Friday, September 25, 2015

Halloween Hysteria Strikes The Churches of God Once Again



It's that time of year again in the Churches of God when they bow to the pressures of Satan and his crew of pesky demons on this their most holiest night.   This is the time of year that COG members retreat to the back rooms of their homes and turn out the lights as they cower in fear at the evil standing on their front porch.  Can you imagine the terror in their eyes when looking through the front window curtains and seeing Jelly standing there with a Mystery of the Ages book in its hand!  Satan can't get any more evil than that!

Here is Keith Stump's article about Halloween that has irritated Bob Thiel and others in the various splinter personalty cults of Armstrongism.  Keith was a former writer for the Plain Truth magazine and other WCG material.



HALLOWEEN HYSTERIA
by Keith Stump

October is quickly flying by, meaning it’s time for the traditional Christian hand-wringing over that most “demonic” of holidays, Halloween! In anticipation of the usual anti-Halloween propaganda, I offer the following observations about this alleged “satanic festival of evil”:
First, there’s no need to point out that Halloween is not found in Leviticus 23. (Duh.) Leviticus 23 is obsolete and irrelevant anyway. Second, forget the lengthy dissertation about how the papacy (the alleged “image of the beast” and “great whore”) instituted the Roman Catholic celebrations of “All Hallows Eve” and “All Saints Day”. That, too, is irrelevant. Today’s Halloween has nothing to do with honoring Christian saints. For most, Halloween long ago ceased being viewed as a religious observance—and never was, by Americans.

The Halloween that many of us know today is largely an American phenomenon. And it’s a purely secular observance.
Yet some of Halloween’s customs do have roots in pre-Christian (“pagan”) practices. “Pagan” has long been a popular buzz word among Christians, especially among the COGs. As a Plain Truth and World Tomorrow writer, and occasional GHOSTwriter (how occult!) for the Armstrongs, I used the word liberally for decades. If it’s “pagan” in origin, it MUST be evil (like, I suppose, playing cards, wedding rings, dominoes, medicine, beer, the theater, the names of the days of the week and months of the year, and so on—all of which are scrupulously avoided in the COGs, aren’t they?).
Some of Halloween’s customs can be traced to practices of the Celtic New Year, particularly among the Druids of ancient Britain. The Celts worshipped nature deities and practiced a relatively benign type of witchcraft. (Shame on them for living before the birth of Christ! Why, they must have been as evil as Cyrus the Great, who worshipped Ishtar, the pagan goddess of love and war, and Ahura Mazda, god of light and wisdom. [Oh, wait a minute—God still called Cyrus "that righteous man from the East." Never mind.])
The Celtic festival of Samhain (which means “summer’s end” and marked the Celtic New Year, and is properly pronounced SOW-in, not “Sam Hain”) was considered to be a magical time, when the thin veil between the worlds was lifted, and the dead walked among the living. It was a night of ghosts and fairies, in which bonfires were lit and fortunes were told, and the thoughts of all turned to the afterlife. For some odd reason, the Celts didn’t think that exposing their children to contemplation of death and the afterlife was a problem. And, of course, the “witches” of the time were primarily herbalists and midwives. Witches as evil, devil-worshiping crones were an invention of the medieval Church, perpetuated by modern fundamentalists.
Despite fundamentalist assertions, there were no orgies or human sacrifices or cannibalism or devil-worshipping during Samhain. Anyone who claims otherwise is an incompetent researcher or an outright liar. And—despite all those sermonettes you’ve heard—there was never a Celtic “god of death” named “Samhain”.
The ancient Samhain festival in no way “glorified” the demonic world, nor—except for a relatively few “Satanists”—does Samhain today. Modern pagans who celebrate Samhain regard it as a time to look back on the past year and reflect on how they can become better people, and a time to honor departed loved ones and welcome them into their presence. Modern Halloween is even less focused on “making contact” with the spirit world.

