Horror, Witchcraft, and the Halloween Question

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to think deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Jack Wilkie here once again with Joe Wilkie and Will Harab to talk about Halloween. It is October 28. As this releases, we're a few days before it as we record. Looking at the week ahead, this has been a kind of a topic we've had, had a lot of discussion on, on the last couple of years of recording. We did an episode a couple years ago, lively debate there, and we're going to revisit some of it. We're going to see kind of where everybody stands on it, going to some other facets of it. It's a holiday that touches a lot of different christian topics about death, about horror and blood and guts and ghouls and ghosts and witches and stuff like that. And really what, what's the Christian to do about it? I know there's a lot of strong feelings about it. So will has put together a yemenite, a full outline for it, and why don't you just let us kind of explain where we're going with this and why we're revisiting it for another year of the Halloween season. [00:01:04] Speaker B: For sure. For sure. So I think every now and then we'll, I should say right now, and hopefully more than every now and then, we get to a topic that just, just about every single one of our listeners has a strong feeling about, cares about in some way is a passionate topic for a lot. There's some of them that, some episodes that we do that I think maybe some of our listeners, yeah, I couldn't really care less, could go either way. This is not one of those, I feel like just about everybody has an opinion on Halloween. Just about everybody has an opinion on whether or not christians should participate in it based on the origins of it and, you know, what kind of practices she would be doing now. So, as Jack said at the top of the episode, we did this two years ago, but we're going to go ahead and get the kind of qualifier out of the way. We're going to be revisiting a lot of the stuff that we did last time. It's not going to be a carbon copy or anything, but people care about this. It has been two years, and hopefully we have some new listeners since then. And we are not arrogant enough to think that because you listened to it two years ago, if you did that, you remember every single thing that we ever said on that episode. I mean, neither, all three of us don't remember that. So, um, again, we're gonna get that out of the way, uh, at the top of the episode, there might be some repeat stuff, but this is a very relevant topic for the modern day Christian, uh, this time of year. There was reading an article that said this was for 2023, that spending for Halloween. This blew my mind. Spending for Halloween cost $12 billion. You know, we typically think Christmas is the big money, money grab holiday, and then, of course, it still is. But $12 billion for Halloween is, is just crazy. But you look around, the yard decorations, the movies that are coming out, the, the costumes that people having, the people go all out, there's a lot of people that really, really get into Halloween. And so, yeah, I mean, for all those reasons, we got the deep end. Now I'm excited to hear what our focus plus subscribers have to think or had to say about Halloween. So we're going to revisit ultimately as we're about to get into the history of it. And, Joe, I can turn it over to you for some thoughts on that. I've got some notes down there at the bottom of the outline, if you just want to kind of read some of those, or just give what you know about the history of it, because the history is relevant, and this is kind of the basis of a lot of the arguments that people use either for or against it. But before I give it to you, Joe, kind of the ultimate question that we're going to be addressing with this episode is, I don't think we can deny that there are harmful and kind of ungodly things associated with Halloween. And so the question is ultimately going to be, are there enough elements of Halloween that are harmless, that are fun, that make it acceptable for christians to participate in it? Are there enough elements of Halloween that are harmless or fun that make it. Make it acceptable for christians to participate in, or the alternative side, are the origins, the historical nature, and the modern day connotations of Halloween enough to lead christians to avoid celebrating Halloween altogether? And I felt like that was kind of the best way to sum up the two positions. And the really, the question that's going to drive this episode is, I think we'd all agree there's some, you know, harmful sides. We'd all agree there. There's some harmless sides that, you know, kids going around getting candy, maybe not that big a deal, but are the, can you participate in one without the other? Is what we're going to be getting to. So, Joe, let's go ahead and bring you in if you have any introductory thoughts on this. And then if you would like to go and get into the history side of things. [00:04:16] Speaker C: First off, I cannot believe that it's been two years since we, since we were this. It flies by. [00:04:21] Speaker B: I went back and I went back and listened to it, to kind of recent research for this. And I was talking in the episode, I was talking about how my son Jackson wasn't even one year old yet. I was like, oh, my goodness, this is crazy. He's about to turn three. Just wild. [00:04:33] Speaker C: That is nuts. So you had put on here. Excuse me? You had put on here. Actually covered it very well. And was this folks on the family, their, their breakdown of the history? I think. [00:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they had a good article about it. [00:04:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. That you had taken says Halloween originated with the pagan ritual, and it's pronounced samhain. But it's samhain. S a m h a I n. If you want to look it up. Samhain is how you pronounce it. This ancient festival is a three day created by the Celts or celtic people, I suppose, but celts in northern Europe. Translated in modern Irish, samhain means summer's end. So the festival literally signaled the conclusion of summer and beginning of a new season. Originally, samhain stemmed from pagan and supernatural roots. Through sacrifice and offerings throughout centuries, samhain continued to in mutated forms until around 609 AD, when Pope Boniface IV declared a new celebration. Initially, Pope Boniface IV created All Saints Day, or All Hallows Day, to be celebrated before summer. All Saints Day focuses on celebrating martyrs and saints who sacrificed their lives for the christian faith. Later, Pope Gregory III moved the celebration to the fall season to coincide with Samhain. Over the years, All Saints Day, or All Hallows Day, continue its evolution into the modern celebration of Halloween. Samhain's sacrifices morphed into Halloween's handing out of a different kind of offering candy. Nevertheless, Halloween contains roots in a pagan celebration of death and rebirth. So Samhain, or when he did it, All Hallows Day, I believe that's November 1, is what they decided. So this is All Hallows Eve, which is how it becomes Halloween down the line on October 31 each time. And so they really did try to reclaim what was very pagan in origin. And that is a very. I like that summation. We went off for a very long time last time, so if you want more history, go back and listen to the last one. We had like eight to ten minutes of history on this, going more in depth. At the end of the day, there are both pagan and christian herds. Initially, it's pagan because of samhain and because of the. The. Yeah, it's pagan in every sense. There are rituals and there are sacrifices and things like that to the gods, little g. Gods. And then this pope boniface the fourth decides that he's going to reclaim. But he wasn't initially trying to. That comes with Gregory III. So, yeah, that's kind of. And this is where you get into. You can look at it, and I could make the case, well, it's very pagan, and you could make the case, well, actually it's christian because they're the ones that reclaimed it for all Hallows Eve, All Saints Day. So both sides kind of have a, you know, have a leg to stand on. [00:07:04] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say is I did read several articles in preparation for this, and there were some of them that confidently asserted that it had, that the origin of it is pagan, and then others that confidently asserted that the origins were catholic. And so there is that debate there like, well, okay, well, who started it? And essentially, what are the true origins? [00:07:21] Speaker A: But I do think you get with the Christmas, Easter, everything is, where did it actually come from? And I. I don't like those arguments because both sides can claim something, and it doesn't. You're just bringing your own preconceived idea into it. [00:07:34] Speaker B: Well, and let me ask this with that, because the other reason that I don't love that argument. Oh, it's pagan origins. Do you guys think that if any practice that we do today has pagan origins, that we should just stay away? I was reading an article that gave an example the days of the week, Monday, Thursday. [00:07:51] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say. [00:07:52] Speaker B: Wedding. Wedding rings was another one I read of, like, that started out basically about magic. These are magic rings. So I didn't have enough time to research whether that was legitimate or not, but it seemed like it was. And so the argument that person was making was, you know, that, you know, nobody's out here trying to give up their wedding ring, and we're not trying to change the names of the week or the days of the week. So, I don't know, I was curious, your guys thoughts on that. Like, let's, let's say Halloween does have completely pagan origins. Is that enough? Should that be enough to steer christians away? [00:08:21] Speaker C: In my opinion, all of those things shed their paganism quite well. You would not know unless you really were doing research on it. You would not know that it had pagan origins of death and rebirth. Walk down your street, get out the door, walk down your street and tell me if there's any Halloween decorations out what you see and whether it has turned into the ultimate Christmas or christian holiday, the way that Christmas with the nativity scenes, everything else, I think it's pretty clear to see we have not shed all paganism and left this death and rebirth behind, and the sacrifices and the darkness and the ghouls and the spirits and ghosts and everything that was really celebrated at the time. That's very dark. My opinion, which we'll get more into it. I don't jump ahead on the outline, but just to answer the question, I don't think it's fully shed its pagan roots. That's my biggest issue with it. Whereas I do believe the days of the week and the calendar and everything else. If you didn't even Christmas and Easter with the bunnies, you have to make a strong case of, like, this really was pagan. Come on, a kid's getting an Easter bunny. [00:09:27] Speaker B: You have to, like. