Christian attitudes towards Halloween are quite diverse.
In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions of All Saints’ Day, while some other Protestants celebrate the holiday as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation. Father Gabriele Amorth, a Vatican-appointed exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that." In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on the holiday. Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy.
Many Christians ascribe no negative significance to Halloween, treating it as a purely secular holiday devoted to celebrating "imaginary spooks" and handing out candy. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage. In the Roman Catholic Church Halloween is viewed as having a Christian connection, and Halloween celebrations are common in Catholic parochial schools throughout North America and in Ireland.
Other Christians feel concerned about Halloween, and reject the holiday because they feel it trivializes - or celebrates - paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs. A response among some fundamentalists in recent years has been to use of 'Hell houses', themed pamphlets, or comic-style tracts such as those created by Jack T. Chick in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism. Some consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith because of its origin as a pagan "Festival of the Dead". For example, Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween because they believe anything that originated from a pagan holiday should not be celebrated by true Christians.
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Paganism
Celtic Pagans consider the season a holy time of year.
Celtic Reconstructionists, and others who maintain
ancestral customs, make offerings to the gods and the
ancestors. Some Wiccans feel that the tradition is
offensive to Wiccan practitioners for promoting
stereotypical caricatures of "wicked witches".
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You may also want to research:
• Devil's Night
• Ghost Festival
• Martinisingen
• Qarqe'an
• Walpurgis Night
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