Heres Why We Really Celebrate Halloween – While many Americans spend October enthusiastically planning Halloween costumes and candy, many conservative evangelical Christians view the holiday with trepidation. Priests can warn of “demonic spirits and curses” that may be associated with Halloween traditions, and parents can ask teachers and others to excuse their children from Halloween events. In light of concerns about offending religious families, some schools have banned Halloween celebrations altogether, and some communities are holding fall harvest festivals instead of trick-or-treating.
And this year, model Hailey Bieber — who, like pop star husband Justin Bieber, is very open about her Christian faith — was criticized online by fellow Christians for posting on Instagram that Christians shouldn’t feel guilty about celebrating Halloween .
Heres Why We Really Celebrate Halloween
The history of Halloween and Christianity goes back to the Middle Ages. The roots of trick-or-treating can be found, for example, in the medieval Christian tradition, in which the poor would go to rich homes on Hallowtide – the eve of All Saints’ Day – and offer prayers in exchange for food and beer.
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But while Halloween has long included symbols of death and demons, the origins of the question of whether Christians should celebrate Halloween are recent.
In fact, it’s only in the last half-century that the conversation has gained traction, coinciding with evangelical Christians playing a more vocal role in American political life since the 1960s — and with American culture pushing the boundaries of what once seemed normal.
, citing concerns over the glorification of “hidden themes” by rockers like Black Sabbath and fears that devil worship might occur. “There’s a real sense in the early 1970s that people are starting to almost aestheticize evil, and [opponents] see that in rock music and the growing popularity of Halloween.”
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Annual Hill Halloween Fest 2014
“Falwell thought it could be used to teach about devil worship and temptation,” says Bivins. Amidst his perception of “the growing normalization of sexual promiscuity, drug use, and rock culture, he became convinced that if you could beat Halloween, you could mount some kind of insurgent attack against all the other evils of culture.”
That thinking, Bivins says, led to “Scaramare,” started in 1972 by Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Inspired by “Scream in the Dark”, a production in Bakersfield, California, it was conceived as a form of publicity similar to a haunted house, with ghosts surprising guests in the dark, but designed to challenge guests to think about what happens next .. when they die.
And during the 1980s, anti-Halloween messages grew, as religious concerns outweighed fears that children would be spoiled in every way.
After three people died in the Chicago area from swallowing Tylenol tablets laced with cyanide a month before Halloween in 1982, some parents were reluctant to let their children go trick-or-treating for fear of miscreants handing out the poisoned candy. Stories of razor blades found in apples during trick-or-treating increased in the 1970s and early 1980s, although scientists such as sociologist Joel Best dismissed most of these stories as hoaxes. The fear of child abduction was widespread. A general panic about Satanism took hold in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Dungeons & Dragons players were accused of being a cult luring children into Satanism, and Gerald Rivera’s TV special, “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground,” which aired the week before Halloween 1988 only fueled those concerns. Televangelist Pat Robertson even warns that Halloween is a day when millions of children “celebrate Satan.”
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“In the United States, there is a long-standing discourse of ‘innocents in danger,'” says Bivins. “In the early Reagan years, it became a cliché in American culture that everything was going to hell.”
As conservative evangelicals made their voices heard in local school board races around 1990, debate raged over whether schools could put up Halloween displays featuring images of witches. These were discussions that, recorded in 1993, often said “more about the political and religious beliefs of the parents than about the education of their children.”
Scaremare still exists, as do other “Christian alternative Halloween” events. In particular, Keenan Roberts’ “Hell House” in Arvada, Colorado, drew attention to the idea in the mid-1990s, showing participants particularly graphic scenes designed to inspire them to affirm their commitment to their Christian faith.
Christian opposition to Halloween, Bivins argues, remains “a natural extension of the latent panic that began in the 1960s, and clearly [there is] anxiety about the decline of Christianity’s cultural hegemony.” Research shows that in the last decade the number of people who do not identify with any religion has increased and that younger Christians are less likely than older Christians to say that religion is “very important” to them.
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But while people are dressing up for Halloween, the controversy over whether to celebrate the holiday is going nowhere. Halloween on October 31st is undoubtedly the scariest and spookiest holiday of all. Children dress up as Batman, Joker, Wonder Woman or another favorite character; they go to parties or walk around the neighborhoods with lanterns full of candy while making jokes or giving treats. Creepy decorations fill windows and porches, and screams can be heard in living rooms across the country as we binge on our favorite horror movies together.
Although Halloween is supposed to look a little different this year, See’s Candies wanted everyone to know that you can still safely celebrate and have fun! There are plenty of ways to celebrate Halloween that don’t involve going door-to-door trick-or-treating looking for Halloween candy.
Halloween is one of our favorite holidays – it’s the perfect combination of scares and sweets. This year, we’re definitely looking forward to a Halloween with more candy and treats than screaming and fear. To celebrate all things sweet, See’s Candies is sharing some fun facts about Halloween candy. So sit back, relax, unwrap the chocolate bars and enjoy these terrifying facts.
Yes, you read that right. Around £35 million is made each year (and most of it is spent on Halloween). If you put each of these kernels side by side, they would circle the Earth 4.25 times – that’s almost 106,000 miles of sweet corn.
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According to 2019 data, 172 million people celebrated Halloween, of which 95% will buy candy. That’s half the country! It is unclear how many of these sweets are given to children, and how much we adults hoard for ourselves and definitely do not say so.
This one comes from our friends at See’s! In 2012, they made history by creating the largest lollipop in the world. At 7,003 pounds and 5′ 11″ tall, the lollipop weighed nearly a dozen bears, 1.5 luxury sedans, or 5 horses. Add a toothpick and it was over 16″ tall!
These days Halloween and candy go hand in hand, but that wasn’t always the case. In the 1930s and 1940s, trick-or-treaters could be gifted with many different things in their baskets, from pastries and fruit, to nuts or even barter. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Halloween became really big and candy became the norm. We’re grateful for the change… have you ever accidentally bitten into a quarter?
Americans eat a lot of candy, about 22 pounds. Half of that is chocolate alone (11 lbs). In fact, Americans eat a total of 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate each year. But before you start that U-S-A, U-S-A song, know that we’re not the only country that loves chocolate. Germans eat almost 29 kilograms of sweets, and Swiss almost 20 kilograms of chocolate!
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Source: The average American eats 22 pounds of candy a year; Switzerland is the first in terms of chocolate consumption; Countries that eat an awful lot of sweets
The word Halloween or Hallowe’en originates from before the 16th century and is based on the early Christian past. In Old Scots, Hallowe’en translates as “All Saints’ (Holy) Eve” which refers to “All Saints’ Eve”, the day before All Saints’ Day, the solemn occasion when all the heavenly saints of the Catholic Church were honored. In the 18th century, Halloween appeared with the spelling we know today.
Going back in time, Halloween is fascinating because it has so many customs that go back to its pagan roots. For example, the tradition of bringing apples for Halloween reminds us of the Roman invasion of England. As part of Roman paganism, they brought the apple tree, the symbol of Pomona, the goddess of abundance. During the annual festival, young people desiring marriage bit into apples floating in the water. According to beliefs, whoever bites the apple gets married next.
But we actually have the Celts to thank for Halloween. They were an ancient people who lived in the areas of modern Ireland, northern France and the United Kingdom. Halloween’s pagan roots go back thousands of years to the Celtic fire festival of Samhain,
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