Stop for a moment and consider rationally: Is a six-year-old girl trick-or-treating in a Cinderella costume “fellowshipping with demons”? Is a child covered in a sheet with eye-holes “associating with spirits”? Are employees attending a company costume party “consorting with the devil”? Is hanging a plastic skeleton in your window “paying homage to Satan”? Is carving a jack-o’-lantern “fashioning an idol”? Is bobbing for apples a “wicked revel”? Some who are reading this would reply with a resounding “yes”. And that’s because of the spiritual myopia that warps their thinking, as I’ll discuss in a moment. Goofball notions are de rigueur for the fundamentalist.
Others who are reading this have heartwarming memories of Halloween. It’s a slice of genuine Americana. It was one of the highlights of their childhood calendar—a time of family crafts and costume-making, a time to celebrate creativity and imagination. It was a time for children to dress up and solicit candy from their neighbors. (We were even taught to say “thank you”, which I’m sure irked Satan no end.) Trick-or-treating allowed the entire community to share in the Halloween festivities, as costumes were admired and rewarded with goodies. Halloween reaffirmed social bonds with friends and neighbors. These are hardly the “unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11), unless one is a fanatic who interprets that phrase like, well, a fanatic.
(A parenthetical note to hypocrites: Anyone who condemns Halloween, yet enjoys an occasional Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff film, or reads a Stephen King or Anne Rice thriller, or a Harry Potter novel, or who watches “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “The Wizard of Oz” or Disney’s “Snow White” or “Sleeping Beauty” or the “Lord of the Rings” films or who plays fantasy-based video games or visits Disneyland’s “Haunted Mansion” or watches a stage magician is a hypocrite, pure and simple. It’s like a conscientious objector being a fan of war movies. But hypocrisy is nothing new to the COGs, is it? And, for that matter, is “glorifying violence” any less “sinful” than “glorifying the occult”? (Hmm. I must have been imagining those LCG members sitting in the theater when I saw “Terminator 3″.))
 To all COG members out there: Is your children’s Christianity so feeble as to be endangered by a plastic mask and a few candy bars? Are your children so inadequately grounded in their religion as to be tempted into a life of witchcraft by attending a costume party? Are you yourself so poorly rooted in your faith that you fear your children will ask questions to which you have no satisfactory answers?
I have seen no evidence of children being psychologically warped or seduced into a life of witchcraft and perversion as a result of innocent Halloween activities. I HAVE, however, seen many fearful and superstitious COG children who have been conditioned to be abnormally hypersensitive to anything blackened with the feared label “occult”. One child in particular comes to mind, whom I witnessed shrieking in stark terror at the mere sight of a jack-o-lantern. Are you raising fearful children who, like medieval peasants, see Satan lurking behind every tree and demons skulking in every dark corner? Are you raising children who fear they will “open themselves up” to “demonic control” at any moment by the slightest misstep? What a tenuous, precarious and paranoid spirituality! Satan is a defeated enemy! We need not shrink inanimate mortal remains. Explain that fear of black cats is an ancient superstition of the ignorant. Talk to them about the fanciful creations of horror fiction, like werewolves and vampires. It’s healthy to examine the things that frighten us. Tell them about “ghosts” or disembodied spirits. (The dead are relatively safe; it’s the living you need to watch out for!) And talk to them about the subject of life after physical death. Tell them about the Lord of Life who overcame death. Assuage their fears about those who can kill the body but not the soul.
Halloween is also a good time to reconsider our own views about death and the afterlife. The unbiblical doctrine of “soul sleep” would be a good place to start. The Bible clearly teaches (and centuries of experience demonstrate) that death does not interrupt self-awareness; personal identity survives death! By contrast, Herbert Armstrong’s so-called “restored truth” about “What is Man?” is totally without biblical foundation, though his followers blindly accept it. Measuring truth by the teachings of a morally unprincipled deviate who was indisputably unqualified for ministry by biblical standards (i Tim. 3:2-7; Titus 1:6-7) is far scarier than any aspect of Halloween! (A rule of thumb, which I’ll throw in free of charge: The farther an individual or group moves away from the teachings of the so-called Philadelphia era of the Church of God, the closer he moves toward genuine truth and balanced spirituality.) 

