Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / What Can Christians Do About Halloween? || SLP689

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What Can Christians Do About Halloween? || SLP689 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of Christians go outdoor knocking and they want to talk about Jesus and how amazing he is.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: But there's one night a year where they'll come to us.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: But there must be a way in which I am able to say I'm not fearful of the principalities and powers because I have a Jesus who has conquered them.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean I have to like it.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean I have to want to see things.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: This world is a locked room and no one gets out alive.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're kind of living in a horrible.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: Oh shovel!
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think I got that from Glenth.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was a dark and stormy night.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Three Speak Life employees sat down to discuss Halloween and how we as Christians can think through this challenging topic.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: My name's Thomas Thorgood, and I'm joined by I'm Naomi.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you spell that first, but and I'm Eleanor.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Eleanor, welcome.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we are we thought it'd be good to do an episode about Halloween because it's rapidly approaching.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a bit of a gnarly topic, isn't it?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it comes up every year, obviously.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like it comes up every year.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell why I don't normally post this podcast.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, Christians I think have very differing views on how to engage with it, if at all.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can begin by asking, I would just want to ask each of you, what are your plans for the 31st of October 2026?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi, ask one of you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um I am, for the first time, is throwing a Reformation celebration.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: I realised last year, I think it was, that the 31st of October is down as Reformation Day.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I only learned about the Reformation relatively recently.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, wow, this is amazing.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we not celebrating this more?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, so bring it, it's like wear a Martin Lisa outfit if you can.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, what does a Reformation party involve?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's gonna involve pin the 95 Theses on the donkey.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's gonna be.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well the donkey, not the door.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the donkey would be funnier, wouldn't it?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh the five sodas of the Reformation.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna come up with five mocktails, cocktails.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Very good.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of fun.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I uh it's it's not really it's not like an alternative Halloween celebration.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's more just that it happens to be on the same day.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and we might get to that when we're thinking about the history of it, and maybe there was a reason behind Martin Luther choosing that particular date in the church calendar.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Eleanor, what about you?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like for you?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: The 30th of October is actually my mum's birthday.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm headed uh home to North London where my parents live for that weekend.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll probably spend uh Saturday playing some board games.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, although my parents have threatened to get me involved uh in uh sort of lighting up our house so that uh trickle treaters coming past will have some uh some Jesus shined upon in the form of fairy lights.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not really sure.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was just I was I had a call with my mum yesterday and she was like, we might get you involved in this.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not really sure what it's gonna be.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Did you do that growing up?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not really.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: My mum was quite anti-Halloween growing up, but I think the I think we'll get to it a bit later.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: This the there's an initiative that's going on at the moment that I think their Vicar has got got a hold on and is encouraging everyone to do.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I'm thinking I might uh wear like I have some things that aren't really costumes that I wear every day, but that other people might consider costumes.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like what?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like my cow outfit.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Your cow outfit.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Have you never seen the cow outfit?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I have like cow dungarees and then like a whole load of accessories that go with them that make like the whole outfit.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: So like I might basically do an outfit that looks a little bit like a costume so that if we do answer the door to any trick or there's a sort of costume idea to it.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Naomi's dressing up as Martin Luther.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am Eleanor's dressing up as a cow.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Good time.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: What are your plans for the city?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have been invited to your Reformation party.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: So why are you coming out?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Depending on your answers right now, you might be able to get it.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: I just think it would be so funny having a flat full of people dressed as Martin.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I've still got my graduation gown somewhere.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, great shout.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, great shout.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the funny thing is, ironically, so I, as you know, I have a YouTube channel where I talk about horror films from a Christian perspective.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like people would expect me to be doing loads of things for Halloween.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really do anything for Halloween.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was never really a big thing in my family.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I think part of what I'm intrigued by with this conversation is to think about are there any ways that we as Christians can can think about this time?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because as we get into the history, it does have a profoundly Christian history that has been mingled with all sorts of other elements and a commercialisation element.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit like how Christmas and Easter, as they're celebrated today, profoundly Christian history to it, but it's also loads of other things that have been added in.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's almost hard to know what to do with some of those accoutrements.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the word?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Say that again?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Accoutrements.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't actually know what that word is.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's all right.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think of me?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is it like French for stuff?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you say that you don't do anything for Halloween, but we literally did something for Halloween earlier.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's very true.