“Abstain from all appearance of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:22
“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.” Psalms 101:3
For Halloween to simply be “a fun time for children”, it sure does seem to be defended with just as much ferocity used by some women defend their right to kill babies. It’s as though you are blaspheming against a person’s beloved god when you say anything towards their blessed day with even the slightest negativity.
Do I go around telling others what to do? No. Do I tell them to stop celebrating Halloween? No. What then? I simply bring up it’s origins and all that it implies. Anyone who has the will is free to dig into it. It’s explained very much in depth from the internet to hard-back encyclopedia Britannica. So I won’t be doing that here.
It never fails though. When I mention it, I’m met with the same general comments every time(usually coupled with personal insults against me, oddly). I only give someone the information. What that person does with the info falls completely on them. It’s their life, their “Christian” walk, their kids, their conscious, and their eternity.
If someone ever decided to not jump in defense of their holy day, but rather chose to have a conversation with me, they’d quickly find out that I, typically, empathize and understand their position. I grew up in a house where Halloween was celebrated hardily. We held a free haunted house in our barn every year for the community for goodness sake. I’m not just sitting in some proverbial church pew waving my finger.
It wasn’t until many years after God called me into salvation that I had a view change thrust upon my heart. While trick-or-treating one year with my eldest child, we stopped by some random church to stock up. As I was standing in that CHURCH parking lot gathering up candy, I was stricken in the gut about the matter. This was long before I knew, or even cared to know the origins of Halloween, All Hallows’ Evening, Sambain, Samhain, or any other moniker it’s known by.
…So I’m standing there on the property of what many refer to as “God’s house”, and I look around and all of a sudden, in that moment—specifically for that moment, I was given brand new eyes. I was caught off guard by it all. God’s house was completely surrounded by young ones, children—babies dressed as demons, witches, murderers, corpses, and all else. What exactly was I doing? My mind went spinning and before we could take one more step towards another bowl of sweets, we left that place with my legs and Spirit doing the thinking for me. The turning point regarding the matter and the decision to leave it all in the past came after arriving home, thinking—praying—and through that, seeing how, yet again, God’s people, how I myself had been misled and subverted into partaking of something that in no way honors Christ or The Light, but rather, darkness.
As for me and my house, we choose to abstain from the celebration(even the “secular” parts) and instead honor God all the more on the day. To be clear, it is celebrating that is taking place on Halloween. Isn’t that what people say? “How are you celebrating Halloween?” “I can’t wait to celebrate Halloween this year!”
The question is, what are you celebrating?