So here’s my point: Objection to Halloween is a reflection of something much broader: an obsession with trivialities, a confusion of priorities, a primitive fear of the unknown, an arrogance that finds “righteousness” in being odd-ball and out-of-step. Fundamentalists can find something offensive or objectionable in almost anything. They have a world view in which virtually everything is “anti-Christian”. They have lost the ability to filter the important from the inconsequential. The traditional COG prohibition against Halloween ignores the facts of history, misrepresents the modern holiday, and demonstrates a woeful lack of spiritual discernment.
So, in a nutshell, my message to Christians about Halloween is: Lighten up! There is nothing spiritually harmful about this tradition. Sensibly observed, Halloween can be a day of wholesome fun and merriment. Believe it or not, not everything in life has to have some deep spiritual connotation. Halloween is “Satan’s Holiday” only to those who concede it to him or arbitrarily label it as such. Christians have been redeemed from the forces of evil. We don’t have to give credence to Satan’s claimed authority in any area of life. Don’t surrender to the fear, superstition and hypocrisy of the fundamentalist, who wouldn’t recognize a little harmless fun if he tripped over it, who is oblivious to the value of fantasy, who has no idea what “magic” and “witchcraft” really are, to whom everything paranormal is “demonic” and who trembles before the power of Satan and his demons (whether he admits it or not). Don’t fall prey to shady “scholarship” and flawed arguments about this holiday. Don’t let anyone judge you in respect of this or any other occasion. Safe, fun Halloween activities are NOT “of the “devil”.
To believe otherwise is just plain silly!

37 comments:

Byker Bob said...

A couple years ago, Evangelicals hijacked Halloween and co opted it to send an antiabortion message. Their horror chamber was devoted to the horrors of abortion rather than the traditional scary stuff. I don't necessarily condone that, but it surprises me that some of the ACOG groups have never attempted to take that night and use it for their own message. Have some of the kids dress up as German soldiers, others made up to look like starving slave laborers, and some kid with a good voice donning a Herbert W. Armstrong mask, and a mess of pillows, all to do a little ACOG street theater.

But, they are all too timid to take control in such a manner, and I suppose the world is probably better off because they are. Let em hide, or go bowling or to the movies that night. Through the law of unintended consequences, this is probably one holiday that probably does end up unifying families.

BB

Anonymous said...

A word about classic horror films.

Purebred COGers, of course, would NEVER watch one, classic or not, and use that abstention as “proof” (Oh, damn! There’s that word again!) that they are more righteous than you.

DRACULA (1931), starring Bela Lugosi, isn’t all that scary anymore, but is still a most enjoyable view. You might actually share it with your older children, and talk about what MIGHT have been so scary to viewers back then; or talk about Lugosi, whose career management is a cautionary tale of how things can go in Hollywood. Who can name another part he played? (He did create the creepy assistant Ygor in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN.)

Boris Karloff was also one who had to live with limitations on his career because he worked so much in one genre. His creating the role of the monster in the original 1931 film was, we now recognize, a great piece of film acting, and under heavy make-up, and he did it twice more. Catch, sometime, a movie called THE UNDEFEATED (1947), starring Gary Cooper, in which Karloff plays an Indian chief, or the original SCARFACE (1932) where he’s a gangster.

Being, sometimes, scared of things is part of life, and a culturally literate person needs to know what the sources and content of popular culture are, including why people have SOUGHT OUT something, like a horror movie, to make them scared. The COG way is, as Mr. Earle says, isolation, over-protection, and thus ignorance and paranoia.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely will not observe Halloween and I will not put up with trick-or-treaters. When they come around I'm going into a back room and watch the latest episode of The Walking Dead. And after that I'll listen to some music by the Grateful Dead.

RSK said...

Armstrongism is never so happy as when it finds something to publicly wring its hands and feel superior about.
As for Thiel... I'm not sure how the Celts having a "Samhain" holiday and the Hindus having a "Sahan" deity really links anything together, but you'll never outrank HWA's "Saac's sons" = "Saxons" etymological torture.

Anonymous said...


