A few thoughts on Halloween
It’s almost Halloween…so cue some spooktacular puns, please!
Have a frightfully good time!
A fang-tastic night!
Party like the gh’oul times?
Go big or gourd home!
Let’s carve out some time for fun…
I could go on and on with these, but I am completely digressing from the point of this blog, which is this: should we celebrate Halloween as christians or not?
Should I celebrate Halloween?
As a child I was never really allowed to take part in Halloween activities, because it wasn’t very ‘Christian’, at least not to my evangelical christian parents.
I can’t say that I didn’t resent being pulled from Halloween celebrations at school, never going out trick or treating for sweets, and being prevented from attending parties that other friends were attending, but I do understand why my parents had reservations about letting their little girls attend any ghoulish Halloween celebrations.
After all, Halloween isn’t just about seasonal pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, kid’s dress up parties, and collecting candy from your neighbours – it definitely does have a much darker side too.
But at the same time, Halloween has become much more commercialised and much more widely observed - even since my childhood in the 1980s. In fact, these days Halloween has become the second largest commercial holiday in America, after Christmas - making it harder than ever to just avoid.
And yet because of my upbringing, the extent of my own family’s participation in Halloween is something I have wrestled with as an adult too. Is Halloween something I should let me little boy take part in, and to what extent if I do?
I’m certainly not writing this blog because I have all the answers here, and neither would I ever presume to try and tell other how to parents or what to do. I’m simply sharing where I have come to, in the hope that it might be helpful for others who are wrestling with this too…
What are we for & against?
On the one hand I think it’s perfectly understandable as a christian not wanting to expose your children to something over concerns about its darker, spiritual roots - and I totally respect christian parents who continue to choose to completely abstain from Halloween today, just as my parents did.
I know that there are lots of perfectly good reasons for this - it can be very scary for younger children, and fear is not of God. What’s more, some elements of Halloween have also become more gruesome and seemingly glorifying of violence over recent years too.
But I also find that as I try to carve out my space in this world as a more modern, open-hearted and progressive christian, I would rather my family be known for what we stand for, more than for what we stand against.
“I would rather my family be known for what we stand for, more than for what we stand against.”
And I want us to be known for our joy, our sense of fun, our generosity, our hospitality, our community spirit, and for kindness, inclusivity, lack of judgementalism - and yes, also for our faith in God, rather than for our religious withdrawal from certain secular celebrations.
Exploring the origins
In weighing up our participation, it’s also really important to consider the various origins of Halloween, which seem to be a mixture of celtic pagan and christian traditions.
Most historians link Halloween to Samhain, a celtic festival which marked the summer’s ending when it was believed that the veil between the otherworld and our world thins, making it easier for the spirits and the souls of the dead to return - which is where many of the spooky Halloween connotations and traditions stem from. For instance, people were said to have worn costumes to try and scare off or trick evil spirits into leaving them alone.
Then when christians first arrived in the celtic nations, they created "All Saints' Day" and "All Souls' Day" to be celebrated on November 1st and 2nd to try to counter this pagan holiday as a christian feast dedicated to celebrating and praying for the faithful departed, including all the saints.
In fact, the very word ‘Halloween’ literally comes from ‘All Hallows Eve’ which refers to the night (or eve) before ‘All Hallows’ Day - in a similar way that Christmas Eve refers to the night before Christmas Day.
And of course, there is still a very real and dark side that exists to Halloween too, and I certainly don’t want to make light of that. But isn’t that also true of so many things in our culture?
Even the Easter Bunny and Christmas trees have pagan roots, although interestingly not many christians have any issues with displaying them in their homes. Instead, they have reclaimed these traditions as part of their own faith celebrations.
So perhaps there’s something really useful to be learned from the early church’s attempt to co-opt the event with a more positive re-focus by celebrating the lives of faithful Christian saints the day before Halloween. That’s why lots of churches still host alternative Halloween ‘light parties’ or ‘windows of light’ in a similar tradition today.
Being ‘in’ but not ‘of’ the world
We live in a neighbourhood with a high number of young families, and Halloween is always kind of a big deal. There’s so many little ones out with their parents trick or treating for sweets, and I honestly think Halloween probably brings more of our neighbours out into the streets and onto our doorstep than any other day of the year. It creates such a great sense of community spirit…
So I am left wondering, how we are to respond? Should we lock the doors and turn out the lights, or greet them as a family and seize the opportunity to chat and to make new connections with some of those we live alongside? I wonder what Jesus would do…
“The new testament reminds us to ‘be in the world, but not of the world’ and to me, that speaks to me of practising constant discernment in all things”
In the New Testament, book of John, Jesus prayed for his first followers to be ‘in the world, but not of the world’ - and to me, this idea speaks of practicing constant spiritual and cultural discernment in all things, including Halloween.
After all, when you really stop and think about it, there’s good and bad influences in aspects of almost everything in our culture today; music, fashion, TV shows, social media, books, sports, food and drink, politics, - and yes, even the extreme commercialism Christmas.
It’s all a total mine-field for parents these days! And some real discernment is needed - however you choose to participate in any of these things.
For example, I personally think that dressing your child up as a cute little pumpkin or spider is a very different proposition to dressing them up as a witch or axe murderer, letting your teenagers watch scary horror movies, or hanging bloody, dismembered limbs from your home!
But in fact, the more that I wrestle with practicing discernment in Halloween or any other ‘grey areas’ in our culture, the more I discover that following Jesus requires so much more of me than mere religious boycotting or total withdrawal ever could.
He requires that I develop spiritual maturity and sensitivity, and that I really learn to listen to and trust the still, silent voice of the Holy Spirit who lives in me.
How we are observing Halloween
This year we will almost certainly let our little boy dress up as a superhero and go trick or treating for candy with some of our neighbours kids, and we’ll dish out candy to other kids who come by our house.
We’ll also take part in some seasonal trips like visiting a pumpkin and corn patch, carving out some jack o’ laterns and creating a seasonal display on our front porch, to celebrate God’s creation during this season. And I’ll certainly take my son to a light party at our local church as well.
But most importantly, I will try to use all of the above as a teaching opportunity to help him learn the difference between good and evil, and as a chance to help him explore the values that we choose to live by as we seek to follow Jesus as a family day by day.
And again, in writing this, I am certainly not trying to suggest how anyone else should raise their family, or saying whether you should join in Halloween activities or not. Ultimately, it really is an issue of exploring your own, personal values, convictions and boundaries, and yours may not be exactly the same as mine.
That’s okay too. People have different thresholds for different things, depending on a whole range of factors such as their cultural and spiritual background, personalities, sensitivities, preferences and more…
But for me, my bottom line is always, always that I want to live confidently in the knowledge that He who is in me is greater than all the other influences in the world, and for my own little family to grow up knowing that too.
Most of all, I want to be someone who celebrates the good in our world wherever I see it, much more than I worry about the bad – and not just on Halloween, but every day of the year.
So however you choose to celebrate the season or not this year, have a happy Halloween, everyone!