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The Origins of Halloween: When the Saints Took Over · Theology Made Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Theology Made Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jordan.
• 0:09
  And in today's episode,
• 0:10
  we're going to look at the night the saints took over
• 0:13
  Halloween.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: October 31st.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: In one world,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: kids in Spider-Man costumes dash from door to door,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: pillowcases bulging with candy,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: parents ready to steal all the Reese's,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: pumpkins grin from porches,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: skeletons dangle in windows.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: The night's playful, silly, spooky.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: But rewind 800 years, and the same night feels very different.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: A monastery bell tolls.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Candles flicker in long stone corridors.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Monks chant prayers for the souls of the departed.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Villagers gather outside around bonfires,
• 0:51
  whispering that this is the night when the veil between the
• 0:54
  living and the dead
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: grows thin.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Two nights, same day.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: One is candy, the other is prayers.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Both called Halloween.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Long before pumpkins, costumes, or candy, there was Samhain.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: For the ancient Celts of Ireland and Scotland,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Samhain marked the end of the harvest,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: the close of summer,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: and the first bite of winter's darkness.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was in every sense their New Year's Eve.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But this New Year's wasn't celebrated with fireworks or champagne.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was celebrated with...
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Celts believed Samhain was a threshold night,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: a time when the boundaries of the world grew thin.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The walls between living and dead, paper thin.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: The line between natural and supernatural, easily crossed.
• 1:40
  On Samhain,
• 1:41
  spirits wandered,
• 1:42
  the dead returned,
• 1:43
  not in metaphor,
• 1:44
  but in presence.
• 1:46
  Ancestors came back to their homes,
• 1:48
  sometimes welcomed with offerings of food.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But not all spirits were friendly.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some were restless, angry, hungry.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the night became one of both hospitality and terror.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You honored the ancestors and defended yourself against darker forces.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: To mark Sawin, villagers lit enormous bonfires.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're not talking about cozy hearth fires.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: These were towering infernos built on hilltops, visible for miles.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking Gondor calls for aid level.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The fire was seen as a purification.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: The fire protected.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Families drove their cattles between twin bonfires for blessing.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ashes were spread in fields to guard the crops.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the people themselves, they dressed for the occasion.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: They donned costumes.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Animal skins, masks, hides, grotesque disguises.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: But this really wasn't about fun.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was for survival.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here is their logic.
• 2:45
  If spirits roam the earth,
• 2:46
  perhaps you could fool them into thinking you were one of them.
• 2:50
  If a ghost passed by your door and saw a monstrous figure,
• 2:53
  it might move on.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Again, not playful.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The costumes were camouflage.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Food was left out as an offering.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not Snickers, not candy corn, but bread, milk, and meat.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: A plate was set at the table for the departed.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The door was left ajar for wandering ancestors.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And some of these rituals carried warmth.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We miss you.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We remember you.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: But others carried dread.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Take this food spirit and leave us in peace.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Samhain was not just about the dead.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was about survival.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Winter was brutal.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was unpredictable.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And death hovered in every shadow.
• 3:26
  To keep peace with the dead was to hope for protection in the
• 3:29
  months ahead.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Samhain was also a night of divination.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: If the world grew thin, perhaps you could get a glimpse of the future.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Young women looked in the mirrors by candlelight,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: hoping to see the face of their future husbands.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Others dropped nuts into the fire, watching the sparks to read omens.
• 3:45
  Some filled basins with water and apples,
• 3:46
  bobbing,
• 3:47
  not really for fun,
• 3:48
  but for prophecy.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't superstition to them, it was survival.
• 3:52
  The same night that opened the gate for the dead could also
• 3:55
  open the gate to knowledge.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at modern Halloween,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Costumes, bonfires, food left at doors, ghost stories.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're not looking at something invented in suburbia.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking at the DNA of Samhain.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: The costumes we wear, born of ancient disguises meant to trick the dead.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The trick or treating, an echo of offerings left for wandering spirits.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: The bonfires, the descendants of sacred hilltop blazes warding off evil.
• 4:21
  The ghost stories,
• 4:21
  remnants of a night when the veil between worlds grew thin.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Samhain wasn't Halloween yet, but it was its skeleton.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then came Christianity.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: When the gospel spread into Celtic lands, the church faced a choice.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: What to do with Samhain.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Ban it outright as pagan superstition or baptize it.
