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What I'd be more worried is pentagrams and upside down crosses which represent Satan so I'd avoid those than skulls and such.
I am pleasantly surprised by the LACK of legalism in this thread...I am happy to see that. I am trying to get away from legalism, which is what I was raised with. That's why I'm broaching these subjects (and I'm also keeping track of the tattoo thread) because I want to get away from the legalistic viewpoints and get more in line with what God really wants me to be focusing on. But I'm a VERY visual person, and was also raised to judge on appearance, so it's hard to sort of be "OK" with things that make me think of death...lol. And Halloween, everyone knows that it's "satan's holiday" so why would I want to participate in that?
With that said, I take part in Christmas, and it, too, was a pagan holiday. Sooooo...yeah. However, I was raised without Christmas...for that very reason. But I love Christmas because of Christ and his coming, and because it's another time to be able to give to those I love. Halloween, I don't know, it's at night and it's all about that supernatural, death, scary stuff...lol...so I don't know. I certainly don't want to be legalistic...that's why I'm trying to educate myself so that I can understand and accept that which is foreign to me.
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I also agree that there seems to be an increased interest in skulls in art, especially in body art. But don't blame it on Christians, please...
Our family has always done Halloween.I'm not sure where else to put this thread so I thought this would be a good place to start....................
Thoughts?
ETA: I don't like Halloween at all...the spider webs, skulls, stuff about ghosts...I'm also leery about the ghost/supernatural stuff. That would go right up there with the "dark stuff" in my book and I try to stay away from it.
Oh I'd never blame the increase of skull popularity on Christians at all. In fact it'd be the opposite...the world introducing it, and Christians thinking it's "cool"...and accepting it...and we're not to be like or look like the world...
So Christmas wasn't a pagan holiday either? Well, I always knew I was naive but I didn't think that my ancestors/spiritual leaders in the past would be THAT far off base...my apologies...learn something new every day I guess!
I love to do research, I don't know why I haven't really researched this before lol
I come from a non-denominational background where we did not have a pastor...we were called the Plymouth Brethren. We didn't believe in birthdays, Christmas, Easter, or Halloween because (this is what I was told) of the pagan influences. Women wore long dresses and head coverings. We didn't listen to secular music or watch non-fiction movies or secular ones for that matter. We also could not read non-fiction books or any books that had any kind of ungodliness in them. Women couldn't get a job outside of home. It was quite close to Mennonite ways...for sure...
I am far from that. Have been wearing pants for over 10 years now and go to a Foursquare pentecostal church and I am pretty laid back. But it sure can be hard to separate myself from those old ingrained beliefs. However, I have learned that having an open mind and accepting more has gotten me a lot farther than being judgmental and shutting out everything.
Yes, there are MANY strains of the Plymouth Brethren. We were the Exclusive Brethren, but our particular "assembly" kind of picked and chose what it wanted to believe from the different strains. We were the "Kelley Lowe" strain. Whatever that meant. But the elders made up the rules for our families, and then my biological dad made up some of his own for our home as well.
As a group of Christians, we were warm and friendly, but if someone came in to our meeting who didn't look right, and they didn't change their look to match "Christian" looks, then they would be asked to leave. So we were nice to outsiders, although we were isolated quite a bit from unbelievers.
Oh I'd never blame the increase of skull popularity on Christians at all. In fact it'd be the opposite...the world introducing it, and Christians thinking it's "cool"...and accepting it...and we're not to be like or look like the world...
So Christmas wasn't a pagan holiday either? Well, I always knew I was naive but I didn't think that my ancestors/spiritual leaders in the past would be THAT far off base...my apologies...learn something new every day I guess!
I love to do research, I don't know why I haven't really researched this before lol
I come from a non-denominational background where we did not have a pastor...we were called the Plymouth Brethren. We didn't believe in birthdays, Christmas, Easter, or Halloween because (this is what I was told) of the pagan influences. Women wore long dresses and head coverings. We didn't listen to secular music or watch non-fiction movies or secular ones for that matter. We also could not read non-fiction books or any books that had any kind of ungodliness in them. Women couldn't get a job outside of home. It was quite close to Mennonite ways...for sure...
I am far from that. Have been wearing pants for over 10 years now and go to a Foursquare pentecostal church and I am pretty laid back. But it sure can be hard to separate myself from those old ingrained beliefs. However, I have learned that having an open mind and accepting more has gotten me a lot farther than being judgmental and shutting out everything.
There are lots of pagan practices that are used in and within Christianity. That doesn't make them bad. In fact, baptism was a pagan practice which St. John the Baptist took, and used, and which Christ Himself sanctified. So Christians can (and do) take pagan practices, and reform them to something holy.
Regarding clothing styles, and such, I don't really mind. I've seen Middle Eastern women, almost totally covered from head to toe, except for face, who were beautiful. Mary dressed this way, at least in the art. My wife wears a head-covering to go to Mass. She's the only one in the parish that does so. I believe it's a person's right to dress how they feel comfortable, so it's not for me to demand that she dress in any particular way. She feels called to wear a mantilla to worship God. Because worshipping God is not about how we dress, it's about how we place our minds in His presence.
Yeah but you wouldn't wear a skull and cross bone t-shirt and jeans with holes in them to Church would you
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