Hey, did you know that not only did Pagans steal Christmas from the Christians, even though Pagans had been celebrating December 25 for centuries before Jesus was born, but they also stole HALLOWEEN? You betcha! If you doubt it, just ask Kirk Cameron.
We’re used to Pat Robertson warning us that Halloween is a time for demonic spirits, but the Christian Post reported,
“Saving Christmas” debunks theories that Christmas began as a pagan celebration of Winter Solstice. In a recent interview, Cameron addressed the same theories as they are applied to Halloween, clarifying why Christians “should have the biggest Halloween party on your block.”
Oh yeah. Kirk Cameron saved Christmas! And Halloween is next. Check it out gang:
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“The real origins have a lot to do with All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve,” the actor told The Christian Post. “If you go back to old church calendars, especially Catholic calendars, they recognize the holiday All Saints Day, with All Hallows Eve the day before, when they would remember the dead. That’s all tied in to Halloween.”
Don’t take your anti-migraine medicine yet. It gets worse.
But first, let’s point out that Kirk needs to go back a little further in Church history. The Celts were celebrating on October 31 a festival known as Samhain (pronounced sow-in), a celebration taking place at the completion of the harvest.
My own Heathen ancestors were celebrating a festival at the same time of year known as Winternights (Old Norse vetrnætr) of which Snorri Sturluson said in the Ynglinga saga, “There should be a sacrifice at the beginning of winter for a good year.”
A good year being important in those days, because in an era before grocery stores and thermostats, what you had saved up, both for heating and for cooking, is what you had. And if you ran out, you died. So these festivals were a big deal, both on religious and on practical grounds.
Of course, as in every other instance the Church came up against stubborn Pagan beliefs, they simply performed a trick called “normative inversion” by keeping the date but substituting their own beliefs into the calendar in their place. Thus, as Wikipedia points out,
In the 9th century, the Roman Catholic Church shifted the date of All Saints’ Day to 1 November, while 2 November later became All Souls’ Day. Over time, Samhain and All Saints’/All Souls’ merged and helped to create the modern Halloween.
Oh Kirk…You should have stuck to being a really sucky actor and stayed away from history – and religion. This is just painfully embarrassing.
Since you didn’t, however, you’re breaking your own commandments by lying, and worse, we have to listen to some really bogus Bartonian drivel:
Early on, Christians would dress up in costumes as the devil, ghosts, goblins and witches precisely to make the point that those things were defeated and overthrown by the resurrected Jesus Christ. The costumes poke fun at the fact that the devil and other evils were publicly humiliated by Christ at His resurrection. That’s what the Scriptures say, that He publicly humiliated the devil when He triumphed over power and principality and put them under his feet. Over time you get some pagans who want to go this is our day, high holy day of Satanic church, that this is all about death, but Christians have always known since the first century that death was defeated, that the grave was overwhelmed, that ghosts, goblins, devils are foolish has-beens who used to be in power but not anymore. That’s the perspective Christians should have.
I don’t see any evidence that death has been defeated. I’ve known plenty of people who have died. As for life after death, well, Christians didn’t come up with that idea any more than they came up with the times of year to celebrate their beliefs. The beliefs, and the festivals, are all stolen from earlier Pagan belief.
Recycled beliefs on recycled festivals.
Best of all, from Cameron’s perspective, because conservatives really love themselves some “white” Christmas, you get to disguise your racism as “fun”:
When you go out on Halloween and see all people dressed in costumes and see someone in a great big bobble head Obama costume with great big ears and an Obama face, are they honoring him or poking fun? They are poking fun at him.
Yeah, nothing racist there! Just a bunch of white guys making fun of a black guy! And good thing Camerons’ fundamentalist friends have never compared Obama to a demon or to Satan huh?
Oh wait…
Koonse tells us “the ‘Fireproof’ star urged Christians to use Halloween as an opportunity to inform others about God with the biggest celebration around.”
You should have the biggest party on your block, and you should have the reason for everyone to come to your house and before anyone else’s house because yours is the most fun,” he told CP. “Halloween gives you a great opportunity to show how Christians celebrate the day that death was defeated, and you can give them Gospel tracts and tell the story of how every ghost, goblin, witch and demon was trounced the day Jesus rose from the grave. Clearly no Christians ought to be glorifying death, because death was defeated, and that was the point of All Hallows Eve.
Wonderful! Another holiday ruined. When our kids shout trick or treat, the homeowner will say, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”
“Sorry, no treats for you, you little Pagan b*stards!”
Happy Pagan Halloween everyone. If there are demons to be exorcised this season, they’re probably white and carrying crosses. Be careful out there.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
