{"id":1243,"date":"2009-10-31T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T02:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1243"},"modified":"2009-10-31T02:01:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-31T02:01:00","slug":"how-to-celebrate-a-christian-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1243","title":{"rendered":"How to Celebrate a Christian Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing at First Things, an “interreligious” journal (“inter” as in Catholics and Protestants, maybe), Sally Thomas faces that annual hurdle of the Christian parent: What To Do About Halloween. <\/a><\/p>\n

How can it be fun and still be doctrinally acceptable? She writes,<\/p>\n

Halloween\u2019s emphasis on darkness makes many Christians squeamish, but, to my mind, what my friend observed about the medieval feel of Halloween is more on the money.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t especially encourage my children to dress as scary things for Halloween. We are taught, rightly, to avoid flirting with the occult, and the darkest character any child of mine has ever wanted to be is Darth Vader.<\/i><\/p>\n

Don’t you love that “flirting”? It’s right up there with “dabbling,” as in “dabbling with witchcraft.”<\/p>\n

Ducks dabble. Witches … do other things. But, who knows, maybe “the occult” will kick things up a notch and kiss them back, slip them a little tongue. That Darth Vader costume might be the first step into experiential religion. You never know.<\/p>\n

On All Saints\u2019 Day, our parish holds a children\u2019s festival, hugely attended, at which children and adults alike dress as their favorite saints. This year mine will be St. Ursula, St. Walburga, St. Gerard Majella, and St. George. I probably will reprise my last year\u2019s appearance as St. Helena, although the True Cross did keep whacking people every time I turned around.<\/i><\/p>\n

Watch out for the boy who wants to be St. Sebastian: he’s probably gay. <\/p>\n

Via Rod Dreher at BeliefNet, where the commenters actually display a wide variety of opinions about the celebration.<\/a><\/p>\n

There is always the issue of sex with demons<\/a> to consider as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing at First Things, an “interreligious” journal (“inter” as in Catholics and Protestants, maybe), Sally Thomas faces that annual hurdle of the Christian parent: What To Do About Halloween. How can it be fun and still be doctrinally acceptable? She writes, Halloween\u2019s emphasis on darkness makes many Christians squeamish, but, to my mind, what my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-1243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-halloween"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-k3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6055,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6055","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":0},"title":"Beavering Away at Home","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Once in a while, I like to note that Hardscrabble Creek is a real place. The beaver pair had kits this year, and they also expanded their dams from two to five. A couple of years ago, they left because they had eaten all the available deciduous forage, mostly narrowleaf\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"beaver ponds10-13","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/beaver-ponds10-13.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7539,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7539","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":1},"title":"It’s Late October \u2014 Who Can Keep Up with the News?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There is more Pagan-related stuff popping up in the news and publishing world than usual right now. I wonder why. So here are some highlights: \u2022 Gwendolyn Reece is a university librarian, blogger (Diary of an Occult Librarian), and scholar \u2014 one recent publication, \"Impediments to Practice in Contemporary Paganism,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Europe\"","block_context":{"text":"Europe","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=europe"},"img":{"alt_text":"psst it's halloween","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/psst-its-halloween-205x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":542,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=542","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":2},"title":"No costumes, please, we're teaching\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"No costumes, please, we're teaching to the testSome Colorado \"educators\" are going to great lengths to show how hard they are working to raise standardized test scores. The latest gimmick at some schools is to ban school Halloween parties.I think for the most part the real reason schools are doing\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6038,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6038","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":3},"title":"It’s October\u2014And You Know What That Means","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It means incoherent news stories about \"the occult.\" On the other hand, here is something genuinely cool: Oxford Journals are offering free downloads on a group of articles that have some connection or other to historical witchcraft, horror stories, or the just plain spooky. The offer is good only through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3317,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3317","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":4},"title":"Does Halloween Fill a “Spiritual Vacuum”?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Halloween season\" keeps starting sooner, and its economic impact increases. Not everyone is pleased. Bloomberg News columnist Amity Shlaes reacts against its \"paganism.\" She is pleased to see the violence of \"Mischief Night\" fading but continues, \" Unmask Halloween, however, and you\u2019ll also find some disconcerting features. Christmas and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1236,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1236","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":5},"title":"Zippy, the Halloween Slug","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I have heard of most of these Halloween folk customs.The one with the slug is new to me, though, but maybe someone in the Pacific Northwest could try it and report.Meanwhile, Red Witch in Melbourne is in the midst of a Halloween countdown, examining the commercial side of the holiday\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}