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Is there a material difference other than, like, the darkness of it? But, like, death is being symbolized here, fertility being symbolized by rabbits and eggs, if that's where that comes from. Like, that's that, to me, that is as direct. Now you can say, well, it's worse because it's about death. Well, death is a reality, and so it's how you're acknowledging it is a different thing. But like, the. The lineage there is pretty closely connected, and they're the same way. [00:09:59] Speaker C: If we're looking at both of these as kid holidays, one of which, and this is a big. Another big issue, is Halloween has been taken over by adults, not kid holidays. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:07] Speaker C: No, no adult is believing in the Easter bunny actually bringing Cadbury eggs. Like, wow, Easter bunnies lay eggs. Not exactly. Right? Like, this is a kid thing. Around ten years old, you kind of phase out and it becomes more about the resurrection. [00:10:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:19] Speaker C: Whereas Halloween is something celebrated by 30 year olds who decide to dress up in nurse outfits and, you know, go out to the bars type of thing. Go clubbing, like. No, to me, there's a massive difference where we leave this behind as a childish thing, where it's cute and, look, don't get onto my. My Reese's carrot sticks. If you start taking those away, I'm going to. Going to riot or something. Hey, those might have pagan origins, though. [00:10:43] Speaker B: So you got to be careful who. [00:10:46] Speaker C: Tastes mighty fine, though. [00:10:47] Speaker A: Um, but that's the problem, is kind of you're picking and choosing. That's kind of my point. [00:10:51] Speaker C: No, but I'm saying it's a kid thing where a kid is not going to look at it and be scared out of his mind walking into my Easter bunny yard, which I don't do Easter bunnies. [00:10:58] Speaker A: But no. How many people turn Easter into Easter brunch with, you know, cocktails kind of thing? Like that's. They're, they. They have their own direction. They take it. And in the same way you're talking about stretched. [00:11:08] Speaker B: Well, people do that with Christmas as well. [00:11:09] Speaker C: Yeah, that's gonna say Thanksgiving. They pull out a six pack on Thanksgiving and are drinking like crazy. [00:11:17] Speaker A: Some people do too much with it. Okay, let's write off the whole thing is the way you go wrong with this. So some people. Yeah, some people. My point about it. [00:11:25] Speaker C: Well, billion dollars were spent on Halloween. [00:11:27] Speaker A: Some, I don't think it was all on getting drunk in modest costumes. Of the 12 billion, I don't know. [00:11:34] Speaker C: How we allotted all 6 billion of it. [00:11:36] Speaker A: Sure. The other problem with this is I think there's a bit of a gnostic tendency here, like acknowledging death and not in a gory way, not in a weird graveyard skeleton ghouls and ghost way, but like the all hallows Eve, like, we're honoring the Christian dead. And where churches used to have the cemetery, the graveyard on site, that kind of thing, we don't do that anymore. We've, like, run all the way the other direction. Acknowledging the fall harvest season and stuff like that. That's. That's not a pagan thing. That's a human thing. And the same way that, you know, Christian Christmas, as they always say, oh, it's the winter solstice festival, and you're all that. Like, that didn't just belong to the pagans. That was every human, every society all over the world has the spring thing, has the summer thing, has the fall thing, has the winter thing, because we live within the year. And I think there's this tendency, the further and further we get out into modern times, to ignore all that. Obviously, most of us aren't involved in the harvest in any way, and so we don't have the connection to it that people of old used to. But christian wise, especially in the churches of Christ, we're very against the calendar. We're very against the Christmas, Easter, things like that. And there's the arguments, and I understand things like that. I'm not 100% disagreeing with that so much as to say certain days of the year mean certain things. I mean, the leaves are falling. It is that time of year. And so acknowledging that part of it, acknowledging death somewhere along the line in our Christianity is a good thing, not in the way they're doing it. I understand that, but I think we kind of go gnostic in an over correction to some of the bad ways that it has been taken or historical ways. [00:13:18] Speaker C: I don't disagree with that. I don't disagree with the ability to focus on those things. The same way we used to carve pumpkins and mama baked the pumpkin seeds and, you know, we light the candles in it and try to like, dad at a Charlie Brown one year that was incredible. Like, and, you know, always trying to figure out what we were going to carve, and it's fun and it's cool, and it's just a reminder of, this is the season. Uh, the, Jack and I are very against pumpkin spice, but carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin seeds was fun. Um, that to me, is kind of the perfect representation of being able to celebrate the harvest, celebrate this time of year, without bringing in death, destruction, and every other thing with it. [00:13:51] Speaker B: So we're going to get to this eventually, Joe, because this is something essentially where I think all three of us are going to have different answers on island. Where's the line? How far is too far? Is pumpkin carving okay? Okay, well, apparently, what about hay rides? What about. Okay, what about trunk or treat? Stuff like that? So I want to save that, because my guess is, I mean, you just kind of, just gave your stamp of approval for it and go ahead and put it on the table. Joe is our most vocal anti Halloween representative on this. Yeah, exactly. There's, yeah. Jack and I's position is, is not quite as staunch as Joe's. Let's go ahead and do this, guys. Do you have anything else about the history I was going to make about the history of. It was. It is difficult for somebody to just make the argument, oh, well, it's got pagan origins, so we probably shouldn't do it anymore. If that's the extent of your argument. I don't think that's a good one. I do. I think Joe blushes it out a little bit better in the sense of it doesn't just have pagan origins, there's still heavy pagan connotations with it today. If that's your argument, I think that's a different story. But if you guys don't have anything else, obviously, um, Joe is probably the best person to get into this. We want to start with kind of the arguments against christians celebrating Halloween, and then the next section being the arguments in favor of a Christian celebrating Halloween. We've kind of touched on these a little bit, but, um, I did, you know, if you're taking notes or something like that. I did want to kind of put it into nice, easy bullet points here for the arguments against. And Joe, you might have some other ones that I did not include on here, but the first one is, uh, kind of the modern day connotations that are associated with it. Again, touched on a little bit already, but like the ghouls, the skeletons, the, the gravestones in people's yards, um, all the, the slasher horror movie, the, the Halloween type movie that are going on right now. The, you know, you could even make the jump to the criminal activity, sexualization of the costumes. I tend to think that's a bit of a weaker argument. But Joe, what would you add to this first point about kind of why christians shouldn't celebrate it being kind of the modern day connotations? [00:15:50] Speaker C: Again, I just don't think it shed its pagan roots fully. This is why it's such a big deal in the wiccan circles and in the pagan circles and, and druid and all. Like, this is a big deal for them. Uh, on, and the satanists and like, people literally take house cats and sacrifice them and weird stuff. And just because somebody else is doing something weird doesn't mean we can't. [00:16:08] Speaker A: But at some point they're grilling them. [00:16:13] Speaker C: Hey, we don't know that. We don't know that. There's, we can't say for sure, but there are a lot of negative and evil connotations with paganism that I just don't think have been shed. Whereas you can look at Christmas, but Christmas is not exactly, you can say it's, it's a pagan holiday or all the way back. How many pagans do you know getting out there and celebrating it and like dancing around circles and praying to their gods? [00:16:36] Speaker B: On that point? [00:16:37] Speaker C: Yeah, not a ton. Whereas Halloween is their day to go do those things. And I don't like my kids being around the darkness. You don't know that any house they walk up to, like, especially Dixon, Tennessee, of all places, has a really weird, like Wiccan, a cult hub. I don't know what it is, but there's like, they are around there. There's a coffee shop that's basically dedicated to them in downtown Dixon. So little Tennessee Dixon. My kids walk in and they happen to see this stuff. Like, I'd rather see it on my terms. And when we put this right in front of them, we don't know what they're going to see and we don't know what they're going to be told and we don't know who they're going to run across. And. [00:17:13] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:13] Speaker C: I mean, as you head on here, I think it's. It's a holiday surrounded or centered around darkness? [00:17:19] Speaker B: Centered around all the second point, kind of. Yeah, go ahead. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Centered around this stuff. And I just think it's troubling to put it in front of the kids where they don't have any. My kid needs to know about death. [00:17:29] Speaker A: I'm not. [00:17:30] Speaker C: I'm with Jack. I don't think being gnostic about it or acting like, you know, it doesn't exist. I'm perfectly fine having times where we do celebrate the saints, whatever it is. I don't actually have a problem with that. Some people are gonna look at and go, that's Catholic. Look, there have been some fantastic christians who have lived before us that I think it's okay to honor them and to celebrate them the same way that, you know, your grandparent on their. Their birthday, maybe they died ten years ago, but on their birthday, maybe you're thinking about it. We did this for my grandma and kind of celebrated some of her recipes and just shared some stories and such, and it was great. I'm fine doing those things. That's a proper celebration of death that I can get behind and that my kids, I can explain it to when they're walking up to somebody's, you know, house to get a Snickers bar, and they happen to see the ghouls and the witches and the ghosts and the skeletons crawling out of the ground and these scary things that pop out and get you like, no, thanks. I don't really want my kids first understanding of death to be in this way where it's scaring the living daylights out of them. And they don't have any concept of how to handle this like kids. You have to realize kids cannot grasp the concrete, or really, I should say, the way that we can. [00:18:34] Speaker B: What about when your kid's eleven or twelve? Your kids are, you know, Harrison's what, six right now? So that's one thing. What about when they're eleven or twelve? [00:18:40] Speaker C: I mean, at that point, it's almost like we've gone so long without it getting involved in that. And this is where you start to get into the very immodest costumes you're starting to get into. You know, at twelve years old, my son's going to be going out and seeing some chicken, her mini skirt costume, thinking that she's something because she's a 25 year old, still celebrating it like she's six. I don't want that either. So I would rather just avoid the day altogether. And the other thing is, even at twelve, this is really where boys can get into the ghouls and everything else. I don't think it is good to dwell on that. [00:19:13] Speaker A: Hey guys, I want to tell you about think deeper live, our first ever in person event. It's scheduled for Saturday, November 16, starting at 09:00 a.m. we're going to be talking about God's design for gender roles. It's tentatively scheduled to be in Burns, Tennessee. We want to get a headcount first so we don't outgrow the venue we have it planned for. So it would help us out a lot if you'd go to thinkdeeperlive.com and RSvP, let us know how many people are coming and then give us an email address so we can zero in the exact location where it's going to be and let you know a couple of weeks ahead of time. So check that out. Thinkdeeperlive.com. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Here'S the reason I ask, and this is going to get us into the third, the third argument against it, that a lot of people making is just abstain from every form of evil, obviously. First, thessalonians 522 I do not disagree hardly with anything that Joe said. However, to provide an alternative perspective here, Joe, and this is not to put you on the spot, it's going to sound like it is. But Joe, you're, you're big concert guy. You're, you're a big, big music guy. Would you take your kids to a concert? 1415 reason I ask is you're kind of mulling over your answer. I'd, I would argue there's way more immodesty at concerts than there are, than there is with Halloween costumes. Furthermore, the, again, connotations associated with concerts are you go there to basically party, drink a lot of alcohol, and that's what people do. Same thing. You can make the argument for sporting events, I'd say not as much as concerts. That's why I kind of went with that example. And to be fair, there's gonna be listeners thinking, no, I wouldn't take my kids to a concert either. Understandable. But I guess that's kind of a we can look at Halloween and we can look at trick or treating like, oh my goodness, death, gravestones, goblins, ghouls, awful. Oh, but a concert's harmless. What, what are your, what are your thoughts on that? [00:21:00] Speaker C: First, I depend on the concert. I mean, if I was going to see like megadeth or something like that. And probably not, um, first off, that it's not good music, but second off, uh, you know, that type of stuff. Second off, no, I would not take my son to anything like that. Uh, a cold play concert or something. Sure, maybe I, you know, do something like that at 1415 years old. Uh, so it would be, I'd be very selective on the type of concert. You're right, they'd see immodesty. I don't think immodesty is the strongest case for this. You're going to see immodesty everywhere. But I will say immodesty is particularly bad because they can get away with very revealing outfits, things like that that you're not going to get away with most of the time. The fishnets and things like that that women think are appropriate on the 31 October, but no other time of the year unless you're going to specific places. That's not the strongest argument. I do think the surrounding of death and demons and destruction. And just in a. The glorification of death. Death is a natural part of life. Going back to Jack spoiling. It's a natural part of life. There are times where we can celebrate the dead in an appropriate way, not a pagan way, something like that. Or we can just remember them, maybe not glorifying the darker parts of death and destruction and demons and things like that. Because if it was about death, where are all the angels? There's some of those. You're not really seeing a whole lot of angels popping up in people's yards around October 31. [00:22:18] Speaker B: Kids? Yeah. [00:22:19] Speaker C: Correct. It's beetlejuice, it's the demons, things like that. That's. That would be my argument for why abstaining from every form of evil. I don't want any, like my kids really dealing or I don't know, I don't want them participating in all of that. And at some point I think you're going to be forced to do that. [00:22:37] Speaker A: Well, this system is like the level of extraction. Okay, we haven't done it every year I've had kids, but a couple years we have. We're not going somewhere where people are dressed immodestly like that. You know, like. And so that is not even a factor for. Yeah, I hate that people do that on this day. That's not involved. That's not something I'm having to worry about. Same thing about, like, you try and avoid the demon ghoul thing. And there I was, part of a church that had a trunk or treat that strictly kept that and told a guy, take your mask off. You don't get to hand out candy, dress like that. Which was good. I mean, like, because we went to one last year and there was a guy walking around, the big, you know, skeletal clown, you know, insane, whatever it is. And it's like, this is a church parking lot, and you got a bunch of six year olds running around like this. Come on. Um, so, yeah, I mean, uh, the ability to extract that. But you talked about carving pumpkins growing up or having candy or things like that, or watching the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown. So I think we're just disagreeing on degree, because it seems like you agree that you can observe something, some of the trappings of the day in your own way, to the degree that you extract yourself from those other things. And so I don't know that it's so much of a disagreement as it is a disagreement in degree. [00:23:51] Speaker C: I'd agree. I think there's a big deviation from carving pumpkins, staying inside watching a movie and having some candy versus going out. And hopefully there's no razor blades in the apples and hoping they're. They're not coming up on some door that's gonna. I know. That was the thing. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Well, I know the thing about it is almost nobody goes door to door anymore. Like, that is a dying thing. And so, yeah, no, I wouldn't take my. Even. Even in my own neighborhood, I wouldn't take kids to the house just because, again, like, it's a low trust society. You just don't know what people are. The people that like to jump out and scare kids. No, I'm not taking my two year old up to somebody's door who might be looking to do that. And so, again, that's a degree of extracting yourself from it to the degree that you are. Whereas you're saying, well, it's staying inside. You can't. Well, why is that? Okay, it's the associations of the day. [00:24:36] Speaker C: If I wouldn't say. It's not the associations of the day. It's associations with darkness and death and destruction and ghouls and demons and everything else that I have a problem with. [00:24:44] Speaker A: See, that's where I'm like. That's why I'm saying we don't disagree. And so. [00:24:47] Speaker C: Right, and you're saying you can get away with it at the church parking lot, things like that. First off, that's not always the case, as you learned last year. Second off, when we start participating in the typical ways that everybody else does, but we're a degree back from where everybody else is like, okay, we can dress. [00:25:00] Speaker A: That's what you're doing with eating the candy. Like you're, you're a degree back, you're a hair degree and a half further back kind of thing. [00:25:07] Speaker C: I don't think it's a degree and a half. I think you are opening up to. Your kids are going to be asking, well, why can't we go trick or treating? Why can't we do this? Why can't we do that? My kids aren't going to ask that because my kids are going to view the holidays fundamentally different. It's a, it's a harvest day where we are enjoying the carving pump of the carving of pumpkins. We're enjoying the family time. I think we've reclaimed the holiday and by we, our family did this. We didn't go trick or treating. I think we reclaim the holiday to something that's positive, that is focused on the harvest, that is focused on a time of family and fun rather than, well, avoid this and don't look here and make sure you walk around this person's. And let's skip this person's house. [00:25:41] Speaker B: And that's to my point, like other, other, other aspects of life, separated from Halloween concerts and things like. [00:25:49] Speaker C: Yeah, we. [00:25:50] Speaker B: Don'T go different about it. [00:25:51] Speaker C: Not, I mean, not, not when everybody else is there like you do try to avoid it where possible. So if I, if it's a height of summer in July and, and I go to Cocoa beach where everybody's gonna be, do you think I'm taking my twelve year old there or even myself there or myself there? Probably not. So it's the same concept, which is, I know I'm gonna run into a lot of things that I disagree with and I'm gonna have to explain to my kidde, I don't want to be a helicopter parent, where I never do, but I want to explain it on my terms. You could say, well, it's one time a year. True, but how much can kids possibly grasp of fear? And this is a holiday based around fear, which is not a christian thing. I don't think us, but this is ourselves in a state of fear. And this is why slasher films and horror and everything else comes in. It's a fear based holiday. Is that appropriate for kids? It is. It should be a kid's holiday. [00:26:38] Speaker