HALLOWEEN HYSTERIA Strikes KEITH STUMP On The Head And Knocks Him Silly

Keith Stump wrote:

"(A parenthetical note to hypocrites: Anyone who condemns Halloween, yet enjoys an occasional Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff film, or reads a Stephen King or Anne Rice thriller, or a Harry Potter novel, or who watches 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or 'The Wizard of Oz' or Disney’s 'Snow White' or 'Sleeping Beauty' or the 'Lord of the Rings' films or who plays fantasy-based video games or visits Disneyland’s 'Haunted Mansion' or watches a stage magician is a hypocrite, pure and simple. It’s like a conscientious objector being a fan of war movies. But hypocrisy is nothing new to the COGs, is it? And, for that matter, is 'glorifying violence' any less 'sinful' than 'glorifying the occult'? (Hmm. I must have been imagining those LCG members sitting in the theater when I saw 'Terminator 3'.))"



Personally, I am NOT interested in ANY of those things that Keith Stump mentioned in his article quoted above. I just wonder why he is into every bad thing now. In the past, was he just a hypocrite, writing what he did then for the money? Is he just a hypocrite now, writing what he does now for the money? If the money once again came from the old beliefs, would he go back to writing the old way? Some writers seem to pride themselves on being able to write in defence of whatever side of an issue will pay the bills. Hypocrisy is nothing new with COG writers, is it?

The most Halloween Hysteria I see is in the stores putting out more and more ugly Halloween junk earlier and earlier every year to try to make money from it. I still just ignore it all and do not miss it at all.

Anonymous said...

"Personally, I am NOT interested in ANY of those things that Keith Stump mentioned in his article quoted above."

I have a hard time imagining that you've never seen any stage magic. Didn't say were interested in becoming a stage magician or anything like that, just that I can't imagine you thinking of watching stage magic in the same way as your average COGer would think of handing out candy to trick-or-treaters on Halloween. OMG! You just bowed down and worshiped Satan! LOL!

"I just wonder why he is into every bad thing now."

Wow. Every "bad" thing? Care to share your list of "bad" things? I could use a good chuckle.

"In the past, was he just a hypocrite, writing what he did then for the money? Is he just a hypocrite now, writing what he does now for the money?"

First of all, since the bible is self-contradictory and does not resolve to any single consistent theology, to be a biblical literalist of any sort is to be hypocrite. You don't have a choice in the matter. So we were all hypocrites, weren't we? Yes, we were.

Second, that being said, while I'm not sure about Herbie or Stan Rader, most of us were as sincere as we could be, under the circumstances. I see no reason to assume anything else about Keith Stumpf at the time. I mean, his salary couldn't have been that high, could it? Insincerity is hard work.

Third, people change. They grow. They learn things. Things like "Noah's Ark is a scientific impossibility" or "Adam and Eve is a 'metaphor'" or "Satan probably isn't real." A person changing his mind about Halloween is hardly sufficient to warrant completely re-engineering the past in order to make sense out of it. It's not like it's a story featuring talking snakes or something...geez...

While I don't look forward to Halloween, and am happier when it's gone, I now realize that there's plenty of real evil in the world, and that Halloween isn't where you're going to find any of it. Halloween, in and of itself, is harmless fantasy for kids. Religion, OTOH, is fantasy for adults, and religious ideologies have a way of seriously messing up adult priorities! If you want to distance yourself from sources of real evil, throw out your holy books: historically, there's been no more potent sources of evil in the world than the bible and the qur'ran! DO NOT suppose you're making a stand against evil by withholding candy from children on some random night in October. What a ridiculous idea!

Anonymous said...

Halloween can't hold a candle to the nefarious activity perpetrated by Herbert Armstrong. If you're looking for sources of evil, Armstrongites need look no further than their own Herbert Armstrong! Even his surviving relatives agree! Blood may be thicker than water, but doing the right thing is thicker yet (eventually). Goblins are make-believe, but Herbert Armstrong was real, and much scarier, if you've learned what to be properly scared of. Good thing he's dead for all time, though he continues to haunt those who grew up under his evil regime.

Proud Presbyterian said...

Well Stump seems to have a bit of a wooden stump mentality.
Even we in the Protestant world have begun to realize Halloween is hardly a decent holiday for kids.
Sorry but the blood, guts, horror and weirdness are not good for kids.
You don't have to be a member of a cult to see that horror films and holidays are just not a good thing for kids.