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not on Halloween itself, but in the run-up, yes, we went to Shocktoberfest, didn't we?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: For the third year in a row.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to tell listeners what that is?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh for the past three years, during the month of October, Thomas and I have headed to a place called Tully's Farm, which is near the Three Bridges area, if anyone knows where that is, uh in the south of the UK.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they tend to put on seasonal sort of festival things.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so during October uh they have two different events.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: They have sort of a pumpkin uh picking, carving, like cozy thing.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then they also have this thing called Shoctoberfest, where they have a number of what they call haunts uh where you cue up, you go in, and there's sort of a theme and you get chased round uh a sort of a set that's been made into something like uh a creepy circus or a haunted house or give me another one.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a zombie town, isn't it?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a really intricate set where you're walking through a Greg's and it looks really realistic, but it's all fake, but you can see the pastries out and stuff.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like you're just walking through this town centre, but then zombies are changing.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Chasing you.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: And these are and it's all paid actors.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I believe so.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like running after you.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you intentionally like you pay to go and have people run after you looking like zombies with chainsaws and stuff.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think any of the zombies have chainsaws.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, is that a f is that a thing I know nothing about you know the whole horror genre?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Do zombies not use chainsaws?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, although that's actually a kind of a good idea.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of want to see that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it is quite weird, but incredibly popular and loads of people there that you wouldn't necessarily expect to be there.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is it you have to be above a certain age?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's kind of a There are some recommendations, uh, but we have seen people come in with quite young, uh not young, sort of 10, 11, 12, I think is probably the youngest we've around that age that I've seen.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have to have like parental permission and things like that.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I wouldn't I probably wouldn't take a child to it.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I realise it's like a complicated thing for a Christian to go to.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think what fascinates me about it was this sense that people were wanting to participate in a shared experience of something confronting, something beyond them.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it maybe reflects a sense that as church attendance has declined, people have kind of looked to other things to provide that sort of experience, and one of those has been horror, maybe.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that leads to all sorts of perverse directions potentially.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I suppose we're hoping to think in this episode about is there anything redeemable about this or anything that Christians can learn from that or bring to that conversation?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So with that said, would it be helpful to talk about what Halloween actually is?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, teach me.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I have like no idea to be honest.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping this won't be too much of a download of information, but I did find this quite interesting.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting comfortably.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So in pre-Christian Europe, the Celts had a celebration around late October, early November, depending on the phases of the moon.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that was called Sawin.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard that?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do you spell it?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Spell uh S-A-M-H-A-I-N, but I think it's pronounced Sawin.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it means end of summer.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially it was marking as the days get shorter and it gets colder and it's the end of the harvest, the Celts would light these massive bonfires and sacrifice animals and crops, and it was kind of to mark the we're heading into winter now.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you sometimes hear claims that they wore masks and went door to door and sacrificed virgins and stuff, and that's where our Halloween traditions have come from.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, not sacrificing virgins, but I don't know if that happens in the It's not my tradition.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that's largely now viewed as like unproven myths.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's unlikely that the Halloween we have today owes much to those like pagan traditions.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We actually know very little about what the Celts were doing at that time.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: But then you have how the Christian element has kind of come in.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So in the fourth century, the early church had a celebration for all saints, and it was originally in May or the day following Pentecost, and there's a theory that it was set up to replace a Roman day of the dead.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if the Romans were kind of thinking about the dead from a pagan perspective, the Christians wanted to on that day think instead about how you know deceased Christians have gone to glory and Christ is the one who overcomes death.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So almost appropriating that Roman acknowledgement of death and Christianising it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in the Middle Ages, the Germans shifted All Saints to November the 1st, and Pope Gregory III in the 8th century moved All Saints Day to November the 1st to align with the German date.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why exactly, maybe he was a founder of the Germans.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in Western Christianity you have this establishment of a season called All Hallow Tide, which is a All Hallow Tide, or is it one word?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's a three-day observance.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So All Hallows Eve or All Saints Eve or Halloween is October 31st, so the day before 1st of November.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: All Hallows Day or All Saints Day or Hallow Mass, as it's sometimes called, is on the 1st of November.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: Hallow Mass.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And 2nd of November is the third day.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do any of you know what the 2nd of November is?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I was partly there when you were doing some of this research.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's All Souls Day.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: All Souls Day.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, interesting to think about what Christians throughout the Middle Ages would have done on those three days.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the 31st of October, All Hallows Eve, traditionally that was when Christians would pray and fast and they'd have some kind of vigil, and then they'd visit a graveyard or cemetery and place flowers and candles to remember loved ones.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that was in preparation for All Saints Day or All Hallows Day, 1st of November.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a celebration for saints and martyrs.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the liturgical colour of that is white to represent victory in life, which is interesting.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that is still observed by many Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Anglicans.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Although I don't think my church has ever done anything for All Saints Day.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have have you guys ever to been to an All Saints like day celebration at a church?