• 4:40
  Reshape it into a vigil that proclaimed not the fear of death,
• 4:43
  but the hope of resurrection.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that decision would change the history of October 31st forever.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: The story actually begins, not in Ireland, but in Rome.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: In the 7th century,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: once a temple to all the gods,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: and rededicated it as a church to all the martyrs.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: That day, May 13th, became a feast of remembrance.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But later, Pope Gregory III shifted the date.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: He fixed it to November 1st and expanded it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not just martyrs, but all the saints.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a brilliant move.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: November 1st was close enough...
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: to Samhain to absorb it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of the New Year of the Dead, it became the Feast of All Saints.
• 5:24
  And like every Christian feast,
• 5:26
  it had a vigil the night before,
• 5:28
  All Hallows' Eve.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've grown up with Samhain,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: bonfires,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: mass offerings,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: but now the priest says,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: on this night,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: we don't fear the spirits,
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: we honor the saints.
• 5:38
  the church bells replace the horns the prayers replace the
• 5:41
  spells the food
• 5:42
  offerings at doors become prayers for souls in purgatory the
• 5:45
  costumes remain but
• 5:46
  now they dramatize the struggle of saints and demons heaven and
• 5:50
  hell and so rather
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: than destruction it becomes transformation
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where the name Halloween comes from.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hollow is an old English word for holy or saint.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: All Hallows Day was November 1st, the day of the saints.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: All Hallows Eve was the night before.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, it just kind of slurred into Halloween.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so what had once been Samhain,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: was given new clothes.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the shift was profound.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Samhain taught the dead are dangerous, appease them, or be cursed.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: All Hallows taught the dead in Christ are victorious.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: The saints are not to be feared but celebrated.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Death is not the master, Christ is.
• 6:25
  And instead of hiding from the dead,
• 6:26
  Christians gathered in churches filled with light.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of disguising themselves to trick spirits,
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: they invoked the names of saints as protection.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Same night, same fire, same costumes, but a radically different meaning.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But as you can imagine, the line was never clean.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Medieval people didn't suddenly, oh, abandon their fears.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: The veil still felt thin.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ghost stories still circulated.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Superstition still clung to the night.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so All Hallows' Eve was always a mix.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Half Samhain, half sacrament, half pagan past, half Christian hope.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why the DNA of both still lingers in our Halloween today.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: We dress up, we light pumpkins, we tell ghost stories.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Echoes of Samhain.
• 7:06
  But we also talk about saints,
• 7:08
  martyrs,
• 7:08
  the hope of heaven,
• 7:09
  echoes of all hollows.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Halloween has always been haunted by both.
• 7:14
  Now if you could time travel to a medieval town on the night of
• 7:17
  October 31st,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: you'd recognize it instantly as Halloween.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it wouldn't be the Halloween you know.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was eerie and holy, playful and serious.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: A night with one foot in the church and one foot in the street.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the stone churches, candles glowed in every corner.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Bells rang into the night, not for fun, but as prayers themselves.
• 7:36
  Medieval people believed the ringing of bells could comfort
• 7:39
  souls in purgatory and
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: ward off restless spirits.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So families crowded into pews.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: They prayed the office of the dead,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: reciting psalms and litanies for the loved ones who had died.
• 7:49
  They believed these prayers had power to speed a soul's journey
• 7:52
  to shorten its time
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: in purgatory and to bring hope that their dead were not lost in the dark.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: For them, Halloween wasn't spooky, it was serious business.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Tending to the dead,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: remembering mortality,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: affronting the reality that you too would one day be in the ground.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Step outside and the mood shifts.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Villagers gather around bonfires in the crisp autumn air.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: People leapt through the flames for luck.
• 8:15
  Farmers carry torches to their fields,
• 8:17
  circling their crops with a firelight as a blessing.
• 8:20
  Families banked the embers to relight their hearths at home
• 8:23
  believing a holy fire
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: would guard them through the winter.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not fun.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was fear for survival.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Winter is brutal.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Death was near.
• 8:32
  And again,
• 8:32
  bonfires were a way of saying,
• 8:33
  we see you death and we defy you with fire.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then there were the children.
• 8:37
  They went door to door at night,
• 8:38
  not with plastic pumpkins,
• 8:40
  but they had songs.
