Halloween: I will not recant
I find that interesting. A reformation led by university and seminary students.
Tomorrow is also Halloween. John Murchison, our children's pastor, posted a blog on our church website about his position on Halloween, which was not to take a position and let parents come to their own conclusion. His research was extensive, but I couldn't agree at all with what he was saying at several different points. John and I had a good talk about it. I love John, I am so thankful for how much he cares about the children in our church, how he battles for them. I have a lot of respect for him. But I totally think he is wrong on this.
Here are a few of the points he made that we disagree with.
What is true that the Celts believed in otherworldly beings, including gods, giants, fairies, witches, elves, and monsters, and Samhain was seen as the time when the veil between the “otherworld,” as I am calling it, and our world was the weakest. Clearly, this is not in line with Christian belief. However, it is a big jump to go from saying that someone has a different religion and is in need of the light of Christ to saying that they are evil demon-worshipers. The Celts were not evil so much as they were non-Christian.
If the origin of Halloween is really Samhain, "the time when the veil between the 'otherworld' and our world is the weakest", there is no reason for us to celebrate it. You may not think allowing kids to trick or treat is celebrating communing with the otherworld. You may view it as purely cultural, not spiritual at all.
Doesn't the Word say to avoid all things that give the appearance of evil? What is pleasing to the Lord?
"The Celts were not evil so much as they were non-Christian." So we can delineate the difference between evil, and gray ground to stand on, and Christian? We can be good people and still want to commune with the other world? What about original sin? How does that play into what the Celts believed? If there were no such thing as gods, faeries, witches, sprites...if they were all the product of their imagination (yet the Celts really believed they existed)- who put them into their imagination? Who would cause a person to daydream or believe in them? Jesus? Our own flesh? Can a demon be a faerie, witch or sprite?
To try to know what was going on in the hearts of Celts thousands of years later is really impossible.
Spiritually things have always been, will always be, black or white to me. You are either for God, or you are against God. You either believe in Him, or you believe in something else. Halloween has NOTHING to do with God.
The argument that it has roots in Christianity doesn't hold truth either. And what's even more important to me is how it is celebrated today.
For Syd and Ben, Halloween is all about the candy and costumes. What about when they get to junior high? I asked Tyson Joe, our youth pastor what he thought about it. I didn't ask permission to repeat what he said, but I would agree with the thinking that a lot of Christian young girls use it as a free license to live out in the flesh what they fantasize about. I would say that goes for high school girls and college women as well.
Sexual addiction, lust, the power to seduce. We are extremely stupid if we think this is something young men alone struggle with. Someone has to offer the apple.
Go into any Halloween superstore and you will find most of the costumes have to do with sex or demons. That is not an exaggeration. There is the occasional funny adult Teletubby costume (oh so funny, right?) but most are centered on seduction or death.
You have to be spiritually dead to not walk into one of those stores and not have the Holy Spirit rise up in you and tell you this is not okay. I'm telling you, it's not okay. It's not okay to be a part of, it's not okay for your little kids to be a part of, and it's certainly not okay for your teenagers to be a part of. It's such a wide open doorway into all kinds of sexual perversion.
Some more from John:
So if Samhain is not inherently Satanist or demonic, and All Hallow’s Eve is officially a Christian holiday, how did October 31 get to be known as an evil day? Why does it seem to have a connection to the demonic world? The answer, from what I have been able to determine, is that the Church unintentionally created this connection.
Really? Prove it. I don't think you can.
There are those in the world who do worship Satan, and their intentions are purely evil. These people do indeed claim Halloween as their holiday, but they only do so because we have allowed them to. When they heard us say that all the demon-worshipers celebrate on October 31, they agreed with us, and adopted this day as their holiday. In reality, though, no day at all belongs to those who follow Satan.
Again, prove it. Yes, this also goes in line with the thinking that "every day is Halloween in our world. After all, satan is the prince of this world." True, the darkness is everywhere. But think about this. Is Easter a spiritually significant day for you? A remembrance of what the Lord has done? Don't you think satan wants a day like that for himself? Well, he has it. Again, remember our battle isn't against flesh and blood. It isn't against those who worship satan or are demon possessed.
