Halloween
Day of the Dead is taking on Halloween traditions, but the sacred holiday is far more than a ‘Mexican Halloween’
By Mathew Sandoval — October 30, 2023
(The Conversation) — Halloween’s influence is transforming popular festivities around Día de los Muertos and its ceremonial customs in rural and urban areas of Mexico in some fascinating ways.
In Mexico, Day of the Dead is actually a celebration of life
By MarÍa Teresa HernÁndez — October 31, 2022
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The living remember and honor their dearly departed, but with celebration — not sorrow.
A modern witch celebrates the cycle of life and death at the confluence of cultures
By Heather Greene — October 28, 2022
(RNS) — This time of year, a bruja, or witch, practices central Mexican Indigenous rituals and modern pagan ones, both honoring the Earth and “us as individuals as part of nature.” But the holidays of the Day of the Dead and Samhain are not the same.
Is My Church a Cult? & Other Spooky Questions + Sam Kestenbaum
By Roxanne Stone — October 26, 2022
Katelyn and Roxy are joined by religion reporter Sam Kestenbaum to talk vampires, QAnon devotees, and groups with cult-y vibes (including maybe ... some of the churches we've attended).
No tricks! Church trunk or treats are a Halloween tradition
By Emily McFarlan Miller — October 25, 2022
ST. CHARLES, Illinois (RNS) — Trunk or treats have grown in popularity in recent decades, many hosted by churches as outreach to their surrounding communities.
The jump-out-of-your-skin scares return in person, online at Halaloween film festival
By Emily McFarlan Miller — October 18, 2022
(RNS) — Halaloween features horror films from across the globe that were made by, for or about Muslims.
When it comes to Halloween, pastors have opinions, according to new survey
By Emily McFarlan Miller — October 18, 2022
(RNS) — More than 90% of pastors encourage their congregations to observe Oct. 31 in a particular way, but that ranges from avoiding Halloween completely to inviting people to Halloween-adjacent events at their churches.
Witchcraft isn’t just for Halloween anymore
By Heather Greene — October 29, 2021
(RNS) — Halloween's commercialized kitsch and other hocus pocus can be, well, dispiriting.
Witches remember those lost to COVID-19 among the dead at Samhain
By Emily McFarlan Miller — October 28, 2021
(RNS) — A solemn occasion with Celtic roots, Samhain takes place at a time when many religions and cultures believe the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest.
Demons! Demons Everywhere!
By Roxanne Stone — October 27, 2021
Fall festivals! Hell Houses! Satanic Panic! Katelyn and Roxy are joined by Tyler Huckabee as they dredge up some ghosts of evangelical Halloween's past.
Author Kristen J. Sollée takes a journey to the ‘witchy history places’
By Emily McFarlan Miller — October 30, 2020
(RNS) — Kristen J. Sollée's book 'Witch Hunt' is part travelogue, part memoir, with a dash of historical fiction, and it comes at a time when, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, readers aren't able to travel.
Pope Francis: This Halloween, take time to reflect on the ‘three deaths’
By Claire Giangravé — November 1, 2019
RNS — 'A culture that forgets death begins to die within,' Pope Francis told a group of young people on Halloween. 'He who forgets death has already begun to die.'
Why the Christian idea of hell no longer persuades people to care for the poor
By Meghan Henning — October 25, 2018
(The Conversation) — The idea of an afterlife as a moral tool goes back to the Greeks, but in present times, the concept of eternal perdition has radically changed.
How the dead danced with the living in medieval society
By Ashby Kinch — October 30, 2017
(THE CONVERSATION) — What if the dead played a more active, more participatory role in our daily lives?
Is Tumblr witchcraft feminism – or cultural appropriation?
By Aysha Khan — October 27, 2017
(RNS) — A perfect storm of Instagram-era online branding combined with leftist political posturing has made witchcraft the latest victim of cultural appropriation.
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