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I have.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: No, but I'm quite new to the Anglican church, so Fair.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Also, your church is called All Souls.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: So you're just like holding out waiting for the second, ready to go for it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is what I'm intrigued by because All Souls Day was so All Saints was focusing specifically on saints and martyrs.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: All Souls Day was to commemorate all departed Christians.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where you have a bit of an interesting like Protestant-Catholic thing, because I guess as Protestants we would want to say that all Christians are saints.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why a lot of Protestants will now just have All Saints Day, and they'll think about all departed Christians on that day.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas Roman Catholics might think about canonised saints and martyrs on All Saints Day and then all souls on All Souls Day.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a day when people would pray for people in purgatory and stuff in the Catholic Church.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: So on on um All Hallows Eve, you is was that not also when they were commemorating all of the deceased?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: What you say they went to people's graves and stuff?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I suppose that was kind of the fast before the feast.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was in preparation for All Saints Day.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: What is a hallow?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So interest yeah, the word hallow, we kind of only encounter it now in the Lord's Prayer, hallowed be your name.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of to do with holy, saintly, that kind of thing.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's an alternative word to saint in this scenario.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of interesting how the word Halloween kind of it comes from hallowed.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: But during All Souls Day in the Middle Ages, and this is maybe an interesting early form of trick or treating, the poor used to engage in a door-to-door offering of prayers for those in purgatory in exchange for soul cakes.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this was called souling.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So people would go door-to-door knocking, pray for the dead, and get some food in return.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was kind of during the 1400s in England.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so as I say, All Souls Day, quite Roman Catholic, linked to purgatory.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Many churches now combine it with All Saints Day, and many churches now don't think about All Saints Day at all.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd be intrigued by whether there's something we could recover from that practice for the first of November.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: After your Reformation party.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that brings us to 1517.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, exactly as you pointed out, that was the day, October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis, theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church, not a donkey.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I know.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Poor donkey.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so we celebrate that today as Reformation Day.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I was intrigued by this.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why did he choose that day?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of theologians think, well, because it was a busy day for the church, he wanted his theses to be seen, so he picked all Saints, all Hallows Eve.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people would have been gathering around the church.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: But there some people reckoned that actually he was making a theological point as well, because that in the Catholic Church at the time was a particular focus on venerating relics and um also people purchasing indulgences, which were the very practices Martin Luther was critiquing.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So by sorry, do you want to just venerating relics and what was the other thing you said?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Purchasing indulgences.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's something that everyone knows what it means.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so relics would be like um parts that are allegedly from actual saints or apostles, so you might have here's a piece of the cross that Jesus was crucified on.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or I went to the Basilica of Holy Blood in Bruges, and that they claim to have a vial of blood actually from Jesus.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so people will pilgrims will travel miles and miles to venerate these relics.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um there is like you know, Paul in the Bible, some of his handkerchiefs bring healing to people, so there's like arguably some biblical basis for it, but people were getting really fixated on it in the Middle Ages, and Martin Luther was like, This has gone too far, you're losing sight of the fact that we need to come to Christ himself rather than these relics, and then indulgences, these were things where, if I'm right, people would pay the church and in order to get less time in purgatory and that kind of thing.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it was this claim that you could sort of buy spiritual perks and blessings.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Martin Luther, I think, rightly saw this as corruption uh that he needed to call out.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that all these practices were going out, going on in all hello tide, maybe that's why he chose October the 31st to be like, I'm gonna call some of this out.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wonder what he would make of what it's turned into now.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Where just where churches are just like, I've no idea what to do.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Do we avoid it?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Do we throw a light party?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Do we engage conversations with our neighbours?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Do we like celebrate the dead saints and the cloud of witnesses?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that'd be fun.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: We should do that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is the weird thing.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It already feels like it's becoming quite knotted.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, you have the development of all these folk traditions, and Jonathan Peugeot reckons because the church's focus on all hallutide was about the positive side of death and wanting to celebrate, you know, life after death.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said it was natural that around that time you'd get folk traditions that would press into the darker and more horrific and monstrous side of death.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where you get the carnival and people putting these kind of scary jack-o' lanterns.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think originally the I don't know what that is.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the originally the Irish would put lights in turnips.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_04: Turnips.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it was some tr some folklore about this guy called Stingy Jack, I believe.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it was this this legend about this man called Stingy Jack, who for some reason he was rejected by God and the devil.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: So he was condemned to just walk the earth for eternity.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so people would put lights in turnips to ward him off.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when the Irish kind of emigrated to America in about the 1800s, they started using the native pumpkin fruits instead.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how people think the Halloween lantern originated.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, wow.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some Christian connections, but also a lot of folklore and mythical elements coming in there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then this is quite interesting.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we're getting to the modern day now.