I'm not a big fan of Halloween. Walk up and down the Halloween aisle at the store or gander at your neighbors Halloween decorations. What do you see? Ghosts and witches, tombstones and skeletons, black cats and other "creepy" things.
What about all those Halloween movies? Most (I'd say all, but I've not seen them all) are scary and dark or filled with evil and magic. Even kids movies, while not designed to be overtly scary definitely have a dark themes and evil and superstition play a predominate role in the plot.
Halloween at its origins was a dark, pagan "holiday". And just in case you were wondering the word holiday originally meant holy day, a day set apart for religious observances.
And this particular holy day just doesn't fit in with my faith.
Halloween is a celebration of darkness, and I believe Jesus came to give us LIGHT. As Christians we are called to walk in newness of LIFE not death (or the living dead). We are called to celebrate GOODNESS not evil. We are given a Spirit of HOPE not fear.
For me, Halloween just doesn't seem compatible with a Christian life.
Now I know for many people Halloween isn't really about all these evil things. Most of the people I know consider Halloween a celebration of candy and costumes, not vampires and goblins.
This morning my Facebook news feed was full of happy smiling people dressed up like superheros and cartoon characters, and I have to admit, it looked pretty fun.
I truly wish that I could separate the fun and imagination of dressing up and sharing candy with friends, from the scary and dark themes of Halloween. I wish that Halloween truly was just a day devoted to costumes and sugar-highs. A day for everyone to be a kid again.
But it's not, and no matter how hard I try to avoid the evil side of things, I can't. It's in the media, in books and movies, and in the supermarket. The world doesn't separate the "good" Halloween from the "bad". They are two sides of the same coin. I don't believe we can celebrate the fun of Halloween without appearing to condone the evil.
My kids will have 364 days a year to dress up, play pretend, and eat too much candy. Hopefully, missing out on one night a year won't be so bad.
Poor Reuben... doesn't get to dress up for Halloween or believe in Santa? What a bummer! :( I agree with you on most of this... I don't like what our culture makes Halloween, but I think it can be what you make it. We don't do witches, goblins, and the scary part of Halloween either, but I think it's the one time of year where you can dress up as your favorite character and have fun with your friends.
ReplyDeleteHey- just found your blog, and our family wholeheartedly agrees with you! Halloween is the "cutification" of evil (as Doug Phillips of Vision Forum says) (he has a pretty good article you can look up on his site). And no matter what you dress up as, you are, without a doubt, celebrating evil. Satan is the great deceiver, and he wants darkness to look fun. We have informed our 5 kids of the origin of the day, and the biblical reasons we don't celebrate it since they were young. So to them, it makes perfect sense- they aren't "missing out" on any fun- they are learning to be a "stand-out", bold Christian, who knows how to mold themselves after Christ, not worldly traditions. And by the way, we have tons of fun as a family all year long!
ReplyDeleteWe haven't done Halloween with our children for this very reason. I can see using this time to witness to others but when our children were very little that was difficult because it is a very scary day for little ones if they are exposed to all the horrors of current day movies. People are very open this time of year. Now we live on a short dirt dead end road and have no visitors.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up over at WholeHearted Home this week. You are a blessing!!