editors; History.com; Originally published 11/18/09 – Updated 10/5018 – Access Date 10/30/18)

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The name Halloween or Hallowe'en – a contraction of All Hallows' Evening or All Hallows' Eve – is a reference to the day before the Christian holiday of All Hallow's Day or All Saints' Day, an important date in the Christian calendar dedicated to remembering the dead, martyrs, saints, and other departed faithfuls.

But, similar to many Christian-adapted holidays, the origin of Halloween is thought to be pagan, blooming in the dark nights of the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (meaning 'summer's end' in Gaelic), when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts.

Living around 2,000 years ago in what is modern Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, the Celts celebrated their new year on 1 November as summer and harvests ended and the cold, harsh winter began – a time typical of many deaths. The Celts believed the boundaries between life and death became blurred on the eve of each new year – 31 October – when ghosts of the dead would return to earth causing havoc and destroying crops. But it was also a time when people, typically Druids or Celtic priests, could access future predictions, which became a comfort to the people facing a long, dark winter. But after the Romans invaded around 43AD, Christianity became infused with and supplanted Celtic traditions over the next 400 years of rule.

In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III dedicated 1 November to honor all saints and martyrs – and 'All Saints Day' was born. By 1000 AD the church introduced All Souls' Day on 2 November, in what is widely believed to have been an attempt to replace Celtic traditions with an official church holiday; symbols of Samhain were transferred to the Christian holiday, such as bonfires, parades and dressing in costumes such as devils, angels and saints.

All Hallows or All Hallowmas comes from Middle English Alholowmesse, meaning All Saints’ Day, and the night before – the traditional celebration of the Celtic religious festival Samhain – began to be called All Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

But over time Halloween has largely left behind its pagan and Christian origins to become a secular community-celebrated holiday, particularly in the US. (The truth about Halloween you didn't know; Expatica.com)

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Halloween as we know it has evolved from a multitude of rituals and cultures. In A.D. 43, the Romans conquered the southern half of Britain and ruled over the Celts for nearly 400 years. During this time it is thought by some that two Roman celebrations may have influenced Samhain. The first, called Feralia, a festival that celebrated the dead, and the second, a day honoring Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. However, Lisa Morton argues that this is a popular misconception, and Pomona was a minor goddess who did not have her own holiday. She argues, “the Roman celebrations of Feralia (held in February) and Lemuria (held in May) were both festivals of the dead, and may have influenced the evolution of Halloween (especially Lemuria, a three-day event which ended on May 13, the original date set by Pope Boniface IV for the celebration of All Saints’ Day).” It is All Saints’ Day that leads to the final transformation as we celebrate it today.

According to the Library of Congress, in A.D. 601, Pope Gregory the First issued an edict to his missionaries. Rather than try to obliterate native peoples’ customs and beliefs, he instructed his missionaries to use them: If a group of people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to consecrate it to Christ and allow its continued worship.” As Christian leaders began to convert pagan holidays, Samhain was transformed to All Saints’ Day or All Hallows on November 1. Though the holiday was converted to Christianity, the night before, All Hallows’ Eve, became known as Halloween. As Europeans immigrated to the United States, they brought with them many of their traditions. Halloween rose in popularity as the Irish-American population grew in large numbers. Trick-or-treating became popular in the 1930s and is believed to have come from a mix of Guy Fawkes Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and All Souls’ Day traditions, and practices that involve accepting food in exchange for a costumed performance. (A Halloween History Lesson; By Judy Williams; Missouri Historical Society; 10/31/14)

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In 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV heralded the celebration of Christian martyrs when he declared "All Martyrs Day" on May 13, a celebration that endured for 200 years. Fast forward to the eighth century, when Pope Gregory III, the leader of the Christian world, mandated Nov. 1 as a date to celebrate not just all martyrs, but "all saints," too. Hence the term, "All Saints Day."

This date coincided with the Celtic new year, held also Nov. 1, where celebrants on the British Isles and Ireland would ring in the new year with a twist - lighting bonfires and singing chants that were meant to ward off any evil spirits that might cause harm to the populace.

