31st October 05
Happy Halloween!
Without offending anyone I’d just like to say I recently had to listen to two friends condemn trick-or-treaters as pawns of Satan. According to Focus on the Family, 30% of Evangelical Christians “avoid Halloween because it is evil.” My friends’ comments and that statistic has inspired me to publically “come out” as someone who is not apart of that 30% – I am someone who enjoys dressing up in silly costumes and eating excessive amounts of candy on October 31st and imagine this – I don’t feel guilty or evil for doing it.
I don’t understand it when people – ok, Christians – start freaking out about the “origins” of holidays. If you want to be picky you can probably find pagan roots in all of our holidays, including the favored Christmas and Easter. Does this fact really have any bearing on our celebrating them today? If it does, then you might want to stop buying Christmas trees and Easter baskets. The truth is that legalism is alive and well within church communities and Halloween has become a holier-than -thou excuse to condemn non-Christians for “yet another thing they do wrong, that we do right.” My theory is that your intention is more important than the fact that hundreds, or thousands of years ago groups may or may not have had pagan celebrations on a particular day.
That at least was my experience growing up. Adults feared God’s wrath and made sure to pretend we weren’t celebrating Halloween by re-naming it a “harvest celebration” – c’mon now… kids in suburbia could care less about the change of seasons, it is the costumes and candy that they’re excited about.
I will step off my very small pedestal and go purchase the costume I’ll be wearing this evening.
Hope you all have fun collecting, or giving away candy!
I don’t understand it when people – ok, Christians – start freaking out about the “origins” of holidays. If you want to be picky you can probably find pagan roots in all of our holidays, including the favored Christmas and Easter. Does this fact really have any bearing on our celebrating them today? If it does, then you might want to stop buying Christmas trees and Easter baskets. The truth is that legalism is alive and well within church communities and Halloween has become a holier-than -thou excuse to condemn non-Christians for “yet another thing they do wrong, that we do right.” My theory is that your intention is more important than the fact that hundreds, or thousands of years ago groups may or may not have had pagan celebrations on a particular day.
That at least was my experience growing up. Adults feared God’s wrath and made sure to pretend we weren’t celebrating Halloween by re-naming it a “harvest celebration” – c’mon now… kids in suburbia could care less about the change of seasons, it is the costumes and candy that they’re excited about.
I will step off my very small pedestal and go purchase the costume I’ll be wearing this evening.
Hope you all have fun collecting, or giving away candy!
