The Salty Peanut Gallery

Well it’s that time of year again. You can hardly turn on the television at night without being bombarded by an array of virtual horror. Many houses in the neighborhood are adorned with an assortment of skeletons, jack-o-lanterns and black cats. Department stores are loaded with children’s costumes depicting the popular super hero of the day along with witches, vampires, werewolves and the like. There’s no escaping it. It’s everywhere. Now I know that Christians are supposed to be “in the world” and not “of the world”. But what exactly are we supposed to do about this thing called Halloween anyway?

Pulling out my trusty “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance” I did a careful word search to determine exactly what the Bible has to say about this subject. Know what I found? Nothin’. No mention of Halloween, trick-or-treat, or things that go bump in the night. “Oh, but wait,” you might say. “What about Halloween’s pagan origins? Doesn’t the Bible speak out against witchcraft and sorcery?”

Okay, fair enough. It’s true that Halloween has its origins in an ancient Celtic festival celebrated at the end of the harvest. It was believed that on October 31st the boundaries between the living and the dead were lifted so that the spirits of the dead would come back to life and walk among the living. Bonfires, jack-o-lanterns, costumes and masks all became part of a custom meant to ward off haunting spirits.

Though the celebration continues today as a part of American culture, the pagan superstitions associated with the celebration have been largely forgotten by most. Nowadays it’s more about kids playing dress up and getting candy then it is about anything else. Still there are plenty of Christians that take a hard-line stance against observing this holiday. Some say that Halloween is a satanic holiday closely connected with worshiping the devil and that children shouldn’t have anything to do with a celebration that glorifies the enemy. The most extreme have even advocated closing down Halloween completely, though I’m not altogether sure how you go about doing that.

But others believe that Christians should use Halloween as an opportunity to engage the culture with the love of Christ. I really like the approach of blogger, Tim Challies:

“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 or otherwise glory in evil. But I am also convicted that it is a poor witness to have a darkened 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 assume that we feel somehow above them for not participating (and that we are judging them for their participation). We have nothing to fear from our neighbors or from their children, no matter how they choose to dress for an evening. So my children will dress up (my son as a soldier and my daughters as a ballerina and 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 (I think it’s my turn this year) 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. A contributor to an email list I participate in once 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.’ That analogy seems particularly appropriate.

This year we’re doing something else. We’ve invited all of the neighbors over for dinner before the festivities begin. We’ve got at least 40 or 50 people who are planning on coming by for a barbeque. We’re doing this simply because we enjoy our neighbors and love to spend time with them. Halloween evening can be hectic, with parents getting home from work and then rushing to prepare their children, so we thought we’d attempt to relieve one burden by taking care of dinner for everyone. It should be fun and we’re looking forward to it.”

Personally, I don’t have a dog in this race. My kids are teenagers and I live in somewhat of a rural neighborhood that doesn’t get many trick-or-treaters. But I have always tried to respect the convictions of others on this issue even when my kids were younger. It’s never really been a hill for me to die on one way or the other. On the other hand I am convicted about the pious nose-in-the-air attitude that is often perceived by the nonbelieving community of Christians when it comes to cultural issues such as this.

I would never advocate celebrating evil. There are unseen forces at work in the world around us that believers have no business messing round with: “…principalities, …powers, …rulers of the darkness of this world…spiritual wickedness in high places” – Ephesians 6:12. I get that. It just seems to me that there ought to be some area of middle ground here in which believers can engage the culture without compromising their convictions. It’s one thing to curse the darkness. It’s quite another to turn on the Light.