• 8:41
  They carried small lanterns,
• 8:42
  sometimes carved from hollowed out turnips with crude faces.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: At each house, they sang or prayed for the dead.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: In exchange, they received a small cake, a soul cake marked with a cross.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was called souling.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the rhyme went something like this.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: A soul, a soul, a soul cake.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Please, good mistress, a soul cake.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: One for Peter, two for Paul, three for him who saved us all.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: The idea was simple.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: You gave bread in exchange for prayers.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the poor prayed for the rich,
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: the rich fed the poor,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: and together the community tended the souls of the dead.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sound familiar?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Solene is the ancient ancestor of trick-or-treating.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: The costumes came later, but the door-to-door exchange that was medieval.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So medieval Halloween was never just one thing.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was a mash-up.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the chapel,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: priests had solemn prayers,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: candles flickered,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: and families whispered the names of the dead.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the streets,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: children knocked on doors,
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: villagers leapt over bonfires,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: and songs echoed through the night.
• 9:36
  in the fields torches circled crops cattle were blessed spirits
• 9:39
  were feared saints
• 9:40
  were invoked so here we see halloween is part liturgy part
• 9:43
  carnival part solemn
• 9:45
  vigil part village fair so again we find a night of paradoxes
• 9:50
  where the dead are
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: both feared and remembered
• 9:52
  and where fire is both terrifying and comforting,
• 9:55
  and where children both begged and blessed.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if you asked a medieval Christian what Halloween meant,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: they might say something like,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is the night we remember we will die.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But not in a morbid way, but in an honest way.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Death was everywhere.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Plague, childbirth, hunger, war.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: To laugh at death, to dress as it, to leap over fire in its face.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really trivial, it was mental survival.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Halloween was their yearly memento mori, remember you will die.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it was also a memento spi, remember you will rise.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because the night was not only for death, it was for saints, all hollows.
• 10:32
  The dead in Christ were not lost,
• 10:34
  they were part of the great cloud of witnesses.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So Halloween in the Middle Ages was both haunted and holy,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: a night where you could feel the veil still thin,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: but also hear the church bells insist,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Death does not have the last word.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then came 1517.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: On October 31st,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther sends his 95 theses to be nailed to the door at Wittenberg.
• 11:00
  And he's not thinking of costumes or bonfires,
• 11:03
  but he was thinking of saints.
• 11:04
  Because indulgences,
• 11:06
  relics,
• 11:06
  and prayers for the dead were all tied to All Saints Day.
• 11:09
  Pilgrims were about to arrive in Wittenberg to venerate
• 11:12
  Frederick the Wise's relic collection.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So Luther, he timed his protests for maximum impact.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween, in that moment, becomes something else.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: The birthday of the Reformation.
• 11:23
  For Protestants,
• 11:24
  the night lost much of its connection to saints and souls.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, suspicion of Halloween grew.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Too Catholic.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Too superstitious.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Too much about the dead.
• 11:33
  And when the Protestant Reformation fractured Europe,
• 11:35
  it also fractured Halloween.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: For Catholics,
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: All Hallows' Eve remained a sacred vigil,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: followed by All Saints and All Souls' Day.
• 11:43
  But for Protestants,
• 11:44
  particularly Puritans,
• 11:45
  the holiday was,
• 11:47
  as the kids say,
• 11:48
  sus.
• 11:49
  Too Catholic,
• 11:50
  too superstitious,
• 11:51
  too full of saints,
• 11:52
  spirits,
• 11:52
  and purgatory.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when the Puritans sailed across the Atlantic to the New World,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: they brought their faith and they left Halloween behind.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: In 17th century New England,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: there were no All Hallows bonfires,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: there's no prayers for the dead,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: no souling children knocking on doors.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: The calendar was stripped clean.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sundays were holy, feast days were a distraction to the Puritan mind.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween belonged in the dustbin with relics, rosaries, and indulgences.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in America's earliest years, October 31st was just another date.
• 12:20
  Colonial diaries mentioned harvest feasts,
• 12:23
  barn raisings,
• 12:23
  town meetings,
• 12:24
  but no Halloween.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was banned outright in Puritan, Massachusetts.
• 12:29
  Even the suspicion of fortune-telling costumes or ghost stories
• 12:32
  could land you in trouble.
• 12:33
  I mean,
• 12:33
  keep in mind,
• 12:34
  this was the culture that gave us the Salem witch trials.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So fear of spirits wasn't fun.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was dangerous.