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the 1900s, childish mischief became very common in the US around October.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds like it's a disease, isn't it?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: So in in Detroit, it was, I think the 30th of October became known as Devil's Night because it was a time when loads of kids would just run riot and vandalize stuff.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so trick-or-treating was actually introduced as a way of helping kids to kind of get that out of their system, but in a safe way.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's like, okay, you can go around and knock on people's doors, but you'll get a treat.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't need to smash their door down.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: They will willingly give you some sweets.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that is actually a very modern practice.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: 1930s is kind of when trickle treating got off the ground.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's worth saying that so Halloween is so much bigger in America than it is here.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of an American export, the whole, all the merchandise that comes with it, and the costumes and the pumpkins and trick-or-treating.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so maybe this conversation is different in a UK context because we're not as used to it being a part of our lives, whereas there it'd be a much bigger thing.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I say there, there's probably lots of listeners from there who can tell us what it's like.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so that's a rough overview of what Halloween is.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Any instant reactions to that?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Any surprises?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's interesting.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's sort of it's all it's like this web of which is very spooky and Halloween-y, um of all of these different things that have come together throughout history that has culminated in this Halloween thing.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it's also interesting that sort of that web has kind of led in different directions for for different countries as well, like the UK and the US.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think the in the US it's very much a commercialised uh holiday.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's really very little connection to anything spiritual in it for for most people in the US.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think they just see it as a chance to dress up and collect sweets.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um whereas in the UK, I think we're probably more aware of those folkish um roots that it has.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot more history in the UK of that kind of folk tale, fairy tale stuff, partly because Anglo communities in the UK are a lot older than than sort of white settlers in the US.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing we have in the UK is Bonfire Night, which comes very soon after it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we were reading, weren't we, that sometimes maybe a lot of these traditions have kind of instead merged with Bonfire Night.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably a much Bigger deal in the UK than Halloween, I would say, on fire night.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: I was interested when you were going through that to see there are there multiple things in the season that are connected to it.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: So there's the the marking of the equinox and the changing of the seasons.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um even the talking about um the sacrifices of crops and animals.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking a bit about kind of harvest celebrations that we do, or even the connections to some of the Jewish festivals around this time of year as well, um, of marking like end of the old news year, start of the new year, the day of atonement, the like Feast of Tabernacles and the First Fruits, and all like lots of that happens now.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: It just feels like a time where there's lots it like we're trying to mark something and we're trying to celebrate something, and we're trying to acknowledge a death of something, whether it's just the summer or relatives or you know, whatever, whatever it might be.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: It feels like now is a time where each each of these things are trying to get at something in this history, but now it looks like maybe a harvest service at a church, maybe a an equinox celebration or wild swim or something, maybe um uh Halloween, maybe an all saints thing, maybe bottom fire.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like maybe Thanksgiving if you fancy importing that from the States as well.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it it's quite knotted, isn't it?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like it feels like I want to do something at the point where the days get shorter, and it's thinking it feels like a good time to think about okay, yeah, there is darkness in the world, but we know that the sun will return.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it this winter isn't gonna last forever, so it feels like a perfect time to sit in the darkness and acknowledge it, but also we know that Christ is the one who overcomes it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: But with that said, maybe now would be a good opportunity, because obviously Eleanor and I have engaged with horror a bit more than you have, Naomi.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: But we thought at this point it'd be important to point out some dangers of Halloween, because we wouldn't want to say, oh, jump in with both feet on everything about it, because it can lead to some very dark directions.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe at this point we could just think, yeah, what are some ways that this can be unhelpful and distorted?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as you said, um the you talked about the children in sort of nine early 1900s who were going out and running riot and how trick or treating was introduced to help settle them and give them an opportunity to get that energy out without it being dangerous.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes in some uh areas, uh depending on a whole load of factors, you can end up with especially teenagers, maybe slightly younger children who go out and cause trouble in the streets who I know my parents' house has been egged before.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I suspect that more uh violent and dangerous things can happen around that time with just young people being allowed on the streets if they're unsupervised.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: That's a good point.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: But it is interesting because I yeah, my thoughts around the dangers of it is not so much like, you know, Bon Finite, someone might get burnt or something.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's more, it's more around the spiritual the spiritual side and thinking, you know, you said with the Shoctober stuff, that there's there's an age limit on it.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, well, if children aren't allowed to engage with this stuff, not just because of a height restriction of a ride or some kind of thing, but because of some sort of an innocence to be protected, why should Christians be engaging with why should someone who wants to ha to think about whatever is pure and lovely and noble and righteous and good engage with the things that are particularly actually celebrating darkness and um but but what you said there was helpful.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: We want to have ways of acknowledging the darkness and acknowledging death and marking it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um but this it seems like if you engage with Halloween, you're not acknowledging it, you're celebrating it in a way that is not really in the way of Jesus.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of overlaps with my defense of well, I think there's a place for horror movies and horror storytelling and stuff.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there are plenty that I'd want to avoid, but I think at its best, in order to depict light overcoming darkness, you do have to depict the darkness to some degree.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, okay.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so obviously you can lean too much into that.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Jonathan Peugeot pointed this out, kind of the tragedy of modern Halloween is that it leans into the darkness, but it no longer has the next part, which is really important, which is the prayer and the sense that Christ has overcome this.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we we talk about the monstrous and the dark for a day, and then we just kind of move on.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like how people still celebrate Mardi Gras, but then they don't do Lent afterwards.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like you've done the first part, but then the really important part of like a prayer and you know bringing it to the Lord, we've now cut that bit out.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think Halloween without Jesus is very bleak and dark.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if if there is a way of yeah, acknowledging the existence of evil, and I'm still trying to figure out what precisely what that would look like practically for Christians, so that we can then also think, no, Christ is the one who overcomes these.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the interesting thing with this is it feels like for m maybe from just my perspective, with Christmas and Easter, I'm able to separate out and say, Oh, this is Christm Christmas without Jesus in it.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's what that looks like.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and we as Christians engage with it in this particular way, da da da.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: With Halloween, I feel like it's just very easy to let the whole thing pass you by.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um because it feels very sort of I don't know, un unknown or like the the roots in it being a a Christian or Hallowtide or whatever you call it.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um that feels so distant that I yeah, I don't even know how how we would take the people putting spiders, webs, and skeletons in their gardens and having masks on their face and like blood and dressing up as rabbits and do you know what I mean?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like like what how would I take what is a very kind of uh frivolous, feels very superficial like thing and and somehow be like, oh no, I'm going to wear a c a clown costume to acknowledge that death is real.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't really understand how how are we supposed to engage with this in a way that's meaningful the way that it is.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's the danger of making light of something that is actually deeply significant.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, pretending like something's not true, as in you know, going to play pretend Ouija boards when there when there's real, there's real spiritual force of evil, that I think is a danger.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of other dangers I thought of so obviously out and out engagement with the occult, we would all be against that.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for some people, Halloween has kind of become an opportunity to let their hair down and be more wild than usual.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that happens among kids as well, but also among adults.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's part of what's going on when you see some people at Halloween like dress up in quite sexualised outfits or very monstrous outfits.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And part of it is this sense of for one night a year, I'm gonna do something I wouldn't normally do.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna let the monster out.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that just feels like a heart.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: The purge film where you're allowed to kill someone.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know the purge.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, it's a horror film where you're allowed people are allowed to kill someone.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Allowed to kill someone for one.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, you're allowed to commit any crimes, aren't you?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for one night a year.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the hope is it will take down the overall crime rate because people can just get it out of their system on one night.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Does it?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: It it kind of becomes very hellish and wow, goodness.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it's that sort of idea in miniature, isn't it?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: That I think some people are I can be monstrous for one night.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't want to express that side of it as a Christian at all.
• 30:03
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• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Back to the conversation.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, okay, so should we move on to potential dangers of not engaging with Halloween at all?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Eleanor, do you have any thoughts?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think uh there are several layers to it.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was uh reading uh a post from someone that we might we might talk about another of their posts earlier, and they said uh in some ways, I think this this is written by someone in the US, so I think that's something to keep in mind.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: But they said it in some ways the traditions around Halloween in the US are more church than church.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, wasn't it?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a neighborhood coming together, it's people knocking on each other's doors and actually talking to each other and speaking to each other and engaging in this this yeah, neighborly behaviour and loving one another and having fun together and uh yeah, lighting lighting up streets with jack-o'-lanterns and things like that.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: And if we just as a church ignore that and try to not think about Halloween and avoid it altogether, then we're missing a huge opportunity of talking to those people who are literally for the one night a year knocking on our doors.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like lots of Christians go outdoor knocking and they want to talk about Jesus and how amazing he is.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: But there's one night a year where they'll come to us.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, I was uh speaking to someone at church on Sunday, um, and uh she's one of our youths, and she was getting very excited about the fact that it's a tradition in her family that they give out um sweets and chocolate and hand out tracts to everyone, like Christian tracts.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's a lovely opportunity to evangelize in some ways.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's interesting.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we when I was a kid, yeah, we didn't.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think genuinely from childhood, one of my one of my main memories of like, oh, we live differently because we're Christians, was that we didn't engage with Halloween and me and my sisters would like sit sit in the like by the window with like a little torch and just like shine lights on people, like and then hide.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we anyway, that's very strange.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we didn't engage with Halloween, and I wasn't allowed to go to Halloween parties except for once when I went dressed as a cat, that was fine.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh and so I think that probably just means and then growing up it's just meant that I I just have not I've not really engaged with it or don't have particular interest in it.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it's probably only now that I'm at a stage of my life where I enjoy throwing parties where I'm like, oh well the 31st of October is now on a Saturday.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: It'd be weird not to do something while the rest of the world is having a party.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um the danger of yeah, the danger of but there's the not engaging with it, which we you just described, but then there's like, is there a danger in um like is there anything wrong with churches doing Halloween alternatives?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we had like growing up, we did a Halloween alternative party, which I always look forward to every year, it's loads of fun.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: We do it with our church um here as well for the kids.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so is is that a good way to sort of acknowledge the season, or is that like just giving a cop-out, like an opt-out so that you can say, Oh sorry, I'm busy, I can't come to a Halloween party, which is what I I thought the strategy was.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, light parties.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I went to a lot of those as a kid.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think I think it's a really nice idea because there's a sense of the churches being hospitable and opening its doors on that day.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I think in some neighbourhoods it makes sense to put it on the same night as Halloween, especially if there's a danger that the youths could get up to no good.