PORTERVILLE POST | The Right News at the Right Time

| The Road to Rediscovering America’s Identity ~ XXIX
BORN RIGHT^© - Oct 17, 2025
with Josh Allen Flowers : josh@portervillepost.com

THE FALL OF INNOCENCE ~ How Halloween Replaced Holiness ~
October used to be sacred.
It whispered of closing days, of long shadows and shorter light. It was a month made for reflection, family, and firewood. The air itself seemed cleaner — brisk, clarifying, and strangely holy.
But something happened.
We let the light slip away… and invited the dark in its place. What used to be a season of reverence slowly became a celebration of gore. A quiet month of harvest became a grotesque carnival of horror. The lantern in the window was once a sign of hospitality. Now it's a grinning skull on your neighbor’s porch, glowing red. They told us it was harmless fun. But make no mistake — it was a cultural trade.
We swapped holiness for horror. And it didn’t happen overnight.

When Harvest Meant Gratitude, Not Ghouls

There was a time — not long ago — when October evenings meant something simple:
✔ Family dinners.
✔ Candlelight devotions.
✔ Wood smoke and hot cider.
✔ Children helping their parents prepare for winter.
✔ Neighbors sharing abundance from their gardens.

The closest thing to a “costume” was a hand-me-down sheet for a last-minute scarecrow on the porch. Pumpkins weren’t carved with fangs — they were made into pie.
October wasn't cute or creepy. It was consecrated. A time of reaping, resting, and reflecting on how fragile life truly is — and how good God has been. But then came the seduction of the “harmless.”

The Costume Culture: When Identity Became a Mask

At first, Halloween was about pretend. Dress up like a cowboy. A princess. A firefighter. But somewhere along the way, pretend turned perverse. Now it’s:
▸ Sexy nurses for 10-year-olds.
▸ Blood-splattered psychopaths with candy bowls.
▸ Entire neighborhoods turned into low-budget horror movie sets.
And we wonder why our children are anxious, disconnected, and numb to violence?
You can’t bathe your kids in darkness and then pray for them to become light.
You can’t normalize mutilation for fun and then expect them to cherish life.
You can’t glorify monsters for 30 days and expect godliness to survive the season.
It doesn’t work like that. Culture is catechism. And October became a classroom for chaos.

But It’s Just Fun, Right?

Let’s address the obvious: “Come on, it’s just one day! Let kids have fun!” But that’s the thing. They never stop at one day. Halloween is no longer October 31st.
It’s all month.
It’s the store displays by September.
It’s the TV marathons.
It’s the parties, the parades.
It's the social pressure.
It’s saturation.
And once a culture celebrates something for an entire month, it becomes part of the calendar of beliefs.
What do we believe?
We believe fear is fun.
We believe death is decor.
We believe innocence is boring and violence is edgy.
We believe demons don’t matter… as long as the candy's free.

From Evil to “Energy”: The Spiritual Bait-and-Switch

Some say Halloween is just tradition — but dig deeper. The roots are pagan. The symbols are occultic. The rituals are spiritual. Don’t believe me?
💀 Ask the rising number of Wiccans in suburban America
💀 Visit your local “crystal healing” shop & see their Oct spike in business
💀 Check TikTok: witchcraft is trending. Halloween is their high holy day
We are not a secular society. We are a spiritually confused one. And where God isn’t centered, something else always fills the void. We kicked prayer out of schools, and brought Ouija boards into sleepovers. We banned “Merry Christmas” in public but pour public dollars into Halloween “safe events.” We said morality was subjective — and now dress our toddlers as serial killers.
This isn’t about legalism. This is about guardrails. America blew them out. And now we’re driving full speed into the fog — costumes on, headlights off.

But It Can Be Reclaimed

Here’s the hope: the soul still knows what’s real. People are tired. You can feel it. Even the secular moms walking through Spirit Halloween with their kids look exhausted. They don’t want gore. They want meaning. They don’t want skeletons. They want structure. What if October could be more than survival? What if we turned the month upside down — again?

A Vision for Holy October Let’s imagine an October that glorifies light, not darkness:

● Harvest Dinners: Host one. Make soup. Invite neighbors. Talk about what you’re grateful for.
● Light the Night: On Halloween night, don’t turn your lights off in fear or go full Freddy Krueger. Instead, light candles, play peaceful music, hand out scripture verses with candy.
● Honor Innocence: Celebrate childhood. Don’t make your kid a joke. Celebrate their beauty and worth with costumes that inspire, not degrade.
● Tell True Stories: Read biographies of Christian heroes or founding fathers during October. Light the imagination with virtue, not violence.
● Start a Local Tradition: Organize a fall festival, harvest night, or block party that builds community without celebrating death.
It’s not about being a stick in the mud. It’s about building a culture that says: “We’re not afraid of darkness. But we won’t decorate with it, either.”

Don’t Just Avoid the Darkness—Replace It The answer isn’t retreat. It’s reform.

Don’t just criticize Halloween — outshine it. Don’t just pull your kids out of culture — create better culture. Don’t just say “no” — give them a bigger, better yes. Because our children don’t need another costume.
They need identity. They need truth. They need homes that smell like cinnamon and sound like scripture. They need parents who turn off the horror flicks and turn on the praise music. They need October to feel like a safe haven — not a spiritual war zone.
We can give that to them. It starts one porch light at a time.

Let this be the October we fall back into holiness.
♥ Not perfection — purpose.
♥ Not legalism — love.
♥ Not judgment — joy.

Because holiness isn’t about hiding from the world. It’s about showing the world what it forgot. Let’s remind them — this October.

What you are not changing, you are choosing.