• 12:39
  For nearly two centuries,
• 12:40
  Halloween was a ghost itself,
• 12:42
  absent,
• 12:42
  forgotten,
• 12:43
  erased.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But ghosts, they have a way of returning.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: In the 19th century,
• 12:48
  millions of Irish and Scottish immigrants fled famine and
• 12:52
  poverty and arrived on
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: America's shores.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they brought their tradition with them, including Halloween.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: For them, Halloween was still alive.
• 13:00
  So they lit fires,
• 13:01
  they wore costumes,
• 13:02
  they told ghost stories by lamplight.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: They carved lanterns, not from pumpkins yet, but turnips.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: They hollowed out grotesque faces.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: to scare off evil spirits.
• 13:11
  In immigration neighborhoods,
• 13:12
  children's revived the old custom of souling.
• 13:15
  They knocked on doors,
• 13:16
  singing rhymes,
• 13:17
  asked for food or coins,
• 13:19
  and mischief crept in too.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: They tipped wagons, soaping windows, playing pranks.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween became a night of laughter, trouble, and tales of the uncanny.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: But something happened in America that hadn't happened in Europe.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween began to blend.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: The old Celtic Samhain rituals collided with American harvest festivals.
• 13:40
  Protestant townsfolk who once shunned Halloween began to adopt
• 13:43
  it as a community night.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Shripped of saints and purgatory,
• 13:46
  but full of fortune-telling with apple peels and mirror-gazing
• 13:50
  at midnight,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: echoes of Celtic divination,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: turned into light-hearted party tricks.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And by the late 19th century, Halloween was morphing into something new.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Less holy, more just community celebration.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then came the pumpkin.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Irish carved lanterns out of turnips and beets, but in America...
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they found a fruit far bigger, far better, and easier to carve.
• 14:12
  So the pumpkin was a perfect canvas for grotesque faces glowing
• 14:15
  from within.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the jack-o'-lantern was born.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: An American twist on an old world custom.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: By the 20th century, Halloween was fully secularized.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Churches still marked All Saints Day on November 1st,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: but October 31st now belonged to the children.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And trick-or-treating emerged in the 1920s and 30s,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: spreading coast-to-coast after World War II when candy companies...
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, their eyes lit up because they saw the potential.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: The soul cake had become a Snickers bar,
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: the bonfire had become a glowing pumpkin,
• 14:45
  and the prayers for the dead had been replaced with pranks and
• 14:48
  pillowcases of
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: candy.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And by the mid-20th century,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween had fully shed its Catholic saints,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: but it had kept its Celtic skeletons.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was still about the veil between life and death,
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: still about disguises and offerings,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: still about laughter in the face of fear,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: but the saints were gone and the gospel was largely forgotten.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so Halloween was reborn in America,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: not as All Hallows' Eve,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: but as a cultural carnival of candy,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: costumes,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: and ghosts.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween, it had crossed the ocean, died, and risen again.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: but without its saints.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: By the mid-20th century,
• 15:20
  Halloween was no longer a night of prayer for the dead or
• 15:22
  bonfires on hills.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was a night of costumes, candy, and community.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: A night of children, not saints.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't stop there, because Halloween became big business.
• 15:34
  After World War II,
• 15:35
  sugar rationing ended,
• 15:36
  and candy companies,
• 15:38
  well,
• 15:38
  they saw their chance.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: They flooded neighborhoods with ads tying candy to Halloween.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't send your kids out empty-handed, they said.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hand them treats.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Trick-or-treating exploded.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: By the 50s, it was a national custom.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Candy wasn't just a treat, it became the currency of Halloween.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: The soul cake?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was now a Hershey's bar.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: The offering of bread for prayers was now a Kit Kat for a costume.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then Hollywood?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: They smelled an opportunity.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: In the 1930s, Dracula and Frankenstein gave Halloween its monsters.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the 1960s, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, gave it heart.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: In the 1970s, John Carpenter's Halloween gave it terror.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Soon, Halloween was no longer just for kids.
• 16:17
  It became a stage for America's anxieties about death,
• 16:20
  about evil,
• 16:21
  and the unknown.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the silver screen turned October 31st into the season of vampires,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: zombies,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: slashers,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: and jump scares.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween was now entertainment.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And by the late 20th century,
• 16:33
  Halloween had become the second biggest commercial holiday in
• 16:36
  America right after
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Christmas.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Haunted houses sprang up in abandoned malls and cornfields.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Theme parks cashed in with fright nights.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Costume companies churned out endless aisles of plastic masks,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: polyester capes,
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: and rubber spiders.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even the economy shifted.
