I celebrated Halloween when I was a kid, back in the 1960s. I believe I was a carrot my first year; my mother made the costume. I then went as a cat (store-bought) for the next two or three years. As I grew older I became a hobo, Dracula and a woman. It was a lot of fun to dress up in costumes, venture out into the dark night, ring doorbells, show off my costume, and...get free candy. I remember the fun of coming home, where my brothers and sister and I would pour out our bags and see what we got. I also remember the "scary" years, when the urban myth prevailed that hidden razors should be sought in apples and various drugs had been injected into candy bars. That's when Halloween began to decline in fun, but by then I was almost old enough to quit celebrating completely.
So, here I am now a Christian grown-up, and what do I think about Halloween? Well...
Halloween of my day is not the Halloween of today, nor of my own kid's day; Halloween is not the fairly innocent Frankenstein, Dracula, carrot and cat costumes of the 1960s. I think, ever since Jamie Lee Curtis appeared in the movie, "Halloween," the holiday has become increasingly darker. The blood, gore and occult are more in fashion these days, as are the seances and other Spiritualistic practices. These days, fewer kids bob for apples and eat donuts off of hanging strings (with their hands behind their backs) as in my day. Instead, more and more adults run to adult parties in hope of hearing some sage words from Harry Houdini or to speak with their dearly departed. Death, blood, gore, Spiritualism, and a fixation with darkness now define Halloween today.
When my kids were growing up, we enjoyed watching them engage in the cultural holiday, but we guided them along the way. Recognizing that dressing in costumes is fun, we encouraged characters and costumes that were not dark, because we are Christians and we do not celebrate death, blood, gore, Spiritualism (which is a real religion and quite pervasive in our entertainment programming). We understood that allowances of practice are equal to endorsement, so we never allowed our kids to dress up as witches (witches are real, as you know), or skeletons (which are symbols of death), or any other dark character. Our kids dressed up as Moses, an angel or princess, etc.. And they had just as much fun and got just as much candy as the kids that were dressed in those other costumes. While many kids unwittingly celebrated death, gore and darkness, our kids celebrated what I and my wife had celebrated in our day: a night of costumes and free candy. Our kids' celebration was just fun, not fun and dark.
Now, some will say, "Aw, loosen up, Rick; you're taking this far too seriously. It's just all in fun!" But to this I would say, "baloney!"
All people, of any age, are influenced by the world around them and by the practices in which they engage. Jingles work because they embed themselves into the mind. "Recreational" uses of drugs, even "safe" ones like pot, often surprise the user, later, with a full-blown addiction (mental or physical). And the age-old warning from mother, "Be careful who you're friends are," is found to be as valid now as it ever has been. The bottom line is that when we allow ourselves or our children to do a certain thing, we are endorsing it. And something endorsed will most always turn in to something accepted and, later, vigorously upheld and maintained. So, do we really want to spiritually desensitize our children to the importance of sound, Christian doctrine by allowing them to, even for one night, become a witch? Like that is okay? Of course not! Witches are real and Wicca is a religion that utterly rejects Christ's teachings. Do we really want to desensitize our kids to the reality of Satan, who is a real entity and the enemy of our souls, by allowing our children to "dress up" as him? Come on!
You don't have to be Dr. Phil to see that such allowances are not spiritually healthy for your child, the little person that you are trying to raise and teach to follow Jesus. The Word of God clearly states that there exists no fellowship between Darkness and Light. So, why on earth would we want to "celebrate" and allow our Christian kids to "celebrate" any holiday using dark, ungodly, anti-Christian costumes or practices? Allowing this to happen is counter-productive to our goal and confusing to the kids, and I believe it is poor stewardship of the parent's role as teacher and protector of the small ones entrusted to their care. We should, instead, promote characters that, at the least, are not dark and morose and filled with occult overtones.
It is not prudish to deny these types of costumes; it is prudent to do so, because we recognize that children are easily confused and influenced by what we allow and they can, like adults, become desensitized by the bad message and practice. As I said, permanent mindsets are the result of thoughtless acceptance and thoughtless acceptance is the result of desensitization.
Christian parents, do not desensitize your kids to the darkness and the occult, which needs to be recognized as real and which daily imprisons countless hearts in cells of deep, personal, spiritual despair. Instead, celebrate the holiday differently and use these modern, dark and occult images and practices of today's Halloween, which are swirling all around us and gaining momentum, as opportunities to talk with your children about the root of these dark strongholds, and explain to them that God has no fellowship with evil, and the symbols of Satan, death and the grave. And since God has no fellowship with these things, we should not playfully, casually pretend that they are not real by dressing up as ungodly characters, nor engage in practices in which God has forbidden his people to engage (such as seances, tarot cards, Ouija boards, and other occult, holiday "amusements"). Christian parents cannot ignore the influences of these subtly destructive, seemingly harmless but popular holiday practices, else they will surely find that they have fostered the desensitizing of their children to the presence and reality of spiritually dark forces among us. No, Christians should not be paranoid and look for a devil behind every tree, and they should not to obsessed with evil spirits, but neither should they pretend that dressing up as Satan or a bloody killer is no big deal to God or to a healthy faith and personal attitude. Halloween can be a very, positive, spiritually instructive time for Christian kids. Let us take our faith and our kids faith seriously. Images, costumes and practices do matter, and they matter much.
At my house, we still carve pumpkins, give out candy to the neighbor kids, and sometimes my youngest dresses up in costume. Halloween is still fun over our house. But that's because we haven't bought in to the prevalent dark and occult parts of the holiday as it is "celebrated" today. At your house this year, it still can be a fun day of costumes and free candy. And that's plenty of fun alone.
And who doesn't love watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"?
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