‘It’s Just for Fun’… Is It Though?

Halloween will bring in about $13 billion this year. Most people call it harmless fun for kids. But do they know where it came from? In this week’s teaching, Dr. David Bowen traces Halloween back to its roots. The Celts celebrated Samhain, a festival of harvest, death and darkness. They believed the spirits of the dead walked among the living. People wore costumes to fool those spirits and carved jack-o-lanterns to scare them off. In the ninth century, Pope Gregory IV moved All Saints Day to November 1, right in the middle of Samhain. He meant to give new converts a Christian alternative. Instead, the ritual stayed pagan and picked up Christian symbols along the way.