‘Tis the season for the creepy, the spooky, and things that go bump in the night! While folks around the world are gearing up for Halloween (or All Hallows’ Eve) Christians stay in “fright mode.” We constantly caution people to fear any given number of things, events, and beliefs that we don’t understand. That’s why we are so drawn to conspiracy theories. We’re also well known for our hobby of looking for the “true origins” and “hidden meanings behind” a sundry of objects and traditions. Every year in my Adventist elementary school, our teachers would pull out the encyclopedia and read to us about Halloween and its beginnings, attempting to steer us away from participating (curiously, the holiday's theorized connections to Samhain were emphasized, but its connections to Christian liturgy were left out). What’s even scarier than Halloween is the Christian tendency to skip research altogether and instead rely on pure conjecture and rumors spread by equally uninformed people.
I was watching (enduring) a sermon by Danny Shelton and his latest wife. I got pulled in by Spectrum “click bait” about Shelton railing on Spectrum about investigating him about the Bahamas land deal. Anyway, cut to the chase. The Shelton’s brought up the topic of AI and how it is demonic. An enterprising person has set up a business that allows you to record video answers to common questions before you pass on. After you die your relatives can “ask” you questions, and AI will give the best answer. This the Shelton’s said was proof of an increase in spiritualism, and AI was demonic - dead people speaking from beyond the grave…
If all you have is a fear-based message, then you will see danger around every corner.
First, Adventism has it’s root in conspiracy theories such as the idea that the devil is constantly stalking us, god might turn on on a person at anytime and harden his heart, or in a few days the US government will allegedly start persecuting Sabbath Keepers, just to name a few.
Thus, SDA’s are not drawn to upcoming theories, they’ve been thriving on, and profiting from them, since 1844.
Funny, Thackeray said this decades ago:
The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
And according to Jung, doing the “shadow work” of staring into that portal can be very scary indeed.
Given Christianity’s two millennia long tradition of repeatedly dividing and subdividing itself over one issue or another, perhaps no Christian should fear anything more intensely than his fellow Christians.
I hate halloween - didn’t grow up with it so there are no warm and fuzzy memories celebrating “fright” with goblins and ghosts. People are actually in real grotesque situations, with wars waging in Ukraine and now in Israel, so this is a non-issue.
I’m sensing a “slight” mocking attitude in the article, beginning with the title. The reality is that life on this globe seems to be heading to a bad place, as the description of the “end times” are playing out “before our eyes”. If you haven’t heard, check out some other news sources. But I’m sensing the article doesn’t have much to do with Halloween; but is a dig at the non-compliant.