B: So. But this is the, this is the first point I have in, under the section of arguments in favor of Christian celebrating Joe island, do you think you can participate in kind of the harmless and kid friendly side of Halloween. Do you are. Let me ask this. Do you think that that is condoning if somebody chooses to do that, if somebody chooses to go to trunk or treat, if somebody chooses to their kids dress up? Again, what I would look at is maybe the harmless side of things, is that condoning the immoral activity surrounding it. Because my answer to that would be no. I mean, again, there's things like, I brought up the concert example I want you said again, Hollywood. I feel like Hollywood talk about as immoral as it gets. I can go watch a movie in the theaters, or I can watch a movie. And that's not. I'm not condoning all the atrocious things that the Hollywood industry does. I'm just enjoying the movie, maybe enjoying the innocent side. I see somewhat of a parallel there. So my argument would be that one can participate in the harmless, kid friendly side of Halloween without condoning all the moral activity surrounding it. To Jack's point, I think maybe all three of us just disagree on what would be defined as the harmless side of it. But that, that would be. That's basically my position. So I was curious your thoughts on that. [00:27:50] Speaker C: I mean, I think you could. I just think that you're opening the door to a lot of other stuff, in my opinion. I think you could go to, theoretically, you could have the kids dress up. I don't. I'm not against kids dressing up, as much as it may sound like it is. You have to be very careful where you're like, if it was a family, and we all our families got together and did this, which our church hates Halloween. So this has never happened at our church. But if, as Jack had it, you said Pritchett, right? Where they did get together. I don't have as much of a problem where it's strictly enforced. The kids get together, they get to dress up. Like, I'm not. I'm never condemning anybody for this. Let me just go on the record and say, I don't condemn anybody for this. You guys are still my friends, and we're still going to talk after this, maybe, we'll see. [00:28:34] Speaker A: But I'm not giving you any candy. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Just not on the 31st. [00:28:36] Speaker C: That's all right. I'll buy my own. Yeah, I'll buy it on the first. Cause that's when it's cheap. But, um, anyway, like, I don't have a problem as much with it. I just think that when you open the door to it, kids are gonna want more and more and more, which is always what happens. Kids will absolutely want to start participating in other things. And their friends are gonna go this place and their friends are gonna go that place. If you pull back from it and go, we just don't celebrate it in that way, then you save yourself a lot of questions down the line of peer pressure where, hey, they're going here and they're gonna do this. Can I go with them? And you gotta say no. And I. You got to draw the line. Well, it was fine here, but it's not there. Like, I don't know. I think you just. It's not that. That's every parent's prerogative. You're just going to save yourself a lot of headache. I think if you draw the line in a specific spot back here. But I'm not condemning anybody. And I don't necessarily think that's wrong. If you can assume that, hey, everybody there is going to be kosher. It's going to be cool. It's not going to be a bunch of demons popping out from the trunk or treat trying to scare kids. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, I think, you know, like I said, I think we disagree in degrees rather than total black and white, two sides of a line kind of thing. But I think that kind of is going to be where we end up going with this is what we do agree on. We're not quite there yet as to what we need to cover. I mean, the Bible does have certain things that you brought up, the witchcraft thing, sorcery in the Bible, things like that. And you'll see cauldrons on people's lawns. Right. And things like that. And that's kind of part of this. And obviously the witches and things like that. So you've brought up the death and demons and gore thing some. And that's. Again, we'll get to the parts we agree on. On the other hand, that's kind of the funny irony here is you are the big Harry Potter guy of the three of us. And so what about that part of it, especially as touches on Halloween because that's one of the other things you talk about, like the pagan roots in it and Harry Potter, it's kind of funny. It brings in some christian themes. She even quotes scripture in the books. But on the other hand, like, it's witchcraft. Wizards in a school, stuff like that. And they. Halloween is like the big thing. They, they do it really big at the, the school and the books, if I remember correctly. [00:30:47] Speaker C: And Christmas. So, you know. [00:30:49] Speaker A: No, they do Yule. They do Christmas, but they do the Yule thing, too, don't they. They have, like a big Yule ball or celebration or something. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:55] Speaker C: On Ondez. One of the books. Yeah. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:56] Speaker B: So. [00:30:56] Speaker C: So go ahead. Yeah. The way I. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Which is. So what? Real fast, just to preface it, it's funny because a lot of people would be very in line with Joe on his Halloween take and very opposed to Joe on his Harry Potter take. Harry Potter triggers up a lot of emotions for people. [00:31:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:09] Speaker A: He's kind of like. There's this weird Venn diagram that usually overlaps a lot of anti Halloween. Anti Harry. [00:31:14] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:31:14] Speaker A: He's the outlier here. [00:31:16] Speaker C: Yeah. The reason why is. Okay, so a couple things. First off, no, I would not let my six year old read Harry Potter. The first books. I don't think there's as much problem. There's not that much darkness and death and things like that, and people can. Okay, sure. You know, there's a little bit, but not much. By the time you hit the fourth book, it starts to get a lot more dark on those things. But I think that is something that, through a book form, and when you are old enough to kind of digest some of these principles, you can. I also think reading it is way different, even. And the watching it, I mean, I push that off probably even further. The reading it, I think, is different than having it put in your face completely with all of the, I don't know, walking up on somebody's lawn and seeing all these things. The other thing is, this is highly, highly fictional, fictitious, and she makes it very clear like this. Look, I didn't make this to be surrounded in the occult. Like you said, she's got christian themes in there. And if we're going to do that, then my biggest issue is you have to cut out Lord of the rings as well. And christians aren't near, as, you know, as okay with that one because there are a witches and there are magicians, obviously, you got Gandalf and such, that are able to do magic in a positive way in that book. It's very fictitious. People aren't willing to cut out Lord of the Rings because, whoa, hey, Tolkien's a Christian, but they're not going to do a JK Rowling because she's. Or they will because she's not a Christian. Like, similar things. It's a similar hero's journey. It's way different when you have seven books laid out in a hero's journey type situation than it is for my six year old to walk up on somebody's lawn and have a scare ghoul pop out and have them wet their pants. Like, to me, there's a massive difference where one is very real. The death and the gravestones. My son just asked me, what is that? It's a skeleton. Like, it's a skeleton. We tried to explain the bones, like, oh, you know, I had no idea. But that's very real. Skeletons exist, gravestones exist, you know, the monsters and such. They need to be old enough to be able to digest it. And I think book forms difference. So that would be, my understanding, is one is based in reality, and one is based very much in the fictional. I get your. [00:33:14] Speaker A: Your lord of the rings thing. I think you'd have an even better argument to go against. Star wars. Very eastern religion. The Force. I mean, the forces magic there. The Jedi are just space wizards kind of thing. And so, I mean, you could make a case, if you have to be anti Harry Potter, that you got to be anti Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, whatever else, even superheroes, whatever you've got, just these people that can do supernatural stuff. [00:33:37] Speaker C: Doctor Strange. [00:33:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that one gets pretty weird. The thing about Harry Potter, I would say that does bring it a little bit closer, is Star wars is a galaxy, you know, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away kind of thing. And Lord of the Rings is kind of this middle earth. It's like you're. It's fantasy, so you're in a different world. Harry Potter lives in London. Like, there. There's. It's a parallel world to us kind of thing. And the other thing is when you go up Halloween and these, these lawns that you don't want your kids walking on look like the set of Harry Potter. And Lord of the Rings is very much a different kind. [00:34:14] Speaker B: They don't look like Star wars. [00:34:15] Speaker A: They don't look like Star wars. They're like, those are the. The mental separation for a kid is way different than Harry Potter. There was a really funny tweet about, like, the most unrealistic thing about Harry Potter is it's set in the nineties, and nobody commented on Michael Jordan and the bulls having quite a run. But, like, other than that, other than not acknowledging those things, like it very much is set in our world, a parallel world, a secret underworld in our world right now. And again, imagery is, yeah, the cauldrons, the things like, you just say the word sorcery. [00:34:46] Speaker B: Nobody thinks Star wars. People think Harry Potter. And I'm not with Harry Potter, but. [00:34:51] Speaker C: But I would say it's a similar thing. The other thing is Muggles, Quidditch. I mean, she's like literally making up words that don't actually exist. And she is setting it in a place where, okay, they're in. It's based in our world, but kind of not like it's laid over our world where there is a say. And that's why I think it's appealing to people is this thought that, man, you know, this, this could be happening, and we didn't even know what type of like, but it's very fictitious just. [00:35:16] Speaker B: To make the parallel with Halloween there for people. Again, I don't, I don't really have a problem with Harry Potter, but somebody might make the argument just because of the sorcery connotations with it. It's better to stay away from it, which I'm assuming you don't necessarily have a problem with the people who think you just disagree. But I don't know. I can see that a similar line of argumentation to what you're doing with Halloween. It's not identical, but I can see a similar line of argumentation with everything associated with it. It's probably better for christians to just stay away. And I, that's, that's where I do think to the Lord of the Rings point and other things. I see why people make that argument. I just think you have to be very careful, because that can apply to a lot of things, the negative connotations associated, you know, staying from every form of evil. So, no Harry Potter. It's like, there's a lot of stuff to that. So I guess that that would be my only addition to it. And I guess maybe not that we're interviewing you here, Joe, but I guess the question for you, like, what, what is different about it if people are going to make the same line of argumentation about the connotations? [00:36:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I just say exactly what you said, like, okay, that's perfectly fine. First off, we know people like, people at our church are death on Harry Potter, no pun intended. Like, they just don't want anything to do with it. And that's perfectly fine. We're going to get along. I probably should not be quoting Harry Potter from the pulpit, so, not that I would anyway, but you know what I mean? That's not to upset anybody. We try to stay away from. We're not going to talk about it. We can both be christians, but they also, I think, are perfectly fine with those other things. And I'd say, okay, well, examine it. Harry Potter gets a bad rap for that reason, but there's a lot of things that kind of dip into it. Percy Jackson. A lot of people are fine with Percy Jackson. That's all greek gods mythology, things like that. Are you okay with that? Are you okay with. A lot of people are okay with the Hunger Games. That's messed up. Like, I don't know, it's just weird. But we, everybody draws different lines on what they find to be, or even twilight. Okay, there's vampires and werewolves or whatever it is. I don't know, werewolves, I don't know. Stupid, but whatever they are, like, everybody was fine with that one for a second. So everybody's got different lines. Yes. Harry Potter, because it's based in witchcraft. The, you know, Hogwarts is literally a school of witchcraft and wizardry. Yeah, but it's so fictitious and so made up that it's a, in my opinion, just becomes a good story. There's a difference between literally the occult and what they were doing in Babylon and what they were doing in Egypt. And like, some of that stuff where it's very based in reality. That to me is more Halloween. Very based in reality of like, legitimately doing these things. You could say Harry Potter dips into it, no doubt, I imagine. [00:37:44] Speaker A: I mean, the witches downtown, like you were talking about, you have a big problem with, are very much in the same mold of Harry Potter style witches. Like the eye of newt potion kind of thing. Like that's how they view themselves. And again, the same imagery, the black cats, things like that. And so I, like I said, I think it's, it's just a lot closer to real world, which is what makes it the challenge there, which again, is why I don't understand. Like the, well, I don't want my kids understanding or being around this association, but that I like this association. Again, everyone can only get time well. [00:38:19] Speaker C: So, yeah, all in all in good time, my six year olds, I may read Harry Potter. [00:38:24] Speaker B: Go ahead, Jack, if you want. [00:38:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just going to say, uh, that's enough on the disagreement. I think there's a lot of stuff we do agree on on this. And, uh, this is one of the things that really annoys me about my generation. Uh, the extended adolescence thing. Everybody just wants to hang on to. Like, I knew people that trick or treated into their twenties, like, okay, that's a little ridiculous. Drive over to Walmart, buy the candy for yourself kind of thing. But they want to, they get in the, the, they wanted chase that feeling. Halloween was their favorite as a kid, and like, it has, it was a thing as a kid, but like, the way millennials have transformed it. Number one Joe brought up earlier into an adult holiday. Number two, the decorations have totally changed since we were a kid. You might hang a ghost out front of your that is true house. Now it's a zombie graveyard. Stuff like just driving around town. I am sick of having to be like, all right, kids, look the other way because there's a guy with his head chopped off in somebody's front yard. Like, this is weird. 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And so, man, I'm just like, man, he would love dressing up. He would love, you know, trick or treating, getting candy or whatever. It's like, yeah, no, I don't want him exposed to all the stuff Joe's talking about. But at the same time, do I just completely shut down then? You know, the excitement of dressing it up and getting candy and that kind of thing just for that. But what's interesting about that is that's my level of excitement, is I want to show that something that was a part of my childhood to my son. Well, millennials are the big anti kid generation. And so rather than getting to experience the joy of maybe passing on Halloween, what do they want to do? Still participate in themselves? They still want to go dress up, they still want to go get candy. They still want to go do all the haunted houses and things. And I don't know. I think that's just an interesting part of Jack's point there is we get excitement from passing these things on to our kids, and the joy or the, you know, the thrill that they get if you don't have kids, what is that? What is left? What's left for you? Especially if you view Halloween as a kid holiday, it's like, well, I guess I can't celebrate anymore, so they choose to continue with it. And since they're adults now, they make it far more based on adrenaline rushes and jump scares and all that than maybe it would then it would be if we just focus on it for the kids. Does that make. Does that make sense? That was just kind of an interesting point. [00:41:26] Speaker C: I think that is very interesting, now that I think about it, because, will, you did celebrate Halloween, right? You dressed up, growing up. Yeah, Jack, you probably did way more than I did. I think I did what, once or twice? Mom dressed me up literally as Joseph, and my sister was Mary. I think that was one of the only times I ever did. So I don't have this warm and fuzzy of, I want to pass it to my kids. It just didn't exist for me. We had really, like, gotten away from it, so I don't have the nostalgia, you know, really reclaiming this and helping with kids. And to me, it's like, well, we stayed away from it growing up. I'll just continue to stay away from it. So that's a very interesting point. I guess I hadn't considered is there's a lot of people that want to bring that same thing with Christmas. The best part of Christmas is no longer the gifts for us. It's seeing the look on our spaces. Right. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Well, because I think just as you finish your point there, that's it for me, is for me, growing up, everything was harmless. Like, we went trick or treating, we got candy. Yeah, there were some scary costumes, but as a ten, 1112 year old, I didn't really think much of it. And again, that. [00:42:19] Speaker C: That's. [00:42:19] Speaker B: That's my anecdotal story for everybody else. And there's people that get scared of their minds and all that, but. [00:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah, but you're right. [00:42:25] Speaker C: I mean, it was fundamentally different, even from you as a kid, and you're the youngest, obviously. So from when Jack and my oldest sister and such, it has majorly, majorly changed into a $12 billion industry. That was not the way it was growing up. You had a lot of kids in, like, bed sheets who are, you know, trying to be ghosts very much. Charlie Brown type of stuff. Right. Yeah, you had some elaborate costumes, but that was the outlier. Nowadays, people are spending, like, dollar 200 on some transformers costume or looking like Iron man or whatever else. It's like, my goodness, guys grow up. They grow up because kids don't have the money for that, so. Or it's the parents on Instagram who are really trying to make this look like they're the greatest parents of all time. Their kid got the one cool outfit, like, I don't know, it's a commercial holiday rather than a kid's holiday. And this is the point I made on the last podcast that I think still stands. Is this a holiday for the kids or is it a holiday for the adults? It at one point, I think was, excuse me, a holiday for the kids. And this is when you guys were, when we were all growing up, I think it very much was primarily for children. At some point, it has shifted into a holiday for adults, and we are still putting kids into a holiday that is primarily for adults these days, in my opinion. Can we reclaim it for the kids? Potentially, but this is the way of the world. McDonald's is doing the same thing. Where's all of the fun? We've gone on, off on this before, but, like, where's all the fun? Bright yellows and reds and Ronald McDonald that you sit by, you know, the little thing on the plastic or the plastic or plaster thing on the bench that you get your picture with, like, the whimsy of kids is gone now. It's all blacks, browns and grays, and it's McCafe. Right. And you do that. You see this across the board where all of the whimsy and fun of maybe the eighties and the nineties and even early two thousands to a certain degree are gone now. It's all commercial. [00:44:03] Speaker B: All kids movies have to have adult kids and all that. [00:44:06] Speaker C: Exactly. I mean, everything has been ripped away from the kids. And this is a generation that hates children. So this is, I feel like Halloween's no different. It hates kids. It's not for the kids anymore. We're still trying to juxtapose, like, we're still trying to put kids on that or, you know, to, yeah. Put them into what is now primarily a. Whereas I look at the difference of Christmas or the difference of Easter bunnies and things like that, it still is kid based. There still is a lot, yeah, you get, you know, adults get gifts, but it's still very much around the kids. [00:44:38] Speaker B: So let's get into a few things here, because one of the questions I want