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I I would maybe slightly provocatively make the case for putting it on a different night.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do it, do a light party, but put it on a different night, so that as Eleanor says, the church can be present to its community when they're knocking on the doors.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I think there are plenty of kids that are just going to want to trick or treat that night.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they're not going to come along to the light party.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so is there a way that you can engage with with them as well?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have a friend out in uh I think she's currently out in LA, and I was visiting her last September, and her church was getting ready to put on a huge Halloween thing, and they they they were sort of fully embracing it and inviting people into the church to um a Halloween event to sort of engage the community, make themselves well known and what do they do there then?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think because in I think there's less of a culture of dressing up as dark things in the US.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's much more just fancy dress.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like World Book Day in a way.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's great.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you go as a princess or um And that's not saying there isn't horrible dark dressing up in the the the US, but I think in general children are encouraged to sort of dress up as their heroes in some ways.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because that's the other reason why I don't watch horror films or engage with this type of stuff, because I just don't like scary looking things and I've got quite a visual memory, and I just if if I've seen something in an advert or trailer, like I I will just remember for the rest of my life.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so I often sit there in the cinema when it's going through adverts for other films which I'm not interested in watching.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just like shut my eyes because I know if I if I see that it's just gonna stay with me, and then it's the same with any anyway, it's it's something of like I don't even want to I don't even want to see weird, like bloody zombies and you know, half-eaten faces and skeletons, and like why would I even engage with that?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and that's completely fair, and that's definitely not for everyone.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the the thing I would say for light parties, and I think Eleanor, we were talking about this, is like the light party will be more effective if you talk about the darkness that is being overcome.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it this is kind of like what we would say whenever we're preaching the gospel, we have to diagnose the problem.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but yeah, I think if you just talk about Jesus being the light of the world, people are like, great.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose my plea for light parties is that they would sit in and acknowledge the darkness as well as then showing that Jesus is the light who overcomes that darkness.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because against the dark backdrop, the light shines so much brighter.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is true, but this is interesting because I think when we talk about darkness in that sometimes like more metaphorical sense, Jesus is the light and the darkness, especially when it comes to kind of preaching and speaking, it feels like we're talking about darkness in terms of like human morality and the darkness that exists within our hearts kind of thing, which does come out at Halloween.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you just talked about the purge and being committing crimes and killing each other and stuff.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: But um that's a good film, but yeah, but yes.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: Two separate things, the Halloween, yeah, you know, things thing people decide to to do all sorts of anyway, um, and the film.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but interesting then that so we talked about the the need to acknowledge death, and that maybe is where the the whole festival came from.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: This acknowledgement of death and the sayings who have gone before who are sleeping and will be awaken one day, kind of thing.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then the and then I'm just thinking now about the the darkness of like human the human heart.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: But what you're saying is actually that ch this is an opportunity for churches to talk about spiritual darkness which exists outside of us, which we which only really surfaces in general secular conversation at a time like Halloween where we are thinking about non-human beings that are bad.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that is intriguing to me.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: You've got the whole uh passage in Ephesians to put on the armour of the Lord.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: A part of the call before that passage is that there are spiritual forces in the world that you're going to have to fight against.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I and and I think um as well as being a great opportunity for evangelism, um, I think Halloween and this kind of dark time of year is also a great opportunity for us as Christians to to think about these things, to acknowledge the darkness um and uh and to celebrate Christ's victory over it.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned um the verse um whatever is holy, whatever is good, whatever is pure.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Philippians 4.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Philippians 4.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and the the passage that comes before that um tells you to rejoice and it tells you to not be anxious about anything.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a place for acknowledging the darkness and then rejoicing in God's victory and not fearing the darkness and not fearing all of those scary things that come out at Halloween because you know that that ultimately the victory is Christ's and that there is nothing to fear.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um when we as Christians um shy away from Halloween and hide from it, we can be sending a message to others that we do not have a God that is big enough to deal with that darkness.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay, interesting.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I guess actually we're plundering the kingdom of darkness.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love the the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church and gates don't move.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a sense that we're like charging through the gates and bringing the light into these dark places.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: But there must be a way in which I am able to say I'm not fearful of the principalities and powers in the in the heavenly realms because I have a Jesus who has conquered them.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: And but while also saying that doesn't mean I have to like it.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean I have to want to see things.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like yeah, yeah.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I don't think I don't want to fill my mind with them.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wouldn't want necessarily want my message to be we all need to celebrate Halloween.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's just maybe here's an opportunity for us to particularly as Christians think about for ourselves and for our evangelism about the nature of the darkness that Christ is overcoming.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's also a place for treating the dressing up and the sort of horror of it all as uh making a mockery of that which has lost.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I've heard that before.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you guys are convincing me a little bit because you're helping me see practically in terms of an evangelistic opportunity, this is amazing.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: People are gonna come knock at your door and strangers want to talk to you, and well, wonderful.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then also spiritually, this is an opportunity for the for the church to uh like sit with and acknowledge the reality of death and darkness and evil and but to say that we can only do that, we can't really sit with that because there is hope and life and resurrection and light that comes after it.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe your suggestion of a light party, maybe that should be on the first of November.