Because of the roots of Halloween, my family doesn’t celebrate Halloween.
I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what I do and why so you can get to know me a little better.
Halloween has very, very dark roots. I believe there is still very dark stuff that happens around Halloween because there are people who take it seriously from where the roots come from.
I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what I do and why so you can get to know me a little better.
Halloween has very, very dark roots. I believe there is still very dark stuff that happens around Halloween because there are people who take it seriously from where the roots come from.
When I look at traditions I ask, What do they teach us? What do they have to say? How does this glorify God?
If something can be redeemed, I’m all for it.
What do I mean by redeemed?
Here are a couple of examples
Carving pumpkins
We carved pumpkins. Of course, we did it at this time of year because that’s when there are pumpkins around. We used the story of The Pumpkin Patch Parable, by Liz Curtis Higgs. It’s a super cute book about how God chooses us like we choose a pumpkin. First He has to open us up and clean all that gunk out of the inside. And then He places His light inside to shine out and encourages others.
To me, that is redeeming the tradition of the message of fear and hopelessness that a jack-o-lantern traditionally carries with it. It carries the gospel.
Dressing up
I think dressing up is great. My kids always had the option to dress up whenever they wanted to. Dressing up and pretending is good. We did not ever dress up on Halloween or for a Halloween celebration, just for playing and using their imaginations.
Unredeemable
There are some things I don’t see any way to redeem.
Trick or Treating
Trick or treating came from a tradition of spiritual bullying. The Druids would go around and harass the people. They demanded the people give them what they asked for or they would curse them or do mean pranks.
Partnering with fear and death
I see the element of not wanting to make kids afraid so they make witches and ghosts and evens skulls to be cute. At the same time, those things are real and in Christ we don’t need to be afraid of them. We do need to be aware. We do know that they have power and it’s real. It’s not cute. Getting used to a cute ghost or a cute witch can become like Wiley coyote in the cartoons. He gets smashed and killed over and over again. You know it doesn’t matter. It’s a cartoon. We can think what the witches are doing doesn’t matter. It’s a cartoon. That’s not true. Satan does have power and he does encourage people to use it.
We were designed to be powerful. We were designed to submit to God’s power and authority and use that rather than the counterfeit.
That’s my take and where I come from on that.