to ask here is essentially from each of y'all's viewpoint, then how are you, from a very personal anecdotal perspective, how are you going to celebrate this time of year with your family? Because I think what's interesting about this is all three of us have kids that are still in the pretty early stages of life, obviously, Jack and Joe, you both have a six year old, so, you know, but that's still pretty young, still very, you know, foundational. And so I am curious what you guys, I mean, we are, as we're recording this, like eight days away from it and as it posts, will be three days away from it. So I live in a neighborhood where there very much will be people coming to the door. Do we give them candy? Do we shut all the lights off? Do we, you know, so I want to ask that here in just a second of like, how, how do you plan to, to observe it? But I want to get into a few more things very quickly. Scary movies. This, this has been one that has always been kind of a touchstone for me in the sense of I enjoy scary movies sometimes. I haven't watched one in probably three or four years just because I sometimes feel like maybe I should not. Like, it's, it's an area that I feel like I'm growing in maturity on, man, four or five years ago, I enjoyed those, you know, and not the, not the slasher, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger. I've never seen any of those. Like, I don't really care for those, but, you know, the, the conjuring type movies, insidious or Annabelle or something like that. A quiet, actually, funny enough, I was never really, really big fan of quiet place. But yeah, stuff like that. Wherever, you know, the scare of it is, the thrill of it is kind of the point of the movie versus you're watching a movie for a good storyline or whatever. So what are y'all's thoughts on that? Again, I've, I've kind of grown, I haven't watched those in a long time, but they're still a part of me. It's like, yeah, I mean, I would enjoy that. And I know a lot of people do that. Something is like, okay, when my kids get older, maybe for Halloween, do we stay in, do we watch a, you know, a scary movie? I don't know. Maybe that's something that should also be off limits. What are your, what are y'all's thoughts on, on this side of things? [00:46:32] Speaker A: I think we're all in agreement. Like the blood and guts thing is. [00:46:35] Speaker B: Really beyond Texas Chainsaw massacre. Yes. [00:46:38] Speaker A: I mean, saw and I mean, just. [00:46:40] Speaker C: There'S so you have something fundamentally wrong with you if you enjoy this. I'm sorry, I'm just going to go out and say it. You have something fundamentally wrong with you if you enjoy watching. [00:46:46] Speaker B: Hold up your mug, Joe. Hot takes with Joe is your hot take right here. [00:46:51] Speaker C: This is a stone cold take, or at least it should be. What is wrong with people who don't get, like, an empathetic response to seeing body parts chopped off of another person type of thing? Like, you have something wrong with you. If you enjoy it, go to therapy, come see me. You know, feel free to reach out, and I will walk you through it if that's something you, you fundamentally lack empathy. Sorry, I just can't stand that. I don't know how you get around that as a Christian. [00:47:15] Speaker A: Yeah, this is one of those where I was like, well, what's your Bible verse? Well, yeah, Paul didn't say, thou shalt not go to the movies theater and see a scary movie, like a horror chainsaw movie or whatever. Like, this is principles and sensibility. Feel things like that, of there's an evil to that. There's a, as you said, joe, like a lack of human compassion for other people, like, wanting to see that happen just, again, the way it lights up the brain. I know there's been studies on that of, like, the brains of people who enjoy horror movies or while they're watching them and things like that. [00:47:45] Speaker B: So what's different about that? And like, somebody would say, oh, the patriot or braveheart. It's like, that is a, first of all, it's historical, but second of all, that, that is a part of the movie where the point of the movie is something completely different, telling a story. The point of all these movies is what? The gore, the like, that's what people, they might tell you otherwise, they're not, they're not going for the stellar acting. They're not going for the, for the, what's his name, Christopher Nolan storyline here. No, they're going, like, the very point of those movies is to watch people's heads get chopped off and watch all the stabbings and all. Like, that's why people go to watch those things. And so I just, in case anybody tries to make that parallel, oh, well, Braveheart's really violent. Like, not the same. [00:48:24] Speaker A: And I would say there are war movies that are just so gratuitous in their violence that I'd put them in the same category. But I mean, if you're going to depict a war, yeah, things might happen. And I mean, when, that's the hard part about christian entertainment is there's a large gray area that is up to personal conscience. And then there's stuff where you're like, all right, that's enough. You know, the pornography stuff, things like that, and I really think I'm there with Joe, like saying, look, a slasher film, seeing people's guts spilled open, you know, decapitations, arms cut out. Like it. No, no, it's just not needed. Now, as far as like a more generic scary that you're bringing up, it's not really my thing. I think I brought up a quiet place, really not that scary. That's probably the, the only one of those I've seen. [00:49:06] Speaker B: That's probably why I didn't like it all that much. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe so. Or even like signs back in the day, which wasn't all that scary, but it was kind of the what's going to come out kind of thing. It's interesting, like the, the spiritual, mental process of wanting to be scared and wanting to fear. And then, I mean, you go to a movie that makes you cry, you go to a movie that makes you laugh, you go to a movie that like, you're invested in the movie. Yeah. And so it makes sense that fear would be one of those that a movie can bring. But I don't know about chasing that all the time is, is healthy, but I have a harder time drawing any hard line on that. [00:49:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Because I think it is an adrenaline rush. Uh, people jump out of airplanes for adrenaline rushes. They, they, you know, roller coasters and. Yeah, roller coasters. And I think there's an adrenaline rush. The difference that I would draw is you are putting imagery in your mind that once it goes in, it doesn't come out. We have to be very careful on the imagery that we're putting in, um, because we are susceptible to those things. And if you are constantly chasing that, yeah, you know, I might find a different way to seek adrenaline. The other thing about adrenaline chasers is, I'm not saying there's something fundamentally wrong with you either, but there is a psychological reason why we do chase adrenaline in that way. And every now and then it's perfectly fine. If you are an adrenaline junkie, usually there's reasons why. So of course I'm going to take a therapy stance on it. But I do think that there are psychological reasons and emotional reasons why we seek adrenaline all the time. So I'm not against, I don't think you're going to hell or anything like that for watching a horror movie, you know, a thrill movie type of thing. But be very careful on what you're putting in your mind because once it goes in, it does not come out. [00:50:48] Speaker B: Because there are very different levels of horror movies. Again, the slasher films, but there's the, the demonic ones and then there's just the I don't know, thriller kind of scary scary right. That are not all the same. So yeah I would agree. So we got a few other things on here. We can get these kind of rapid fire because we still have a think fast to get to and then I do again kind of just want ask you guys how are y'all gonna be observing it from? Obviously you two kind of have somewhat different perspectives and again I got a three year old. It's really excited about stuff. What am I gonna do? I, you know that's something I've been wrestling with now for a while but haunted houses, that's a big one. Again did that when I was 16 1718 enjoyed it a lot. Haven't done it in four or five years. I think I actually, as I was listening to the last episode I think I said in the last episode I will probably never do that again for all the reasons that you guys, you know, mentioned but I. Yeah, I mean that's something I did growing up. A lot of, a lot of christians do it and don't really see a problem with it so we have that decorating your lawn and then should churches host trunk or treat. I don't know how quickly we want to hit these but I'll kind of give my take and then pass it over again. Haunted houses as much as it pains me because I did enjoy them growing up, I don't, I probably will not be sending my kids to any haunted house even when, you know, if they're you know 19 out of the house and want to out of my control but while they're in my house I'll probably advised against it just for the purpose of. I mean they got zombies coming up to you with chainsaws and it's you know the. It's very. Just dark, dark, dark darkness in your mind decorating your lawn. I don't decorate for any holiday so that probably won't be something that I do. I don't really have a big problem with it. If somebody wants to you know put I don't know, a skeleton outside or we got a. Some of our neighbors they've got like spiders and stuff hanging up. I don't really have a big problem with that. Obviously the ones that are just way, you know, trying to get a scare out of little kids I'm not a big fan of and then church is hosting truck or treats. I don't have a problem with that. I do. Based on everything you guys said in the sense of monitoring the costumes, monitoring the trunks. Everyone that I've ever been at has had very gracious people who are not really trying to scare anybody. They maybe like, they're just there for the kids. And so I have not seen maybe the more cynical side where that you guys have, where people are trying to scare the kids. So for that reason, I don't have a huge problem with. I think it's a healthy way for kids to, again, enjoy the harmless side, maybe, without going around the neighborhood and seeing all the scary stuff. So that's my quick rundown on those three. I don't know who wants to go next. [00:53:12] Speaker A: Yeah, well, just say the trunk or treat thing. I think there is a real market there for a church to brand it that way as a horror free, modest trunk or treat. So people will know you're going to come here. You're not going to have to deal with