As new believers in Christ and
young parents, my wife and I really struggled with Halloween and whether we
would allow our kids to participate in it or not. While growing up, Halloween was such an
intriguing time of the year, with ghosts, witches, goblins, ghouls and all
sorts of eerie stuff, how fun, since I was taught all these things weren’t
real. As I got older, and a little too
old to roam about town looking for treats and tricks, I would help my parents
hand out treats for the Trick or Treaters that came to our house. It was fun putting candy into their bags,
looking at all the clever and creative costumes, and trying to guess who was
behind the masks. Sometimes we would
even recognize neighborhood kids who were way too old to be out Trick or
Treating!
I also have a memory of another
side of our innocent candy collecting adventures. It was when my friend Jack and I were invited
in by a man with the promise of candy.
He kept stalling us and discouraged us from leaving. We were too young to suspect sinister
motives, but were both feeling uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but he was
persuasive in detaining us. Thankfully,
just then my friend’s mother, who had been looking for us for some time, came
to the door and rescued us. Did she ever
chew that man out!
In my early teen years I ran with
the other boys and Halloween became a great excuse for doing mischief. We went about soaping people’s windows and
doing other sorts of tricks. We had
“graduated” from the “treats” and moved on to the “tricks” side of
Halloween.
I couldn’t have explained it
then, but there is a fascination with things of a macabre nature that are
widely expressed in Halloween. But,
since our parents and school teachers said it was all pretend, it just seemed
like harmless like The Adams Family or The Munster’s.
Now, after coming to Christ, we were
now learning that there was a real dark side to Halloween and that it wasn’t as
benign as we naively thought as children.
We were attending a Bible study where others told us that there really
were witches and evil spirits, and they were all agents of satan!
Could this be true?
Let’s take a look at Halloween’s
history to see how it originated. There
are a number of claims but the most commonly held belief is that it originated
with the Celtic Druids about 2000 years ago.
It was a pagan festival called “Samhain” (sow-in) which honored the dead
and involved the making of sacrifices of large quantities of crops and animals.
Interestingly there were, and are,
many cultures that have festivals for the dead.
It is reported that these traditions in the months of October-November were
always connected with memorializing the dead or as a feast honoring the
ancestors. This recognition of the dead
is practiced in a great number of nations and ethnic groups including Australian
Aborigines, Fiji Islanders, the Hindus, and Druids, as well as in Peru, Brazil,
Mexico, Egypt, France and many other places in the world.
For example, the Chinese
celebrate the Ghost Festival, the Japanese celebrate something similar called
O-bon, and in Korea there is Chauseoke. The Vietnamese also have a variant of the
Ghost Festival called TetTrung Nguyen. (The Tet Offensive fought during the
Viet Nam War took place during this festival.)
The Philippines and Nepal all have similar type ceremonies with the dead
being the focus. Some dress as the dead,
others burn bonfires (bonefires), carry torches, and carved gourds into hideous
images in an attempt to scare evil spirits away. Some clean tombs and some conduct a ceremony,
believing they are bringing the spirits of the dead to the judgment seat of the
god of the dead.
Since so many cultures of the
world have a day on which they focus on the dead and because it is all occurs at
the same time of year, it is believed that there must be a common origin – a time
in history where a catastrophe occurred that gave cause for men to remember and
honor the dead. Such an event would
likely be Noah’s Flood since it destroyed most of the human race. Noah’s family would have sad memories of
family and friends that were all destroyed in the Flood and it is very possible
that they may have set aside a day or season for remembrance and grieving. (The population of the world at that time has
been estimated to have been in the billions, even larger than today!) Certainly the earliest remembrances would not
have been celebrated in a ghoulish manner, but it is likely that it transformed
over time.
The current name of “Halloween”
originated from the day before All Saint’s Day which was called “All Hallow
Evening” and shortened in time to Hallowe’en.
Hallow means holy and the day was named for the Eve of All Saints Day
which Pope Boniface IV created in 600 AD in an attempt to Christianize a pagan
festival day. Today, however, Halloween
is considered a “high holiday” or "holy day" for those involved in witchcraft
and other occultist and esoteric activities.
“Holiday” is truly a misnomer since there is nothing holy about
Halloween.
