A lot of people don't bother to learn, a lot of peopyours?n't care. People are often content going with whatever they've heard without bothering to look into things for themselves.
Also, have you met the internet? Anyone can say anything and get away with it. It's why there are anti-vaxxers today, there's no way the anti-vaccination movement could be what it is today without the internet.
In the United States, historically the most predominant form of Christianity tended to be Reformed Protestantism, that is, Protestants of a Calvinist bent. And in the 18th and 19th century most Protestants were typically unfriendly toward Roman Catholicism--a history of unpleasantness that goes back to the time of the Reformation itself on both sides. In fact, the Puritans who came to Massachusetts forbade celebrating Christmas, because it was a "Catholic holiday" It was illegal to celebrate Christmas.
The Second Great Awakening, along with the springing up of a number of sects in the 19th century, such as the various Adventist groups (who came out of the Millerite movement) resulted in a growing form of pietistic Protestantism that was just as antagonistic to Catholicism as anything else, but also resulted in losing many of the liturgical elements that had been retained in mainstream Protestant groups (Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Methodists) in favor for revivalistic forms of worship. This also meant a stripping down of the Christian liturgical calendar. These revivalistic and pietistic Protestant groups continued into the 20th century, and are also the basis of the Pentecostal tradition which arose out from the previous Holiness Movement--an outgrowth of that frontier second great awakening pietistic and revivalistic tradition. Also, Fundamentalism arose out of the Modernist Controversy of the early 20th century. Fundamentalism, the rise of Neo-Evangelicalism, and later the resurgence of a Fundamentalist coalition under the Moral Majority with specific ecclesiastical and theological trends (all of these things by the way still not exactly friendly to Catholicism) continued a pattern of a particular Catholic-phobic kind of Protestantism. And things like Halloween were just "Catholic things".
That changed some decades ago when Halloween's association with spooky scary was more solidified as a popular idea, and the adoption of Halloween as by Anton LeVey as a Satanist holy day only amplified the rhetoric. And so the new Fundamentalism of the 60s and 70s took to the warpath, led, in part by fear propagandists like John Todd a major "source" for Jack Chick and his brand of propaganda comic books. The Satanic Panic of the 1980s created a tidal wave of urban legend and irrational fear within the public--which only continued to feed what was already going on in Fundamentalist and Evangelical circles.
Hallowe'en went from part of the Christian calendar, to a "Catholic thing" with the supposition that "Catholic things" are icky and bad, to being a pagan thing, to being an evil satanic thing. However, what Hallowe'en actually is never changed, it's still the first day in the Hallowmas Triduum. And is entirely and explicitly Christian.
The way to fight massive ignorance is by consistent truth-telling.
Which is what, ultimately, I'm doing on this board. Trying to put forward truth to combat fiction. Because a lie, even a lie told often enough, is still a lie. And the only way to deal with a lie is to combat it with truth.
-CryptoLutheran[/QUOTE
I see ur point...a very good one. I saw a post here somewhere with a long attachment with it..was that yours? I need to reread it. How do you celebrate Halloween? I have grandkids and I'd like to share this history with them. I'm not sure how to keep the spookiness out of it. Their parents aren't much for telling them Christian reasons for things. Thanks for the history lesson! My main objective is to always find the truth
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