any, you know, blood, bloody masks, any horror, you know, horrifying clowns, things like that. Things are going to scare your kid. It's going to be, you know, and you can allow a wide gamut with inside of that. It doesn't all have to be Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse kind of stuff. And so there's. Oh, yeah, no Mickey Mouse. Yeah, that's right. Well, then Winnie Pooh is also a Disney property now, isn't. [00:53:48] Speaker C: Oh, that's right. That's right. [00:53:50] Speaker B: Star wars. No, nothing you can do. Harry Potter there, right, Joe? [00:53:52] Speaker C: Harry Potter, sorry. That's right. [00:53:55] Speaker A: Your church will have to make a call on that one. Erase the little lightning bolt on the kid's head and take a stick away. But. And then the modest thing, you know, like, we're not going to have any. You don't have to have those concerns. Market it that way. I think that would be something a lot of families are looking for. Because, again, I went to a church of Christ one last year, and there were multiple people where it's like, I don't want my kid around that. Don't. Don't be that guy. And so, yeah, I think if you're going to do it, really make that a thing. Make it like, yeah, we're really not doing the blood and guts thing. We're not doing the immodesty thing. You can trust us for that. [00:54:27] Speaker C: I'm gonna assume unhaunted houses and decorating your lawn, you're out. [00:54:31] Speaker A: I mean, the lawn decoration, as Will said, like, there's a line. Haunted houses, I don't think are a generally good thing. I'm certainly not for them. [00:54:38] Speaker C: But, yeah, I mean, I think, you know my take on that one, the decorating your lawn. You dry down the street real fast, Joe. [00:54:46] Speaker B: Interesting. Did either one of you guys ever, y'all ever done a haunted house before? [00:54:50] Speaker A: No. [00:54:51] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. [00:54:53] Speaker A: I've seen like some videos, you know, things like that of walkthroughs, certain things like. Yeah, no, I'm smarter than that. [00:55:01] Speaker C: Just kidding. No, I mean, the. Again, I have no desire to be scared out of my mind for something I have no control over. I just don't. I mean, I think, again, it's obvious. [00:55:12] Speaker B: I'm talking about, like it. Within the last five years, you all are grown adults. I meant, when y'all are like teenagers, y'all still didn't at all. Gotcha. [00:55:19] Speaker C: No, no. Yeah, you, you learn to. You learn to put up with enough fears, such as November 5 coming up. There's enough fears in the world that you have no control over that. I got enough of that going on in my life that, you know, we'll, we'll stick with that. But should you decorate your lawn when you drive down the street and you see a heavily decorated lawn, is the first thought, man, that person's a real strong Christian. Or is the first thought, oh, boy, they really get into this stuff. Like, I'm sorry, the way I judge it. And. Yeah, you could say, well, that's judgmental. [00:55:47] Speaker A: That was pretty judgmental. Yeah, that's it. [00:55:49] Speaker C: I am. When I. We got a house that has all of the ghouls and everything very close to us, and every day I drive by, my first thought is not, he's probably a strong member of the church going to white Bluff Church of Christ. Maybe he is. He might be. And maybe that's a judgmental jerk. Part of me, I don't. So, no, I don't. I won't be decorating my lawn unless you're talking boxwoods and some ferns and whatnot. I decorate in that way. So there you go. Year round and churches on truck retreat. What's funny is a lot of churches have problems with nativity scenes, but they're perfectly fine with trunk retreats. It's kind of like, oh, that's interesting. [00:56:22] Speaker A: Well, I mean, the logic on that is, it's not that hard to understand. [00:56:27] Speaker C: I don't think if we're going to celebrate one versus the other. Oh, well, we're going to be real sticklers on history for one. We're not going to be sticklers on history for another. [00:56:37] Speaker A: No, if you. It's not the history, it's if you think you need religious authorization, that you don't have to celebrate one and the other one you think is something that is allowed to you. I mean, that's. You can see the logic there is not that hard. [00:56:50] Speaker C: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think. I'm not a big fan of the trunk retreats, but that's fine. I don't like, I don't like churches mixing with this holiday personally, but I'm not condemning anybody that does it. As you guys said, it's probably best for the kids if you're going to do it, you know, doing it at a church in a. In an approved, modest way, okay, that's fine, but I'm not a big fan of it. Go figure. Okay, you had at the end. We're gonna run through this then I'm gonna get to my think fast here. What all, what we should agree, you know, everybody should agree is off limits. Is. Yes, the Satan costumes. I do think glorifying or making light of Satan. Don't do that. [00:57:29] Speaker B: If you're dressing your kid Satan, like talking about here. [00:57:31] Speaker C: Yeah, don't do that. The bloody, the violent, the ghoulish costumes, the very scary. Mandy, don't put that in your kid's mind. You may think it looks really cool, but a seven year old does not need to go around with that in his mind, that imagery or thinking that he's scary. Come on. The kids, like, childhood actually matters in this day and age. Immodest costumes, for obvious reasons, immodest anything, but especially costumes. Don't think this is any different time of year. And glorifying death, destruction, violence, decay through participating in the Halloween, all of the real scary imagery, things out on your lawn amount on those things. I think that's, you know, we. [00:58:07] Speaker B: So, Joe, I want to, like I said, I want to ask, so what is. What are you, what does your family do for this time of year? I'm not even say holiday, but, like, this particular thing. [00:58:18] Speaker C: Sure, sure. So we already did carve pumpkins and we watched great, great pumpkin, Charlie Brown, harmless kids, fun thing. As Jack said at the beginning, I do want to draw a line between Harvest and the Halloween. We already carved pumpkins. It wasn't on the 31st. It's perfectly fine this time. You go, man. It's pumpkin season. This is great. We're going to carve them, we're going to eat the seeds. We're going to have a good time. No, it's candy season. All, all season, in my opinion. So no, it's not surrounding the 31st of, like, you know, but the way we used to do it as a kid is mom and dad would always buy us a family movie, and they'd buy us all the candy. And that night we would go downstairs and we'd watch a movie and we'd have a great family. We'd carve pumpkins and have a great family time. We've already done that. I don't have a problem having a family harvest holiday. That is recognizing, yes, the rest of the world is celebrating something. We don't celebrate that. We celebrate something different. We're going to kind of claim it for our own. And you could say, well, that's what we're trying to do with our kids. Okay. You know, and that's fine. But I do think it's. That's how we would celebrate it and how we do celebrate. Jack. [00:59:23] Speaker B: Jack. [00:59:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, no, we. Like I said, we went to a trunk or treat thing last year. [00:59:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:29] Speaker A: I mean, usually a dress up thing for the kids, you know, if they want to be Mario and Princess Peach and stuff like that, whatever. But, yeah, I mean, just something simple again, something controlled environment. We're not going around the neighborhood because you do have some weird, you know, neighbor. Just the stuff like that you have to consider. So, yeah, I mean, it's. Again, I think it's degrees. It's a controlled environment. Keeping your kids safe, keeping your kids from seeing things you don't want them to see, helping them enjoy a good time, and basically that's it. [00:59:58] Speaker B: Nice. Nice. I might. I might be working. I might be working. So I'm not sure yet, but, um, if I'm not, I think Jackson's going to get a kick out of, uh, handing out candy. So we will probably be indoors, maybe watch Charlie Brown or something, and we'll let him be our. Our candy because we're in a subdivision where they are definitely trick or treating. So we'll probably let him just get a kick out of handing out, you know, Kit Kats and Reese's to everybody. But, yeah, I mean, we're still, like I said at the start, we're still kind of navigating all this as, you know, parents of young kids, so nothing set in stone. Kind of still trying to figure out how we want to do things, as I'm sure a lot of parents are. So appreciate every, you know, these. These guys willing to talk about this again. And as always, before we get to Joe's, think fast. I want to encourage all of our listeners, specifically those of us, those of you who are on focus, plus let us know your thoughts. Try to get your comments in before Wednesday night because I always think it's interesting to hear other people's perspectives on this. As we said at the start, there's a lot of people that are just even stronger opinions than Joe has about this. And then there are other people that are all into the haunted houses and all the dark side of Halloween. And so we might disagree, but I am curious to hear your thoughts again as listeners. So Facebook, YouTube, obviously focus, plus, let us know what you think if you have any additional questions that we can address. With Friday's deep end, that's all that I had. So, Joe, I guess you can take us away here. [01:01:19] Speaker C: Yeah, so I actually don't have access to my Facebook. I want to pull it up and. And, uh, my Facebook cuts off during the day, um, during. During work hours. But your dad, Brad Hare. Doctor Brad Hare, uh, recently posted about parting university, having a woman preacher come to chapel. And this caused quite the, uh, quite the hubbub. And I was curious your guys's thoughts on this, that obviously we're going to. We're going to back your dad. We're going to back doctor Hare. Appear in his post, has his original. [01:01:49] Speaker B: Post, currently has 324 comments and 289 shares. [01:01:54] Speaker C: How many likes does it have? [01:01:55] Speaker B: Just said curiosity, 462. [01:01:57] Speaker C: Yeah. So this is viral in the church. As far as I'm concerned, this is, you know, pretty viral. Anytime you're in the multiple hundreds, like for all across the board, three different metrics being the background, what the post. [01:02:09] Speaker B: Was about real fast. [01:02:11] Speaker C: So. And you may