This brings me back to the
challenge we had as young parents. Having
learned that the very dark side was real and that Halloween is taken very
seriously by those who serve evil spirits, we had a very hard time allowing our
kids to go out about town to “trick or treat”.
We also were convicted that we should not allow them to dress up like
witches, spooks, ghosts or monsters. On
the other hand we wrestled with whether we were being too strict, since their
school encouraged them to dress up like all the kids. We certainly didn’t want them to stand out as
being “odd balls” - something we adults can handle, but is difficult for
children to understand. We were also
concerned that if they perceived us as being excessively strict, they would be
more likely to reject their parent’s faith as they got older, something that is
all too common. So we felt a lot of
pressure to make the right choice and guide our children in the right way.
“But wait”, you say, “Aren’t Christians
supposed to be separated from the world?”
You are exactly right. But we are
dealing with children and it is difficult for them to understand why they can’t
have some candy and dress up like a cowboy or princess. And, in reality what is wrong with allowing
them to do those things? Our greatest
desire, like those of you reading this was to help our children have a living
relationship with Jesus Christ and to live a life that is pleasing to Him. We began to see Halloween as an opportunity
to teach them, so we explained to them why we were not going to participate in
the dark side of Halloween. In fact,
Halloween gave us an opportunity to teach our children about how Jesus has
overcome all the scary things represented in Halloween and that He came to give
us life and to deliver us from fear and fearful things. It was also is a great time to teach them
that the devil is the one who comes to bring fear and is behind the scary,
earie things that Halloween represents.
We decided we would allow them to
dress up as harmless characters. I
remember princess costumes, Indian maidens, cowgirls, and such, and our girls
seemed fine with that. (If you are not certain
that a make-believe character is harmless then take a minute to research it on-line.)
As for taking them Trick or Treating, we
would take them to a few friends or relatives homes or to a Harvest Day
celebration at a church. Kids of
elementary school age are just happy to be out with other kids having a fun
social time.
I recently asked one of my grown
daughters if she felt deprived because we didn’t go along with everyone else’s
idea of Halloween. She said that she
didn’t have any regrets or resentments, nor did she feel “scarred”. She felt that though we didn’t celebrate
Halloween like some other families, our simple explanations helped her understand
our position. She also remembered that
we always tried to make the season special in wholesome ways.
The one area that she remembered
as weak was that she wasn’t more prepared to explain to her friends why we did
things differently. This is an important
things for parents to keep in mind.
So, the question remains - should
we or shouldn’t we allow our children to dress up and go “Trick or
Treating”? That is a question all responsible
parents deal with and the fact that you are questioning it is a good thing in
itself. Even though Halloween is rooted
in morbid spiritism, and its modern occult practitioners are consistent with
its past, we cannot say that satan owns the day. “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in
it.” (Psalm 24:1)
My personal suggestion is to
allow your children to have fun with the day and at the same time do all you
can to educate them about the dark side of Halloween, according to their age
and maturity level. Use the opportunity
to explain how Jesus wants us to think about good things and not the bad or
scary things that others are focusing on.
Encourage them to dress up like
Bible personalities or other types of harmless costumes but not witches,
goblins and spooky type things. Find or
start a Harvest Day party at church, or a safe neighborhood type of function
such as a “Trunk and Treat”. I would not recommend taking children around the
neighborhoods the old fashioned way, but to limit candy gathering to the homes of
friends and relatives.
To ignore the day may lead only
to children feeling over protected and deprived, while their friends are having
what appears to be a perfectly harmless time of fun. That is not to say that we should give in to
all our children’s desires to “do what everyone else is doing”. Halloween gives parents and churches the
opportunity to start our own wholesome traditions. At the same time it provides
an opportunity to teach them that we belong to Jesus Christ and because of that,
we have different standards and values that we live by and that it is okay to
be different.
What would I do differently if I
were still raising my children? I would
try to do a better job of explaining the Christian life, and better equip them
to explain what they believe to their friends and why we are different from the
world. I would still allow them to dress-up,
since kids love to pretend, and I would still take them to a harvest party or
to the grandparents for fun, while always keeping the emphasis on Jesus!
Pastor Gary A Smith
New Life Christian Fellowship
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