Anonymous said...

Apparently, some ACOGers believe that the "six-year-old girl trick-or-treating in a Cinderella costume" has become a 'demon target'- as if there are demons flying around to identify trick-or-treaters in costume as potential hosts to target for possible demon possession.

As far as the ACOGs co-opting Halloween (to "use it for their own message"), they've been at that game for a long time; starting in their glory days when HWA was alive.
Although not necessarily done on Halloween, the message is intended to accentuate their points that-
* 'the World' is evil
* 'the World' is full of demons out to get you
* don't listen to what people in 'the World' say
* you can be protected from the scary stuff in 'the World' by clinging to 'the Truth' we have to offer (yep, you can throw your birth parents under the bus because we'll be the NEW and BETTER parents for you!)
* in fact, you are now obviously 'called', and might be 'chosen'- putting you in a position that's superior to everybody who doesn't send money to God's HQ.
* oh, and you better not celebrate Christmas, either, because Santa spelled sideways is "Satan"
* by becoming one of God's HUMBLE servants like us, God will give you superpowers and you'll live forever and eventually RULE THE WORLD (or maybe even rule your own entire planet)!

Humble, shumble.
HWA was about as humble as Hitler was.

Anonymous said...

Anon 7:11 refers to Stump and asks "...why he is into every bad thing now."

Talk about missing the point.

Unknown said...

Halloween is assinine and certainly not Christian. Another excuse for partying, and worldly expression, similar to Mardi Gras.

It has become increasingly an adult activity as well. I have seen a trend over the years that is becoming greater and greater of adults dressing up , not just as a cat... but as the "Slut Cat". Not just a witch...but as the "Slut Witch". Or the "Slut Nurse" . I have even seen a "Slut Nun" believe it or not.

Sensuality, appeal to hedonism, and revelry. NONE of this is a reflection of Christian values.

Unknown said...

Is that a picture of a young BYKER BOB at the top of this post?? !!

Unknown said...

Stump , who has made the so called "great transformation", like Tkach and his minions, all need to shut the hell up and just quit trying to be mentors, teachers or authorities.

Their credibility is ZERO when they say about themselves that they were cult enforcers once upon a time, but now "work for the forces of good".

Would be like Goering, or Goebbels running for Senator in the United States after WWII as "Born Again" American patriots.

Guys like Stump, Tkach , Feazell , and the rest are nothing more than GRACE NAZIS. They should take a hint, and just live out their lives in quiet good works, and sin no more. To keep offices of distinction and leadership is so discredited as to be painful to witness.

Anonymous said...

Halloween is that fun time of year that kids can dress up as false prophets and go door to door collecting candy after they tell a tale of British Israelism.

After all, one form of extortion is as good as another.

Byker Bob said...

Not guilty. As a baby, I was blond and never chubby.

BB

Anonymous said...

How could “All Hallows Eve” and “All Saints Day” be considered to be un-Christian, considering that they were instituted by the most successful Christians that exist today- the Roman Catholics?

Or does anyone want to skip over 1900 years to say no one was truly Christian in all that time, til 'Herbie the Daughter Fucker' came along?

Anonymous said...

Was very disappointed to see Keith Stump call anyone a "hypocrite." Might want to rethink that a bit, Keith.

Anonymous said...

I am stumped by Stump. I often wondered what happened to him. He was quiet, intelligent and a good writer. After leaving the whole mess in the 1970's I wondered what happened to some of the people I used to know and was curious which ones stayed and which side they took. I always thought the smart ones would have left totally and done something different, but no not so......but then who were the smart ones?

Why is it some people stayed in one form or another? Was it insecurity, their group of belonging? Maybe their paycheck no matter how small and the need to support a family.

Then there are the Grace Nazis as Connie calls them. Do they really think they have to spell it out for the sheep. Hey the whole of mainstream Christianity is founded on those concepts, most of us heard it before. Do we really need them to hold our hands and wipe our tears? Or do they just need to be useful or do they feel insecure without their group and their warm fuzzy sheep.