have the name there. That's what I was looking up is the specific name of John H. Walton. [01:02:15] Speaker B: Oh, oh, sorry. [01:02:16] Speaker C: Okay. There's two separate. There are two separate issues. John H. Walden wrote a book that is denying. My understanding is he's basically denying the creation account and basically doesn't view it as literal. This is a growing trend. Actually, he's not alone in this. This is a growing trend even among evangelicals. And, you know, those in academia saying. [01:02:37] Speaker A: Well, we know that study episode last week. [01:02:40] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Where it's very easy in our textual criticism world to look at it and go, well, either Moses didn't write it, or that's not actually, it's more allegorical and things like that. So your dad had a great post on it, which is, you know, and has done a great job. And this goes way back. I think he's called some of these things out of Harding they've been talking about this for a long time and preach or teaching this in school that's so categorically false and so on. The first thing on this, think fast, is if you can get to a Brad Harrod seminar anywhere in your area, I would strongly encourage you to go to one and shore up your faith and shore up the. You will run across this. Somewhere along the way, somebody will believe or try to convince you that the first eleven chapters of Genesis didn't actually happen. They're all allegorical. Go show up your faith. Grab a copy of convicted. If you are not familiar with his book, it is fantastic. That would be the first thing that I'd say on this, is make sure that you have the talking points down to know this very much did happen. There's historical evidence, these things and such. [01:03:38] Speaker B: The other side of it, Joe, was that they had Tiffany. Yech. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, was the devotional speaker in chapel proceeded to deliver a sermon, devotional message, quoting scripture to the student body, spoke about deconstructing and made numerous heretical points such as encouraging the students to do what makes them happy first, then to worry about what God says. That is quoted from, from data. That's not a direct quote, but. So, yeah, it caused quite the stir, needless to say, caused quite the stir about this, this woman being there. So, Joe, I don't know if you have a question that you're asking us here, but that is certainly in the center of church of Christ's social media right now. [01:04:15] Speaker C: So we're not going to do a full episode on this. I'm going to ask you guys the burning question. And yes, it's burning hot. Hot takes here. Should we be sending our kids to christian schools, to Christian. [01:04:26] Speaker A: To university. [01:04:27] Speaker C: Christian universities? [01:04:31] Speaker A: The biggest thing for me that I really don't like about these is when Brad posts these people, like my kid goes there. I didn't realize this is what happened. And they are very good. I know multiple of them are very good at presenting a very conservative church of Christ front in the recruiting process. And then when a kid gets there, it is women preachers, it is. The Bible's not literal. It is all kinds of things like that. And that's just dishonest. I heard one of them literally have a argument with Brad years ago, very, very closely related to all this. And his whole thing was basically, stop telling parents that I'm teaching this. And Brad said, well, are you teaching it? Well, that's not. That's not what's important. Stop telling parent. Like, essentially it was a pr thing of like, I don't want it getting out that this John Walton book is what I'm teaching on Genesis. That's my frustration. Like, be upfront about it if you're gonna, because that's the other thing. People wouldn't send their kids there. A lot of people wouldn't send their kids there if they knew exactly what was happening. So do your research, know exactly how it is. And if you send your kids, send them in there with their guard up, it would be the thing I would say. I know one of the biggest reasons people do send their kids to these is to find a spouse. That's a pretty compelling reason. A lot of people have found their spouses, they're very happily married due to somebody or with somebody. They found it at their christian university. Go in knowing, hey, this isn't all just 100% in the clear because it's a church of Christ school. [01:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm pretty well opposed, not opposed. I'm not planning on sending any of my kids to any university, particularly just for the student loan issue. Like, it's so expensive living, you know, with a bunch of other 18 to 22 year olds doing who knows what. Like, I don't care how faithful or righteous my kid is. That's just setting them up for failure. I don't like to go for the University of Alabama that go for free Hardman University. Like, I don't really separate those two. I think it's equally dangerous. I think my biggest issue with this whole thing because, you know, because of my kind of natural cynicism with it, like, I am not going to get quite as upset about, I guess the, I don't know, the liberal tendencies. Like, you're going to get those a lot of places. And so you, I think you need to be fully prepared if you do send your kid to one of those that they're probably going to be dealing with that kind of stuff. And, you know, as long as you prep your kids for that, I think it can be done. My biggest issue with it is kind of the, the fact that so many, like, mainly parents of kids who go there are just blindly supportive of the school because, oh, well, my kid goes there or because, oh, I went to freed Hardiman or well, I went to Harding and it was great. Like, there can be nuance to this. Just because it's quote unquote your school and because you went there and had a great experience and all these things does not mean that what Brad or other people are saying about this is not true and does not need to be called out. Like people have this tribalism, this loyalty to their school to where they're not willing to call this out and say what are they doing having a woman, first of all, leading a devotional, quoting scripture and telling the kids to go pursue whatever makes them happy first. Like you should, you should be able to say that without violating your tribalism to your school or whatever. And so I think that's the biggest problem with it is there were a lot of people on dad's post that were kind of upset with him for calling that out. It's like, no, that needs to be called out. So I don't know. Those are kind of my thoughts. I think you have to be. I'm not planning on sending my kids to those, but if I did, I would want them to very much have their guard up to the, as Jack said, to the liberalism, to the, I don't know, the tendency to want to push the envelope a little bit when it comes to what the Bible teaches, women's roles, that kind of thing. I mean, goodness knows that's the hot topic for kids is, well, women should have equal rights and things like that. So yeah, I'm not a fan, of course that Harding did that. But I think the biggest frustrating thing is christian parents and then, you know, christians maybe who are in their thirties who went to Harding that are, that are defending it. [01:08:15] Speaker C: It's the lie closest to the truth that does the most harm. That's what I would say here is when you are that close, you know, yes, your church, Christ, but you're kind of adjacent. It's exactly as the point you guys are making. The kids guards are not. I would rather almost send my kid to a secular school knowing he's going to get a bunch of garbage and you go and prep for that rather than. I agree. I agree. I agree. I don't know about that. I agree. I agree. Maybe see, I've heard that argument before way more. [01:08:43] Speaker B: Not that we have time for that. I do disagree with that, actually. I've heard that argument. I think it makes sense. I think the amount of bad influences you get at secular school, like, I don't think if I had to choose one, I don't think I'm ever choosing the secular school. [01:08:54] Speaker C: I mean, I'm honestly, if I was, if my kids are going to go to college, which is not a guarantee, but we got a long way to go, so we'll see. I would personally do online. I think it's. It's the fastest, easiest, cheapest that I. [01:09:06] Speaker B: Agree with for sure. [01:09:07] Speaker C: You stay grounded in your church, you stay around your family. You do it on your timeframe, you get to work a job during. There's so many reasons why I would do online. So. No, I mean. But at the same time, again, at least in secular, I do. Yeah, you're right. The influence, really bad. There's also a whole a lot of other influences, like we've heard, we've been told that for sure keeps the abortion clinic across the street open. Yeah, we think it happens. I had a buddy who found a six pack of beer up in his free dorm that, you know, some kids had snuck beer into the dorm and were drinking it and snuck it away when they did a house call or whatever else, and he ended up finding it in the ceiling later, accidentally. I don't know how he found it, but either way, we think that it's perfectly fine. You don't have any negative influences there. Once again, your guard is down because you don't expect to have negative influences. That's when it's at the most critical time. So, yeah, I'm not, I'm not the biggest fan. We may get flack for this one, and people are going to be upset and how could you possibly say, look, kids are vulnerable. So when you start having a woman, start a woman preaching in chapel, you can make all the excuses in the world, but at the end of the day, you're going to have a lot of kids that start looking at that as normal, and they're going to come out questioning their church of Christ religion and dogmas and whatnot. As they'll say, well, why can't we do this? It was perfectly fine for them. It is a slippery slope. We need to be paying attention to those things. So just for parents, keep your eyes open, keep your ears open to these things and be very careful and where you send your kids. So that's all I had on that one. But, fellas, any other thoughts, questions before we. All right, this is going to wrap us. Thank you. Please let us know in the comments. Let us know what you think. [01:10:36] Speaker A: Hey, we are two questions away from think deeper live. So if you can join us, Jackson Temple Church of Christ, Burns, Tennessee, just about 30 minutes outside of Nashville. Think deeper, live.com dot. Let us know you're coming. [01:10:49] Speaker C: There you go. Perfect. All right. We will wrap right there. We will see in the deep end for our deep thinkers and otherwise, we'll talk to you next Monday. It.