Confronting the Darkness in a Year Full of Death

Published: Oct. 28, 2020, 6:35 a.m.

b'Transcribed highlights of the show can be found in our episode summaries.\\nHalloween has always been a tricky day for conservative Protestants. It has long been seen as a celebration of the dark\\u2014joking about bloody gore, the living dead. But this year, death and darkness doesn\\u2019t seem quite so amusing. October 31 comes as more than 1.1 million people around the world have died of COVID-19. Nearly 20 percent of those deaths have occurred in the US, a country where COVID-19 cases are once again on the rise.\\nAs parents are making last minute decisions about what to do about trick or treating, as churches cancel their harvest festivals and trunk or treat events, and parties are moved to zoom and even schools forego their annual costume parades, we wondered: Is this weird Halloween in a very weird year the opportunity for better Christian thinking and discipleship? Can rethinking this season where we oddly engage death and darkness help us deal with death and darkness the rest of this covid season, and the rest of our lives? If so, where do we look? Back to Halloween\\u2019s connections to All Saint\\u2019s Day? Or to other ways that the church has formed its spiritual disciplines around death?\\nCT columnist, a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, and author of the forthcoming book, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep, Tish Harrison Warren joined global media producer Morgan Lee and editorial director Ted Olsen to discuss what our celebrations of Halloween say about our beliefs about death, how we might confront our own darkness, and how prayer provides a place for us to wrestle with the night.\\nWhat is Quick to Listen? Read more\\nRate Quick to Listen on Apple Podcasts\\nFollow the podcast on Twitter\\nFollow our hosts on Twitter: Morgan Lee and Ted Olsen\\nFollow our guest on Twitter: Tish Harrison Warren\\nMusic by Sweeps\\nQuick to Listen is produced by Morgan Lee and Matt Linder\\nThe transcript is edited by Bunmi Ishola\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices'