What are my thoughts on Halloween? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
You have to love it when the holiday season comes around. We get all the regular crowd coming out and condemning Christians for following pagan festivals. How do we know they’re pagan? Well, we read it on the internet and we know it is. Either that or we heard it from a preacher and we know it is. Unfortunately, many such people have not done their own research at all. So what do I think of the matter?
Having seen so many of these claims show up bogus, I just don’t take them seriously anymore, but I’ll go further than that. I’ll go further and say it doesn’t even really matter. If you go out on Halloween and dressed up in a costume or your kids are dressed up and you’re getting candy, you are not preparing their souls to be possessed by demons. In fact, if you think going out and getting candy is enough to send your children flying into the arms of satan, then I think you have worse problems, such as what kind of flimsy faith are you passing on to your children?
One illustration I like to use is a wedding ring. Let’s suppose you could convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that wedding rings are really pagan in origin. Am I taking mine off? Not a chance whatsoever. I know why I put on that ring, to begin with. I didn’t do it to honor a pagan deity. I did it to honor God and my wife. No pagan deity is involved. What I did I did in service to God because the pagan deities aren’t real.
In fact, it’s sad to me that so many Christians are concerned about their children falling into the arms of the devil, but have done nothing to equip their children with good Christian apologetics to overcome the lies of the culture around them. Even if not that, what other threats are out there? Are you preparing your children with good sexual ethics and a worldview that has a place for sex for when that temptation comes up? Are you preparing them to answer questions they’ll get from an atheist professor in a classroom someday about their faith? Are you preparing them to not fall in love with their possessions or other addictions out there? I guarantee you we are losing more young people to a culture of wanton sexuality, atheism, and materialism than we are to Halloween.
I don’t doubt that many of you do want to be God-honoring in this, and that’s great, but also try to realize that your fellow Christian can celebrate Halloween and do so with a clear conscience. Too many Christians don’t do that and then think that they are more righteous for their neighbor for doing such. In that case, then they have fallen into pride. Now, of course, you can give your reasons why you don’t, but listen to what your neighbor says. Maybe something you’ve believed is wrong.
If you hear a preacher or someone else say something about Halloween, by all means, look it up. To use an example, I had some friends getting into Jim Staley’s material on Christmas once. I emailed Staley’s organization and asked for references to Mithras being born on December 25th. The references I received had nothing specific and were quite outdated. I pointed this out to them and asked them for something more.
That was over a year ago. I’m still waiting to hear back.
You might say that this is common knowledge, but common knowledge is commonly wrong. I have seen so many claims disproven such as people used to think the Earth was flat that I have learned to question all these claims. Unfortunately, this time of year Christians fail at that.
If you showed up on our door this evening, you’d find candy waiting there for you. We would love to have you. By the way, we’re also not giving out tracts. I’m all for sharing the Gospel, but make your house one a child will be happy to come to and one they don’t think they’re being preached at. Give the best candy on the block. Show them that you’re a house they are welcome at. This is one day that you have little children coming to your door. Welcome them.
When Jesus came to this Earth, He didn’t come just to redeem sinners. He came to redeem the world. This planet is not an accident. He means to reclaim it for the Father. That means every day belongs to Jesus. Halloween does too. Could some occultists and others misuse the day? Sure. They can do that with any day. That does not mean fear of them dominates us. We’re Kingdom people. Let’s live like it.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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