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's like maybe it's like a sleepover situation for the youth where in the evening they they like do some kind of you know Halloween-y type thing, and then in the morning is the light party.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: I like that, and then and then so so the light party could be on All Saints Day.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just a thing on on the the why would we seek out stuff that makes us scared?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I completely get your thing of like you you don't want to look at scary imagery.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and people do have very different temperaments and proclivities, and so there isn't a kind of one size fits all on this at all.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I found this um quote from C.S.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis quite helpful about um he's talking about the context of writing for children, but I think it has wider application.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he says those who say that children must not be frightened may mean two things.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: They may mean one, that we do not do anything likely to give the child those haunting, disabling, pathological fears against which ordinary courage is helpless, phobias.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: His mind must, if possible.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Possible be kept clear of things he can't bear to think of.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or they may mean too that we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: If they mean the first, I agree with them, but not if they mean the second.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: The second would indeed be to give children a false impression and feed them on escapism in the bad sense.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: There is something ludicrous about the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the atomic bomb.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nor do most of us find that violence and bloodshed in a story produce any haunting dread in the minds of children.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: As far as that goes, I side impenitently with the human race against the modern reformer.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing will persuade me that this causes an ordinary child any degree of fear beyond what it wants and needs to feel, for of course it wants to be a little frightened.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I found that quite interesting because this is an a tangent we don't necessarily want to go off on, but there's a difference between like the moving image and photos and cinema, which can really linger with us, and that can be unhelpful for people.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's also just storytelling in general, and so you would probably agree that there is a place for darkness and scary things in our storytelling, and almost a necessity of that, because yeah, those are realities in this world, and if we're not acknowledging them anywhere, then I guess we're not being honest about reality.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is that fair to say?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I suppose yes, in that I it's always good to name the darkness that is real and that exists.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: But like zombies don't exist.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm still like we don't need to add extra darkness to the already dark world.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think things like um if you look into sort of the history of uh of zombies and vampires and things like that, they quite often tend to be, if you dig into them, reflecting dark things about the world or dark things about humanity.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just ways of exploring those within a sort of fan in a fantasy way.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like we might have a heroic knight kill the dragon.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like those things don't happen, but we like to see the heroic knight win because we like to know that good wins.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: And equally um uh over the years, things like vampirism and zombies have meant different things to different cultures.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: So at one point it was a zombies were associated with um voodoo, and they were very much about fear of the foreign and the foreign coming in and sort of infecting um the the neighbourhood and local population.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then in more recent years they've been about a fear of uh of uh sort of nuclear or um or sort with COVID with a fear of viruses and things like that.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: They sort of these these monsters are very much a way for us to process the evil things in the world and to represent them in a very physical way.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say you sort of talked about not wanting to uh to linger on the darkness, not wanting to fill your mind with the darkness.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, I completely understand that.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't particularly want to fill my mind with lots of darkness, but I think for me, my intro I I used to be like you in terms of like I did not like horror at all.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: I found like anything in a sort of a horror movie quite scary.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think I remember when I was a teenager, I I went to one horror movie at the cinema called, I think it was called The Whole or something like that.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I spent almost the entire time with my my hands over my eyes because I couldn't deal with it.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then um I dealt with a lot of difficult mental health stuff at uni.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think after that I took an interest in horror because although I didn't want to fill my mind with dark things, my mind was a dark place, and I know that my mind has a a propensity to go to dark places, and I think seeing darkness played out and and victory gained over it on on screen or in books or uh playing video games is comforting to me to to know that there's darkness that I am battling and to see others overcoming darkness.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's that can be uh a great part of embracing Halloween is as personally as a Christian, is knowing the victory of Christ and the victory of good and that the darkness that uh scares you, whatever it is, will one day be completely vanquished.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I think my my sort of plea to Christians is to be discerning of everything we watch because storytelling is everywhere, isn't it?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it shapes us in all sorts of ways.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for for horror and scary stories, our guard is naturally up because we know that we're gonna be confronted with something scary.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, our guard is maybe lower when it comes to like family movies and rom-coms, but they can have messages that are just as bad, if not worse.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um my hand is always ready to go over my eyes, every film.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: It always does something.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: I raised, close my eyes, close my ears, leave the room, yeah.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: Press far forward, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: So take, for instance, a rom-com that like glorifies an affair and just presents it as, oh, it just felt right, and it was really fluffy and inconsequential.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of a more insidious message than a lot of horror movies because it's dressed up as this very fluffy inconsequential thing.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, whereas horror films refreshingly often have quite a clear-cut morality.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, there's a monster, it's evil, you need to defeat it and get out of there.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in a sense, that's a more accurate reflection of the world we're actually living in, in which there is a diabolical enemy.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this world is a locked room and no one gets out alive.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're kind of living in a horror.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great line.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think I got that from Glenn.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, so that's that's where Halloween would end, but then there is Christ as the one who has slayed that dragon of death.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: So this this current, this studio is now feeling very dark.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: And like there could be anything hiding behind the curtains.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: We need to bring you closer to the fire.