Why do fundamentalists insist the symbols of the Catholic Church ‘mean nothing’, ‘have no power’, yet insist the symbols of Halloween DO have meaning and power?
For example, here are some quotes from fundamentalists:
All these quotes come from a tract called 'Halloween, a Covenant with Death and Hell".
If you follow the logic here, they believe Catholic symbols and Sacraments, which come from God, have no power. Yet they insist these symbols, which they say come from the devil, DO have power.
Can any explain this contriction?
Yeah… I never really got that either. Within Fundamentalism, Halloween is as universally reviled as Freemasonry, rock music, and Dungeons & Dragons and all of that revulsion shares a common source: The Satanic Panic of the 80s.
Outside of Fundamentalism in the wider world of Evangelicalism, it’s a mixed bag. The “old school” Evangelicals who were really ‘into’ the Panic tend to frown upon it but us younger folk tend to think it’s no big deal.
Most churches have settled somewhere in between wherein they’ll never use the words “Halloween” or “Trick or Treat” but you can bet that they’ll have some kind of “Fall Outreach” or “Harvest Festival” complete with candy and costumes but ‘sanitized’ of anything scary or even remotely Halloween related. So… black cats, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns are out, but superheroes, hay rides, and un-carved pumpkins are in.
Some churches go whole hog though and do what can only be described as really, stupendously awesome Hell Houses which are intended, quite literally, to scare the Hell out of you. I got to participate in a couple at Liberty and I can tell you that they were easily the scariest, goriest affairs I have
ever seen and Jerry Falwell, for one, absolutely
loved it. It was the one time of year that us “public school Baptists” got to really cut loose and fling fake blood everywhere and blast Christian death metal (and yes, there is such a thing) and just generally act like idiots while still trying to preach the gospel. Typically we wouldn’t see anyone get saved but we’d usually get a few re-dedications out of it and the staged “chamber of abortions” which was so unspeakably horrific that I still have nightmares about it seemed to really galvanize our peers on the pro-life cause.