• 16:51
  Billions of dollars poured into candy costumes,
• 16:53
  pumpkins,
• 16:53
  parties,
• 16:53
  and horror films.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: For six weeks, every fall, America became a haunted carnival.
• 16:59
  And then on November 1st,
• 17:00
  when you went to Walmart,
• 17:01
  the skeletons were replaced by Santa Claus.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: But something else happened along the way.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween stopped being just for kids.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Adults started joining in.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: At first with small costume parties,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: then with massive parades,
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: nightclub bashes,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: and elaborate cosplay.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween became your cultural permission slip one night a year.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can go dress up as a dragon or an inappropriate nurse.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so Halloween just turned into America's masquerade ball,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: blending fear with fantasy and death with desire.
• 17:30
  But somewhere in the candy costumes in cinema,
• 17:32
  Halloween's original soul was lost.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: The saint of all hollows faded from memory,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: the prayers for the dead were forgotten,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: and what remained were skeletons and pumpkins,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: the Celtic bones without the Christian flesh.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween was still about death, but there was no resurrection.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Still about fear, but no hope.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Still about the thin veil, but there were no saints on the other side.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so today,
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: when we carve pumpkins and hang cobwebs,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: we're carrying different echoes,
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Celtic fire festivals,
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: medieval soul cakes,
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: and Catholic vigils.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But, stripped of their theology, they've just become entertainment.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween is the haunted holiday.
• 18:05
  A night when death walks the streets,
• 18:07
  but mostly in plastic masks and polyester capes.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: A night when fear is fun,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: death is decorative,
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: and the only prayer is,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hope I get the large candy bars in my bag.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Halloween, by the 21st century, would become thoroughly secular.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, I think beneath the candy and costumes, its old DNA still whispers.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is a night about death, about spirits, and about what lies beyond.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why Christians have always wrestled with it.
• 18:32
  If you strip Halloween back to its bones,
• 18:34
  it's always been about the same thing.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Death.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: For the Celtics at Samhain,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: it was about fearing death,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: appeasing it,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: and disguising yourself from it.
• 18:42
  For the medieval church,
• 18:44
  it was about confronting death with prayer,
• 18:46
  fire,
• 18:46
  and saints.
• 18:47
  For Protestants,
• 18:48
  it was about rejecting superstition but still living with the
• 18:51
  shadow of death.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And for modern culture,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: as we often do,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: it's about laughing at death,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: turning into costumes,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: candy,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: and cinema.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: But in every version, the question is the same.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do with death?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Celts feared it.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: They lit bonfires to keep spirits away.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: They carved lanterns to ward off evil.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: They disguised themselves to hide from death's approach.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in truth, we do the same thing.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Our skeleton decorations, our horror movies, our haunted houses...
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: In a way, they let us keep death at arm's length.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: We mock it, but we don't escape it.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: We dress it in plastic and sugar so we don't have to face it head on.
• 19:30
  The genius of the medieval church was not in denying death,
• 19:33
  but reframing it.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: On All Hallows' Eve,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: the church said,
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: the veil is thin,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: but what lies beyond is not just fear,
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: but hope,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: saints,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: and resurrection.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: The prayers for the dead,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: the candles in the chapel,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: the tolling bells,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: all of it was a way of declaring death?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Death doesn't get the final word.
• 19:52
  Halloween became the prelude to All Saints Day when the church
• 19:55
  proclaimed that
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: countless men and women had walked through death into life.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the heart of it.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity doesn't avoid death.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: It stares it down.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says death has been swallowed up in victory.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where, O death, is your sting?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Where, O grave, is your victory?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Celts trembled before spirits.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: The medieval villagers prayed in fear of purgatory.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: The modern world trivialized death with candy.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what the gospel declares.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Christ is risen.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Death is defeated.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: The saints are alive in him.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And one day you will rise too.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween is a night obsessed with the grave.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the Christian story says that grave is empty.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for listening to Theology Made.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you enjoyed this,
• 20:39
  please share it with someone you know and like on whatever
• 20:41
  platform you are
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: listening to.