Halloween is a Christian Holiday
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I find it hilarious that some radical Christians, in the U.S. and throughout the world, are growing increasingly disturbed about the impact that Halloween is having on young, impressionable, pre-Christian minds.
Just like how Harry Potter is going to turn children into Satanists (or, worse, Wiccans).
The truth is that Halloween is a patently Christian celebration (although, like many Christian holidays, it happens to coincide with pagan harvest celebrations).
In fact, Halloween was once so important a part of Christian ritual that it even played an indirect role in American politics.
The only reason we have Halloween ("All Hallows Eve") is because of All Saints Day ("All Hallows Day"), a Roman Catholic holiday that falls on November 1st. Like Fat Tuesday (and Mardi Gras) before Lent, Halloween began as a preparatory celebration in anticipation of All Saints Day.
Today, All Saints Day is not a major religious holiday and not at all a secular event the way Christmas and Easter are. But such was not the case in the early days of the Republic. In fact, so important was All Saints Day that Congress intentionally designated Election Day to be "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November" rather than simply "the first Tuesday in November." They wanted to ensure that Election Day would never fall on All Saints Day, which would keep people from the polls. (They also feared that merchants would stay home on November 1st to perform their end-of-month bookkeeping.)
Fast-forward to the modern era. We now witness yet another classic example of fundamentalist Christian legerdemain: A Christian-inspired bit of harmless fun is suddenly neither Christian nor harmless. Just like how the United States is a "Christian nation," except when Jews are within earshot, in which case we magically transform into a "Judeo-Christian" nation (or whatever). Anti-gay discrimination is "only about marriage" — except when it isn't. And so on.
Now that's spooky.
More on the history of Halloween here and of All Saints Day here. More on the history of Election Day here.
Have fun.
Just like how Harry Potter is going to turn children into Satanists (or, worse, Wiccans).
The truth is that Halloween is a patently Christian celebration (although, like many Christian holidays, it happens to coincide with pagan harvest celebrations).
In fact, Halloween was once so important a part of Christian ritual that it even played an indirect role in American politics.
The only reason we have Halloween ("All Hallows Eve") is because of All Saints Day ("All Hallows Day"), a Roman Catholic holiday that falls on November 1st. Like Fat Tuesday (and Mardi Gras) before Lent, Halloween began as a preparatory celebration in anticipation of All Saints Day.
Today, All Saints Day is not a major religious holiday and not at all a secular event the way Christmas and Easter are. But such was not the case in the early days of the Republic. In fact, so important was All Saints Day that Congress intentionally designated Election Day to be "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November" rather than simply "the first Tuesday in November." They wanted to ensure that Election Day would never fall on All Saints Day, which would keep people from the polls. (They also feared that merchants would stay home on November 1st to perform their end-of-month bookkeeping.)
Fast-forward to the modern era. We now witness yet another classic example of fundamentalist Christian legerdemain: A Christian-inspired bit of harmless fun is suddenly neither Christian nor harmless. Just like how the United States is a "Christian nation," except when Jews are within earshot, in which case we magically transform into a "Judeo-Christian" nation (or whatever). Anti-gay discrimination is "only about marriage" — except when it isn't. And so on.
Now that's spooky.
More on the history of Halloween here and of All Saints Day here. More on the history of Election Day here.
Have fun.
Posted by Kip on
31 October 2005
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