Now was Keith mainly just a 'Ghost Writer' all along, or is it more complicated?

Anonymous said...

The "warm fuzzy sheep" of armstrongism are all dying off.

Watch 'em go, as Jesus with a sword in his mouth slices them to bits!

Anonymous said...


Yes, there certainly are hypocrites in the COGs who are into all sorts of bad things that they should not be into.

True Christians should avoid Halloween and should also avoid all those other evil things that Keith Stump mentioned as well. Some people really don't want to have anything to do with any of those worth-less-than-nothing things that he mentioned.

Halloween always seemed to me like a custom that was loved by ignorant and wicked women. The way Keith Stump writes about it now makes him sound like a wicked sissy. Pretending that evil is harmless and fun like Keith Stump tries to do now is not the right answer.


Anonymous said...

Halloween is entirely what you perceive it and make it to be. Slutty women, hedonism, evil...personally I don't see it that way but to each his/her own.

Anonymous said...

"True Christians should avoid Halloween and should also avoid all those other evil things that Keith Stump mentioned as well."

And a Scotsman may put sugar on his porridge, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.

True christians? 100% fallacious thinking...

"Halloween always seemed to me like a custom that was loved by ignorant and wicked women. The way Keith Stump writes about it now makes him sound like a wicked sissy. Pretending that evil is harmless and fun like Keith Stump tries to do now is not the right answer."

What is this "wickedness" and "evil" of which you speak? Of what crimes do these "ignorant" women and Keith Stump stand accused? These are meaningless terms. There are real "wicked" and "evil" people in the world. I think it's better to call them criminals. They commit crimes that can be spoken of with specificity. I'm afraid what you think is "wicked" and "evil" really is harmless! LOL! Meanwhile there are harmful things out there, but these things are usually not on your radar. And you have the gall to call other people "ignorant"? Pot, meet Kettle.

Because superstition skews priorities way out of whack, religious people always seem to major in the minors.

old EXPCG hag said...

Halloween is an un-Christ celebration no matter how you try to rationalize it.

The Catholic Church is UN-CHRISTIAN

The Pope is UN-CHRISTIAN

Just like Nascar Uncle Andy.
Look up it's origins.

Some in the PCg are big on watching football. If they believe and live by every word of Herbert W. Armstrong they should remember he did not believe in competitive sports...REMEMBER??
He also wouldn't have agreed with teachers at PCg pitting >Headquarters< students against on-liners and teachers being disappointed if on-liners were just as intelligent as >Headquarters< students.
(Not that I give a flip what he thought...anymore)

It's all lack of wisdom, vanity, and confusion.

To each his own but this is my two cents.



Anonymous said...

Theres our girl Delorey

Anonymous said...

No! Theres no hysteria!
But Halloween is EVIL. Worldly! How dare they have a good time! And its all womens fault!
No hysteria at all!

Anonymous said...

"Halloween is an un-Christ celebration no matter how you try to rationalize it. The Catholic Church is UN-CHRISTIAN The Pope is UN-CHRISTIAN Just like Nascar Uncle Andy. Look up it's origins.

Yes, by all means do. But while you're doing that, also recognize that this is known as the genetic fallacy...

Herbert made use of that fallacy, among others, all the time back in the day. We ate it up. To me, leaving Armstrongism doesn't just mean abandoning their churches, it means retraining myself not to make the old cognitive errors that made it possible for me to be there. Those are the errors in thinking and perceiving that made me susceptible to cults in general, and it's those errors that I'm leaving more than anything else.

But maybe this is just me?

Bye-bye Herbie, bye-bye Kansas, and bye-bye to cult "logic."

Anonymous said...

Eeevil! Worldly! No true Christian would do that! Its all women's fault, especially my friend who dressed as a nun with a really short habit!

(No, no hysteria here, move along)

Byker Bob said...

Halloween provides yet another example (in microcosm) of the partial research techniques and rush to conclusion which were always so prevalent in Armstrongism. Everything that makes non-Armstrongites appear normal, provides opportunity to fellowship or relate to one another, or encourages creativity and innovation is condemned as either being pagan, or inspired by Satan. Social occasions and discourse are rigidly controlled for the Armstrongite. Fiction, and theatre, or for that matter any form of popular culture or youth trend are automatically condemned as being worldly, even if these things function as universal language, causing people to forget their differences at least for a couple of hours, and actually relate in a sense of community.

