Every year on Halloween many Americans become anxious. Not from the possibility of their houses being “toilet papered” or “egged”, but from sinister evil that lurks on this devilish holiday. It wasn’t long ago that we told kids to be on the lookout for razors in candy.
So much of Halloween’s harrowing tales are ingrained from movies and television, in which malevolent characters on a quest for death and destruction: scary masked men, evil spirits, or a machete yielding murderer runs a muck. Many people enjoy the thrill of a scary movie and see Halloween as benign but others truly believe Halloween to be an evil affair.
Some of the supposed origins of Halloween came from a pre-medieval Celtic pagan festival, Samhain. Those who celebrated this festival on the heels of the summer, believed that the world of the living and the dead were thinly divided on or about October 31. Agricultural duties were carried out to prepare for winter. Some rituals were preformed to placate evil spirits. It is difficult to know what exactly happened during Samhain because we do not have any credible ancient first-hand accounts. Later pagans and Celtic people recaptured the festival in other localized traditions.
The word “Halloween” has nothing to do with Samhain or evil occult practices. Early Christians contextualized European winter celebrations into All Saints Day as a way to remember and honor faithful Christian saints. The day before All Saints was celebrated as “All Hallows Eve” and the phrase morphed into Hallowe’en or just Halloween. Modern celebrations of Christmas, Easter, and Epiphany are all contextualized holidays that honor Christian beliefs. Local pagan practices were replaced with Christian ones, in order to help express Christ in local forms to local peoples. By separating All Hallows Eve from the pre-Christian practices, Christians can take comfort in understanding the historical Christian remembrance that is associated with All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day.
Today, many Christians discourage the interest in secular Halloween. Families often do not let their children out to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood for fear that their kids are practicing some evil ritual holiday. Such fear only feeds the negative mystique and thus gives Halloween a degree of power over us. If I’m afraid of yellow roses, freak out when ever I see yellow roses, and never go near yellow roses, then such an object holds a great deal of power over me and my behavior. Halloween can have the same effect on us by not properly facing Halloween for what it is: a fun time to dress up and eat candy. Of course we don’t need a holiday to do that, but Halloween remains.
Evil, true evil, can many forms. Many believe Halloween to be one of those many forms. Evil can be found in the celebration of Halloween. There are murders, Satanic rituals, occult practices and the like, but those are very rare. Looking for and inviting evil into one’s life through harmful behaviors are far more scarier than a child with a Superman costume asking for candy.
During Halloween, we can do without all the gory costumes and masks. Those gruesome images only disfigure the enjoyment of dressing up and eating candy with friends and family. Evil always seeks to turn something good into something distorted and foul. Halloween does not have to be evil if we do not want it to be.
Evil should not be feared, but it should be given its proper respect. Like walking by an angry barking dog chained, we should not go near it or touch it. We know what it is capable of, so we avoid it. But, we should not live in perpetual fear of that angry dog. We move on. we can distinguish between an angry dog and a new born puppy. So we interact with the puppy because all dogs are not dangerous. Likewise, fearing evil only gives evil more power over us by controlling our actions. Evil wants us to be afraid of it because fear makes us do things we would not normally do.
In the end, God has the ultimate power over of all forces, both seen and unseen. Jesus defeated death and God will one day put an end to evil’s ways. Until that time, let us use Halloween to laugh, have fun, dress up, eat candy. and drink some punch.
Please, just don’t leave a flaming bag of poop on your neighbor’s doorstep. That would be evil.
For an in-depth assessment on Halloween, please read: Seven Reasons Why Christians Should Celebrate Halloween.
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