Halloween and the Way Different People View It

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Halloween and the Way Different People View It

Introduction:

In 2004, the editor of an electronic magazine interviewed five people regarding their views about Halloween. This included two people (including myself) who claimed to be "Christians" (perhaps broadly defined) and three who claimed to be practicing witchcraft, wicca or something similar. When the e-magazine was discontinued, I asked for permission to put the interviews on my website.

The purpose of these interviews is to inform. It does not mean that I endorse the other views - there are obvious disagreements - but it is not my purpose here to critique them. A careful reader will see that there are even significant differences between my view and the perspective of the other interview that claims to be Christian. (There may even be differences in the way we define the word "Christian," but in this article, it is not my purpose to focus on that issue. Any views I may have regarding the definition of the word "Christian" may be found elsewhere on this website.)

Some people seriously endorse Halloween and all that it stands for; others seriously oppose it. It is my view that a person cannot be "neutral" about Halloween. The other interview that claims to be Christian would probably disagree with me - and if you use the word "Christian" in its broadest commonly-used sense, perhaps that would be the "majority view" of Christendom.

I want to thank the editor of the e-magazine, who made the original interviews and who complied them into one article. Except for a few obvious spelling errors (which I corrected), all the interviews are exactly as they were written.

One last thing: I do not know the identity of those who were interviewed. Please don't ask me to forward anything to them!

Here is what I believe is a basic overview of the perspectives:

Interview / Author	Claims to be...	Basic perspective
#1 - Chrystal	Christian	Focus on the candy, fun, and costumes.
#2 - Mike	practicing Witchcraft, Mythology, and Folklore	It's the most important holiday of the year for most Witches... celebrate it any way you want.
#3 - Basket Hedgewitch	a practicing Hedgewitch	It's a powerful day/night. Celebrate, commune with the dead, reflect on the future.
#4 - Dennis	Christian	Avoid, or (if necessary) emphasize things that are compatible with the Bible. Also, the Protestant Reformation began on this day... that could also be a focus of one's celebration.
#5 - ShadowWolf	Eclectic Solitary Wiccan Witch	Focus on the togetherness of the living and nonliving people, as well as on the celebration of life, death, and rebirth.

To the Interviews - [click here]