In order to make weirdness and repression palatable, you have to destroy the prevailing sence of normalcy. There was a time when even the cartoon "Hot Stuff", satirizing a sometimes frustrated devil, was considered off limits, and dangerous to kids. Binary or black and white thinking does not bring out the creativity in children, or even provide the type of training or experience spoken of as being "kingdom skills". These are the people who believe God is going to just pour these skills into people in the millennium so that they can rule cities and nations, and judge angels. When you contemplate this entire line of thinking, it becomes a paper thin veneer. That is what results from depriving people of normal life experiences that give one a sense of relating, a sense of compassion, and justice.

Actually, there are opportunities for doing good within the context of Halloween. Or bad. There are choices.
You can make it a special night for the kids, or you can turn it into "pimp and ho" night, and use it as an excuse for adult debauchery. Just like life.

BB

Homer said...

Has any here heard of "cross-quarter days"? The days midway between the solstices and equinoxes. There are four of them. What man may have done or not done to observe these days does not harm or defile me in any way. Groundhog Day, May Day, and Halloween are three of those days. I am not familiar with the one in August. Just something to consider concerning the annual events of the Earth's rotation around the Sun. It is a natural thing and has nothing to do with man's religion, what ever its origin.

Anonymous said...

No one really has much use for those with histrionic personality disorder.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh...

Another year gone by, and the tentacles of Armstrongism continue to wither on so many levels on so many of us.
After reading some of Connie's 2014 comments, I hope that's now true for her, too.

(It'll be necessary for Granny's aspirations of gettin' Old Connie and Baby Byker to go a-courtin'.)

lnrd said...

glorifing death

Alan said...

As a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. Later, I abandoned it, along with Christmas and Easter, ONLY because I thought those holidays involved importing pagan religious customs into Christian practice, NOT because I thought there was no place for horror, science fiction, or fantasy in a Christian's life. Never did I think it was wrong to enjoy the old horror classics or attend a costume party dressed up like Dracula. Those were not religious customs. (I eventually realized that we had taken the biblical command against importing heathen ways into the worship of God out of context.) So it seems to me that Stump is mingling different subjects when he calls people hypocrites for condemning Halloween while enjoying the old horror classics, etc. I wonder where he learned that kind of "logic."

Anonymous said...

I am no fan of Halloween. However I am also no fan of the armstrongite holy days either. You can make the argument that Halloween has a definite evil component to it. However you can also make the argument that the armstrongite holy days also has an evil component to it based on the fact that the holy days where used by armstrongism to control and abuse the sheeple. Drinking was/is a huge problem at the feast of "booze". Also from what I have heard sexual activity was common with the singles at the feast of "booze" . The question is, Is Halloween really any worse then the armstrongite holy days?

Anonymous said...


It is possible to reject the numerous COG religious hucksters and fraudsters who come around in God's name WITHOUT turning to other nonsense like Halloween and all the ugly junk that the stores try to sell at this time of the year, and for months in advance.

After the scary, real-life, horror story of actual, angry demons coming around in Gerald Flurry's body, and David Pack's body, and the bodies of the other COG kooks and crooks--to lie, steal, and destroy in God's name--who needs Halloween?


Anonymous said...

Essentially, Stump was suggesting that people lighten up. Instead, why don't we all get our sphincters in a twist?

This board is nothing if not entertaining.

Anonymous said...

Recommendation for the anti-Halloween and anti-Christmas folks-

Step #1: When your doorbell rings on Halloween, answer the door with some candy in hand. You'll get to meet some of your neighbor kids in cute costumes, and they will thank you.

Step #2: Phone or write to a relative and tell them you are reconsidering not keeping Christmas, and ask if you can join them this year, and that you'd be glad to bring a pie or something. Chances are they will welcome you with open arms.

(PS: Do not throw the pie at them and run away while yelling "Santa is Satan spelled sideways!")