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but so how do we then do if you were gonna do some kind of Halloween thing, how do you finish the night with like a hopeful light-filled wa-hoo Jesus Victorious thing?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Was this a good opportunity to talk about Light in the Night?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's brilliant.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we were actually sent this initiative by Andrew Bates, Nay Dawson, and Helen Ward, and it's called Light of the Night.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Eleanor and I checked out their website.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'll put a link in the show notes.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of a summary of it is Halloween is not something to fear, it's an opportunity to meet your neighbours with the love of Jesus.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Check out Light the Night for top tips on how to share Jesus on the 31st of October.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it was quite fun, is on the website they have stories of what people have done, and this kind of draws together all the things we've been talking about.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, Angela, don't know where she's based, she said she set up a spider challenge mini obstacle course on her drive.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: As the children climb through the spider web, they discover a gift bag hanging on the fence filled with a treat, a gospel message, a colouring page, and a local church information.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: My theme is I am not afraid because Jesus is the light.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: It normally takes 50 minutes for 60 children to take part.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is a big spiderweb.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: All the parents love that the children have something to do rather than just ring the doorbell.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love how my neighbours love doing this as a family and I love being a Christian out in the community where I live.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween is the perfect time to share with everyone that Jesus is the light.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that's quite a cool example.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: Engaging with it.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: They've got lots of suggestions up on the website, lots of stories of people using the ideas, so creating almost a stained glass effect on your windows with verses and things like that to light up your house for Halloween rather than going with the classic dark stuff.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think it it's good to have a balance like with the spiders, like having the darkness of the spider web that you have to climb through to get to this thing that tells you to not fear and that Jesus is the light.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: All sorts of great suggestions on there about what as a church and what as a Christian in a uh in your house in your neighbourhood can do.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: You might like this one, Mary, because I know you like the great outdoors.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is St.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Luke's Formby.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: They've hosted for several years now an annual light fair on the Friday or Saturday closest to Halloween.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: We transform our churchyard with fairy lights and solar lights and welcome families from our local community.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you enter via a light trail with lights on the trees.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: They hunt for clues to help piece together a Bible verse which speaks of light, but they then emerge into a clearing where there are s'mores around a roaring fire.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I like that.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of gathering around the campfire in the darkness and cold.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and they have a fire performance done by a member of the congregation who's a fire performer.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something every church.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was gonna say that's seems pretty unique.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I I wonder if I I really like your idea of 31st, all Hallows Eve.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a time when we go to visit the grave of our loved ones, if it's nearby.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think just in general, in culture at the moment, we we don't see death at all, really.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next day, All Saints Day, 1st of November, light party in the church, bring everyone in.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that would be my idea.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hallow or Hallow Tide.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: All Hallow Tide.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: And go to your Reformation party.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, might have to alternate.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'll do something else next year.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'll come out, I'll come up with some other crazy idea.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm already thinking about an ascension party.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's on a Thursday night, which is a bit rogue.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, we'll see what happens next next spring.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a lot of fun.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and let us know, listeners.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can email us at podcast at speaklife.org.uk.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let us know what you're doing for all hallow tide, if anything.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is your church doing a light party?
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to be on the 31st or the 1st?
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Are you doing a reformation party?
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or some combination thereof.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: But uh maybe to close us out, Eleanor, you found on Instagram this post by Greg Bash, who wrote a kind of rendition of the Screwtape Letters, but set around Halloween um magic.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: Can can you just introduce, like, so for people who aren't familiar with the screw tape, what's the premise?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: So the screw tape letters is a book written by C.S.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the theme is that sort of a higher-up devil is writing letters to his nephew, instructing him on how he can best uh tempt the human that he's kind of been assigned to into uh giving up on Christ.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: So here it is.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: My dear Wormwood, I note your patient has begun his annual October trembling.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Splendid.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Keep him trembling.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: Fear is a wonderful misdirector of attention.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: A man terrified of witches on his street will never notice the witchcraft in his own breast.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: The envy, the spells of contempt towards his neighbours, the little curses laid upon his enemies each night before sleep.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: Keep his eyes on the costumes, and he will never see the face beneath his own mask.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing makes our cause look so harmless as a Christian frightened of a seven-year-old dressed as a ghost.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let him turn off his porch light and hide.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: Every dark house on a lit street preaches our sermon for us.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: Here lives a god too small for October.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: Distract the Christian with imaginations of the occult, and he may just forget its powerlessness against him.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: If he ever suspects that the enemy has already won the only battle that matters, and that laughter is permitted, why?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then we shall have lost him entirely.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: And do not neglect the children.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: Teach the little ones to fear the masks.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: A child trained to tremble at a costume will never learn courage, and a church that cannot produce brave children has already surrendered the future without a fight.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: Your affectionate uncle screw tape.