As a Dad of two boys, one of the many mistakes I have made
is getting things too early for them. In Georgia we had the opportunity to
build a home: it had two oak trees in the back and I had a simple zip-line put
in. It was every kids dream, however I had 3 year old and 2 year old and I was
crushed that they were so fixed on safety that they screamed and cried as they
experienced their first “ride” on it. Now they would love it, in fact in a
couple of years they would have loved it. There are times I do the same thing
as a Pastor; I either present or teach things too early, or I simply show you
some of the best information I have found as I come across it and, when it
comes “that time” again I will either restate it or repost it. Below is a post
that I did last year regarding Halloween, I hope it helps you think through how
we as believers should approach this time of year.
A Great Blog to
Think Through
I love Tim Challies's blog and I also have a
high regard for Dr. John MacArthur, as Mr. Challies does. Below is an
outstanding blog on Halloween that is, at the very least…food for thought:
Halloween Fast Approaches
Halloween is fast approaching, and I am beginning
to see articles on this always-popular topic in the blogosphere. I wrote about
this for the first time last year and thought I would follow that article with
a similar one, but one that is hopefully a little more developed as I've had
another year to think about this issue. This topic was been discussed last year
on an email discussion list in which I participate. One member of the list
posted a couple of responses to Halloween provided by John MacArthur in an
informal question and answer setting. MacArthur was asked, “Is there anything
wrong with children going out 'Trick or Treating', like Halloween, and if so,
what specifically is bad in it, and what do the MacArthur kids do? And, should
Grace get involved in any alternatives?” His response was as follows:
“I think, it's not a wise thing to have
children go out trick or treating. I mean, I think it's kind of dumb for
Christian kids to dress up like ghosts and witches and weird things, and devil
suits, and trouble-makers, and all that. I think, for example, you know, the
whole thing of All Saints Day or All Hallows Eve has connotations, first of all
of Roman Catholic tradition. It has connotations of demons and spirits. Plus
the fact that little kids are exposed to screwballs as well as to cars, and all
kinds of other things…What we do in our family is we have an alternative. Like
you said, we do an alternative thing. We do something fun for the whole family.
It varies from year to year, and our church has always done that, too, for the
kids. Have parties and socials and things.”
Of course I'm sure it has been a few years
since the MacArthur children asked to dress up for Halloween. I post
MacArthur's response because I feel it is quite typical of the Christian
attitude towards Halloween. He feels the day holds too many negative
connotations and that Christians should find a more sacred alternative.
I acknowledge this as a difficult issue and
that it is, in many ways, an issue of conscience. I do not believe there is
absolute right and wrong here. Each person much examine his conscience and
decide what he believes. The Bible says nothing about Halloween, though
certainly there are principles we can find that will help guide us. But
ultimately I believe we have to trust our consciences and our sanctified
reasoning to guide us. Let me share where this has led me.
My conviction is that it is a very poor
witness to have the house of believers blacked out on Halloween. Halloween
presents a unique opportunity to interact with neighbors, to meet their
children and to prove that Christians are part of the community and not merely
people who want only to interact with Christian friends or to only interact in
our own way and on our own terms. At the same time I despise how evil Halloween
is. Already our neighborhood has ghosts hanging from trees and evil plastic
figurines stuck into lawns. One section of houses nearby always feels the need
to go the extra step, playing recordings of scary music, dressing in occult
costumes and generally glorying in evil. To this time we have allowed our
children to go out trick-or-treating, provided they do not wear evil or occult
costumes. It is a compromise, and admittedly not one I am entirely comfortable
with. Over the past several years churches in our neighborhood have offered an
alternative to Halloween with “harvest parties” or similar events. These tend
to be parties in a nearby community center that allows children to dress up and
get their fill of candy in a less-pagan environment. But there are other
churches that encourage families to be present in their homes, to greet their
neighbors and to look for opportunities to interact with them. A couple of the
pastors in a nearby church are going so far as to hold neighborhood barbecues
before dark and inviting people to come and share a meal with them. I think
this is a great idea.
Perhaps the greatest fallacy Christians
believe about Halloween is that by refusing to participate in the day we are
somehow taking a stand against Satan. And second to that, is that participation
in the day is an endorsement of Satan and his evil holidays. The truth is that
Halloween is not much different from any other day in this world where, at
least for the time being, every day is Satan's day and a celebration of him and
his power. A member of the discussion discussion list wrote the following last
year around this time: “Yeah… I've heard all of the 'pagan' reasons Christians
should avoid Halloween. The question is whether we are actually participating
in Samhain when we participate in Halloween? Who or what makes the 'Witch's
League of Public Awareness' the definers of what Halloween is, either now or
historically? Such a connection between Samhain and my daughter as a ladybug or
my son as a Bengals Boy is highly dubious.” And it is highly dubious at best.
I am guessing my neighborhood is
all-too-typical in that people typically arrive home from work and immediately
drive their cars into the garage. More often than not they do not emerge again
until the next morning when they leave for work once more. We are private,
reclusive people who delight in our privacy. We rarely see our neighbors and
rarely communicate with them. It would be a terrible breach of Canadian social
etiquette for me to knock on a person's door and ask them for a small gift or
even just to say “hello” to them. In the six years we have been living in this
area, we have never once had a neighbor come to the door to ask for anything
(except for this time). Yet on Halloween these barriers all come down. I have
the opportunity to greet every person in the neighborhood. I have the
opportunity to introduce myself to the family who moved in just down the row a
few weeks ago and to greet some other people I have not seen for weeks or
months. At the same time, those people's children will come knocking on my
door. We have two possible responses. We can turn the lights out and sit
inside, seeking to shelter ourselves from the pagan influence of the little
Harry Potters, Batmans and ballerinas, or we can greet them, gush over them,
and make them feel welcome. We can prove ourselves to be the family who
genuinely cares about our neighbors, or we can be the family who shows that we
want to interact with them only on our terms. Most of our neighbors know of our
faith and of our supposed concern for them. This is a chance to prove our love
for them.
The same contributor to the email list
concluded his defense of participating in Halloween with these words: “One
night does not a neighbor make (and one night does not a pagan make), but
Halloween is the one night of the year where the good neighborliness that flows
from being in Christ is communicated and reinforced. We are citizens of another
Kingdom where The Light is always on.”
The truth is that I have several convictions
regarding Halloween. I despise the pagan aspects of it. I am convicted that my
children should not dress as little devils or ghosts or monsters. But I am also
convicted that there could be no worse witness to the neighbors than having a
dark house, especially in a neighborhood like ours which is small and where
every person and every home is highly-visible. We know that, if we choose not
to participate, the neighbors will notice and will smile knowingly, supposing
that we feel too good to participate. We have nothing to fear from our
neighbors or from their children. So my children will dress up (my son as a
police officer and my daughter as a princess) and we will visit each of our
neighbors, knocking on their doors and accepting their fistfuls of candy.
Either my wife or I will remain at home, greeting people at our door with a
smile and a handful of something tasty. If the kids are deemed too old to
trick-or-treat, they'll be forced to sing a song to merit any handouts. Our
door will be open and the light will be on. And we trust that the Light will
shine brightly.
My encouragement to you today is to think and
pray about this issue. I do not see Halloween as a great evangelistic occasion.
I do not foresee it as a time when the people coming to your door are likely to
be saved. But I do think it is a time that you can prove to your neighbors that
you care about them, that you care about their children, and that you are glad
to be in this world and this culture, even if you are not of this world or this
culture. Halloween may serve as a bridge to the hearts of those who live around
you who so desperately need a Savior.