There was a good reason for such precaution, based on the Celtic rituals at the time. Nov. 1 on the Celtic calendar represented the end of summer and the beginning of winter, a period of cold and darkness for mostly poverty-stricken citizens, who had to wait months before they could plant seeds and grow their harvest. That's where the infamous "black and orange" Halloween motif started, as well. Black was designated by the Celts as the color or winter and orange as celebrated as the color of summer - Halloween hues that remain legendary today.

The Celts also were big believers in the supernatural and marked the night before the new year as the official boundary between the living (the "new") and the dead ("the old.") The holiday was officially known as Samhain, when "celebrants" believed the dead would return to the land of the living and once again walk the earth. (The History of Halloween and How It's Different in 2018; By Brian O'Connell; TheStreet.com; 10/5/18 3:29 PM EDT)

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The word 'Halloween' was first popularized in a poem

Scottish poet Robert Burns helped to popularize the word "Halloween" with his 1785 poem of the same name.

So where does the name itself come from? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it's actually two words smushed together. "Hallow" — or holy person — refers to the saints celebrated on All Saints' Day, which is November 1. The "een" part of the word is a contraction of "eve" — or evening before.

So basically, Halloween just an old-fashioned way of saying the night before All Saints' Day — also called Hallowmas or All Hallows' Day.

…

The day's morbid traditions go back to ancient times

Historians have linked Halloween to Samhain, the Celtic festival of the summer's end celebrated in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.

According to Celtic mythology, the veil between the Otherworld and our world thins during Samhain, making it easier for spirits and the souls of the dead to return. (The dark history behind Halloween is even more chilling than you realized; By Áine Cain; Business Insider; 10/31/17 2:50 PM)

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All Saints Day is a special feast day on which Catholics celebrate all the saints, known and unknown. While most saints have a particular feast day on the Catholic calendar (usually, though not always, the date of their death), not all of those feast days are observed. And saints who have not been canonized—those who are in Heaven, but whose sainthood is known only to God—have no particular feast day. In a special way, All Saints Day is their feast.

…

The History of All Saints Day

All Saints Day is a surprisingly old feast. It arose out of the Christian tradition of celebrating the martyrdom of saints on the anniversary of their martyrdom. When martyrdoms increased during the persecutions of the late Roman Empire, local dioceses instituted a common feast day in order to ensure that all martyrs, known and unknown, were properly honored.

By the late fourth century, this common feast was celebrated in Antioch, and Saint Ephrem the Syrian mentioned it in a sermon in 373. In the early centuries, this feast was celebrated in the Easter season, and the Eastern Churches, both Catholic, and Orthodox, still celebrate it then, tying the celebration of the lives of the saints in with Christ's Resurrection.

Why November 1?

The current date of November 1 was instituted by Pope Gregory III (731-741), when he consecrated a chapel to all the martyrs in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Gregory ordered his priests to celebrate the Feast of All Saints annually. This celebration was originally confined to the diocese of Rome, but Pope Gregory IV (827-844) extended the feast to the entire Church and ordered it to be celebrated on November 1.

Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day

In English, the traditional name for All Saints Day was All Hallows Day. (A hallow was a saint or holy person.) The vigil or eve of the feast, October 31, is still commonly known as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. Despite concerns among some Christians (including some Catholics) in recent years about the "pagan origins" of ​Halloween the vigil was celebrated from the beginning—long before Irish practices, stripped of their pagan origins (just as the Christmas tree was stripped of similar connotations), were incorporated into popular celebrations of the feast.

In fact, in post-Reformation England, the celebration of Halloween and All Saints Day were outlawed not because they were considered pagan but because they were Catholic. Later, in the Puritan areas of the Northeastern United States, Halloween was outlawed for the same reason, before Irish Catholic immigrants revived the practice as a way of celebrating the vigil of All Saints Day.

All Saints Day is followed by All Souls Day (November 2), the day on which Catholics commemorate all those Holy Souls who have died and are in Purgatory, being cleansed of their sins so that they can enter into the presence of God in Heaven. (All Saints Day: Honoring All of the Saints, Known and Unknown; By Scott P. Richert; ThoughtCo.com; Updated 2/4/18)

I have tried to provide in the above excerpts an unbiased demonstration of the relatively early Church use of pagan/polytheistic traditions as an evangelistic tool. I can see it as a slick sales pitch outreach, BUT many Bible-minded Christians today view this as a corruption of Bible-faith. The classic Biblical example is in Deuteronomy (I’m using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition here):

⁹ When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of these nations.

¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer,

¹¹ Or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

¹² For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and it is because of these abominable practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

¹³ You shall be blameless [and absolutely true] to the Lord your God.

¹⁴ For these nations whom you shall dispossess listen to soothsayers and diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so. (Deuteronomy 18: 9-14 AMPC)

A Christian believing in the inerrancy of the Holy Bible should have a difficult time to support the temptation of celebrating the inherent Celtic nature in the Christian All Hallows Eve – Halloween.

Saying that it may surprise you to discover I don’t have a problem with Church’s changing the theme of devils, witches and demons in Halloween to a Christianized version which have developed alternative names such as Harvest Festival, Hallelujah Night, Reformation Day (Protestant tradition believes Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on a Catholic Church door on October 31, 1517) and so forth.

It is my opinion extricating all things demonic and giving honor to obedience of God is a defeat for the deceitful operations of Satan. Still many disagree. Many are quite vehement about any kind of celebration that took traditionally polytheistic religious celebration of a Celtic festival that used this rough date to commemorate the dead either in celebration or fear that was embodied in Samhain (pronounced roughly as sow-when).

Below is the post that inspired me to look into Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day (Today in sequence: 10/31, 11/1 & 11/2). I don’t have a problem with the facts behind the post’s conclusions, I just think the conclusions lean too much to short-sighted by failing to glorify God for fear of honoring a devil-day. Also in the BitChute video (that I’m going to try valiantly to embed on all my blogs, but failing that you have to click the link) below, there is a huge anti-Roman Catholic message. On a personal level I view all Christians of various Denominations (Protestant, Roman Catholic & Eastern Orthodox) that have one central belief that Jesus died on the Cross as a sacrifice of the sins of humanity resulting from the Curse on Adam, buried dead in a tomb and on the third day after Crucifixion Jesus from the tomb bodily as man and God sitting on the Right of the Father. All else, my dogma beliefs, your beliefs, or a Denomination’s belief are irrelevant and will be settled on the unified Resurrection of the dead in Christ.

Until that Resurrection I urge all Christians who hold the central tenets of Faith to get along with each other even with differences in dogma (Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic & Charismatic Word of Faith).

JRH 10/31/18

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The Pagan Origin of Halloween

Posted by Red/White/Blue/Navy Veteran/Christian

Posted at G+ Community MAKE AMERICA FIRST AGAIN !!

Oct 30, 4:19 AM

Please Watch my attached Video [Below with 54:11 length] it has a very powerful message. Information most people don't know. Information not included in the following post on Halloween. Please watch and Share so people will be informed and realize the Truth about Halloween.

The Pagan Origin of Halloween

The name "Halloween" comes from the All Saints Day celebration of the early Christian church, a day set aside for the solemn remembrance of the martyrs. All Hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints Day, began the time of remembrance. "All Hallows Eve" was eventually contracted to "Hallow-e'en," which became "Halloween."

As Christianity moved through Europe it collided with indigenous pagan cultures and confronted established customs. Pagan holidays and festivals were so entrenched that new converts found them to be a stumbling block to their faith. To deal with the problem, the organized church would commonly move a distinctively Christian holiday to a spot on the calendar that would directly challenge a pagan holiday. The intent was to counter pagan influences and provide a Christian alternative. But most often the church only succeeded in "Christianizing" a pagan ritual—the ritual was still pagan, but mixed with Christian symbolism. That's what happened to All Saints Eve—it was the original Halloween alternative!

The Celtic people of Europe and Britain were pagan Druids whose major celebrations were marked by the seasons. At the end of the year in northern Europe, people made preparations to ensure winter survival by harvesting the crops and culling the herds, slaughtering animals that wouldn't make it. Life slowed down as winter brought darkness (shortened days and longer nights), fallow ground, and death. The imagery of death, symbolized by skeletons, skulls, and the color black, remains prominent in today's Halloween celebrations.

The pagan Samhain festival (pronounced "sow" "en") celebrated the final harvest, death, and the onset of winter, for three days—October 31 to November 2. The Celts believed the curtain dividing the living and the dead lifted during Samhain to allow the spirits of the dead to walk among the living—ghosts haunting the earth.