I think before anyone in our church speaks out about Halloween, they need to go commune with some real witches and get a really good grasp about what their world is about. Most witches have a really good understanding of the supernatural and the power they can tap into, much more than most Christians.
I would even go so far to say that if I had a choice between being mentored by a new convert from satanism vs. someone who had been in the church all their life but didn't understand the power of the Holy Spirit, I would definitely go with the former satanist. They understand the supernatural and the power in it. Look at the life of Paul. He definitely tasted the dark side before becoming the powerhouse he did as a slave of Christ. He definitely knew slavery to the prince of this world first.
One other argument I hear all the time for celebrating Halloween is for the community building it brings. Please. Church Fall Festivals. In my mind, this is up there with having Super Bowl parties to build community in place of holding regularly scheduled church services. I will always see it as a cop-out, as a bending to the world. As not wanting to be viewed as the Ned Flanders on the block. Get over it. Tivo your all-important football games and come to church. That pleases the heart of the Lord. Jesus Christ is raised up higher than anything else through corporate worship, not through corporate TV viewing parties.
On Halloween night, my Plum Creek neighborhood will be full of children trick-or-treating. So much so that they will close all the main streets. It is THE neighborhood in Kyle ALL the kids come to. Is it a good time to get to know my neighbors? In the one second the kids have to grab their candy and go to the next house, pushed along by the crowd, will I get to know them better? It is like kiddie 6th street out here. Will I get to know them during the time I walk with other neighbors and comment on all the Halloween displays? Or is it during the time we all compare notes on how our costumes were made or purchased? At what point will they know I'm a Christian, that my house is a place of refuge in Jesus Christ? Should I hand out some lame tracks? Or is this supposed to be "light" conversation that will build friendships so that later I can convert them with my safe middleground theology? Sorry, just not that into it.
I guess I'm coming from a place of urgency. I look at every day, every place, every moment of my time. Life is short. If it doesn't involve Jesus, doesn't please his heart, I'm not going there. I don't have time for it. I like what Francis Chan has said often about his grandmother: she was upset one night at a theater because she didn't want to be there when Jesus came back, if he should choose to come back that night. That's how I feel about Halloween. "Hey, Jesus, just got to get that mini snickers next door and I'll be right there to hang with you!"
Another reason I'm so against Halloween is because I did celebrate it during some of the darkest years of my life. It is evil. It opens the door to all kinds of witchcraft and seduction. You are naive if you think it doesn't. Maybe not this year for your kids. Maybe not next year, or the year after that. The devil does lie and wait and strategize... Halloween does delight the heart of satan. I don't care who started Halloween, I know who loves it now. And I sure as hell don't love him back. And he's not getting one ounce of my family any day of the year.
I know the peace in walking away from evil. I know how that peace affects my entire household. I know the freedom in following Christ. I don't like the funk and bondage of middleground. There is a veil there that separates me from Jesus. It's what's comfortable, pleasing to man. What's more, Jesus doesn't allow me to stay there. It's part of our pact. Do you have a pact like that with Jesus?
My six-year-old niece has grown up trick-or-treating every Halloween. In the last few months of her very young life, she has seen more sorrow and darkness than any six-year-old should have to see. Many nights she sings out to King Jesus before she goes to bed. This next generation has an acute awareness, I believe, of darkness and light. She sees angels. She knows the breath of demons. That is not an exaggeration.
Her grandmother who is not a Christian throws a Halloween party for her grandkids every year. This year my niece asked her grandma not to have the haunted hayride because it wasn't pleasing to the Lord, and her grandmother did not go through with it.
No one told my niece to do that. There is no one around her telling her not to celebrate Halloween. But she has seen enough to know, if God's not with her, she's not going to go.
Reformation. A new generation of students who will seek Jesus at all costs. Who have no middle ground. Who have a position in life and it's 100% Jesus. I'm so loving them. Don't you dare mess with them.