Some embraced the season of haunting by engaging in occult practices such as divination and communication with the dead. They sought "divine" spirits (demons) and the spirits of their ancestors regarding weather forecasts for the coming year, crop expectations, and even romantic prospects. Bobbing for apples was one practice the pagans used to divine the spiritual world's "blessings" on a couple's romance.

For others the focus on death, occultism, divination, and the thought of spirits returning to haunt the living, fueled ignorant superstitions and fears. They believed spirits were earthbound until they received a proper sendoff with treats—possessions, wealth, food, and drink. Spirits who were not suitably "treated" would "trick" those who had neglected them. The fear of haunting only multiplied if that spirit had been offended during its natural lifetime.

Trick-bent spirits were believed to assume grotesque appearances. Some traditions developed, which believed wearing a costume to look like a spirit would fool the wandering spirits. Others believed the spirits could be warded off by carving a grotesque face into a gourd or root vegetable (the Scottish used turnips) and setting a candle inside it—the jack-o-lantern.

Into that dark, superstitious, pagan world, God mercifully shined the light of the gospel. Newly converted Christians armed themselves with the truth and no longer feared a haunting from departed spirits returning to earth. In fact, they denounced their former pagan spiritism in accord with Deuteronomy 18:

There shall not be found among you anyone...who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord (Deuteronomy 18:10-13).

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BITCHUTE VIDEO: IS HALLOWEEN CHRISTIAN? ALL SAINTS DAY? IS HALLOWEEN HARMLESS?

Posted by Victory1776

First published at 08:32 UTC on October 29th, 2018

Christian perspectives on Halloween are strongly divided. Some feel complete freedom to observe the holiday, while others run and hide from it. Many choose to boycott or ignore it, while a number celebrate it through positive and imaginative observances. Some even take advantage of Halloween's evangelistic opportunities.

Halloween has pagan roots stemming from the ancient Celtic festival, Samhain. This harvest festival of the Druids ushered in the New Year, beginning on the evening of October 31 with the lighting of bonfires and offering of sacrifices. As the Druids danced around the fires, they celebrated the end of the summer and beginning of the season of darkness. It was believed that at this time of year the invisible "gates" between the natural world and the spirit world would open, allowing free movement between the two worlds.

During the 8th century in the diocese of Rome, Pope Gregory III moved All Saints Day to November 1, officially making October 31 "All Hallows Eve," some say, as a way of claiming the celebration for Catholics. However, this feast commemorating the martyrdom of the saints had already been celebrated by Catholics for many centuries before this time. Pope Gregory IV broadened the feast to include the entire Church. Pagan practices associated with the season persisted and have mixed into modern celebrations of Halloween.

No matter what you think of halloween, know that it is the very highest satanic holy day. As a Christian, you should not be observing it in any way, especially IN your church. The catholic church is responsible for this day to be placed in the church. Halloween has never been a Christian holiday, and it has no place in the life of a born again Believer in JESUS CHRIST. In fact, it is an abomination to God, and we should take our stand firmly against it. As we look at its history, we find that its roots go deep into heathenism, paganism, satanism and the occult; and its modern expression is no better.

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Halloween Perceptions

John R. Houk

© October 31, 2018

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The Pagan Origin of Halloween

Posted at G+ Community MAKE AMERICA FIRST AGAIN !!

___________________

BITCHUTE VIDEO: IS HALLOWEEN CHRISTIAN? ALL SAINTS DAY? IS HALLOWEEN HARMLESS?

Posted by Victory1776

About Victory1776

I am a Retired Disabled US Military Veteran. I served 20 plus Years in the Navy and in the Army. I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior when I was 8. I joined the Navy at 16. I have been in Christian Ministry since I enlisted in the Navy. I have served in many different roles from Janitor, Children Sunday School Teacher, Adult Sunday School Teacher, Assistant Pastor, Missions, Preacher, Military Ministry, Nursing Home Ministry, Homeless Ministry... etc.

I Love God. I am now full time in the Christian Ministry. I produce videos and want to bring the Gospel to as many people as possible. I make a variety of different videos as I feel lead by Jesus.