"Objection to
Halloween is a reflection of something much broader: an obsession with
trivialities, a confusion of priorities, a primitive fear of the
unknown, an arrogance that finds “righteousness” in being odd-ball and
out-of-step. Fundamentalists can find something offensive or
objectionable in almost anything. They have a world view in which
virtually everything is “anti-Christian”. They have lost the ability to
filter the important from the inconsequential. The traditional COG
prohibition against Halloween ignores the facts of history,
misrepresents the modern holiday, and demonstrates a woeful lack of
spiritual discernment."
HALLOWEEN HYSTERIA
by Keith Stump
October is quickly flying by, meaning
it’s time for the traditional Christian hand-wringing over that most
“demonic” of holidays, Halloween! In anticipation of the usual
anti-Halloween propaganda, I offer the following observations about this
alleged “satanic festival of evil”:
First, there’s no need to point out that
Halloween is not found in Leviticus 23. (Duh.) Leviticus 23 is obsolete
and irrelevant anyway. Second, forget the lengthy dissertation about how
the papacy (the alleged “image of the beast” and “great whore”)
instituted the Roman Catholic celebrations of “All Hallows Eve” and “All
Saints Day”. That, too, is irrelevant. Today’s Halloween has nothing to
do with honoring Christian saints. For most, Halloween long ago ceased
being viewed as a religious observance—and never was, by Americans.
The
Halloween that many of us know today is largely an American phenomenon.
And it’s a purely secular observance.
Yet some of Halloween’s customs do have
roots in pre-Christian (“pagan”) practices. “Pagan” has long been a
popular buzz word among Christians, especially among the COGs. As a Plain Truth and World Tomorrow writer,
and occasional GHOSTwriter (how occult!) for the Armstrongs, I used the
word liberally for decades. If it’s “pagan” in origin, it MUST be evil
(like, I suppose, playing cards, wedding rings, dominoes, medicine,
beer, the theater, the names of the days of the week and months of the
year, and so on—all of which are scrupulously avoided in the COGs,
aren’t they?).
Some of Halloween’s customs can be traced
to practices of the Celtic New Year, particularly among the Druids of
ancient Britain. The Celts worshipped nature deities and practiced a
relatively benign type of witchcraft. (Shame on them for living before
the birth of Christ! Why, they must have been as evil as Cyrus the
Great, who worshipped Ishtar, the pagan goddess of love and war, and
Ahura Mazda, god of light and wisdom. [Oh, wait a minute—God still
called Cyrus "that righteous man from the East." Never mind.])
The Celtic festival of Samhain (which
means “summer’s end” and marked the Celtic New Year, and is properly
pronounced SOW-in, not “Sam Hain”) was considered to be a magical time,
when the thin veil between the worlds was lifted, and the dead walked
among the living. It was a night of ghosts and fairies, in which
bonfires were lit and fortunes were told, and the thoughts of all turned
to the afterlife. For some odd reason, the Celts didn’t think that
exposing their children to contemplation of death and the afterlife was a
problem. And, of course, the “witches” of the time were
primarily herbalists and midwives. Witches as evil, devil-worshiping
crones were an invention of the medieval Church, perpetuated by modern
fundamentalists.
Despite fundamentalist assertions, there
were no orgies or human sacrifices or cannibalism or devil-worshipping
during Samhain. Anyone who claims otherwise is an incompetent researcher
or an outright liar. And—despite all those sermonettes you’ve
heard—there was never a Celtic “god of death” named “Samhain”.
The ancient Samhain festival in no way “glorified” the demonic world, nor—except for a relatively few “Satanists”—does Samhain
today. Modern pagans who celebrate Samhain regard it as a time to look
back on the past year and reflect on how they can become better people,
and a time to honor departed loved ones and welcome them into their
presence. Modern Halloween is even less focused on “making contact” with
the spirit world.
Stop for a moment and consider
rationally: Is a six-year-old girl trick-or-treating in a Cinderella
costume “fellowshipping with demons”? Is a child covered in a sheet with
eye-holes “associating with spirits”? Are employees attending a company
costume party “consorting with the devil”? Is hanging a plastic
skeleton in your window “paying homage to Satan”? Is carving a
jack-o’-lantern “fashioning an idol”? Is bobbing for apples a “wicked
revel”? Some who are reading this would reply with a resounding “yes”.
And that’s because of the spiritual myopia that warps their thinking, as
I’ll discuss in a moment. Goofball notions are de rigueur for the fundamentalist.
Others who are reading this have
heartwarming memories of Halloween. It’s a slice of genuine Americana.
It was one of the highlights of their childhood calendar—a time of
family crafts and costume-making, a time to celebrate creativity and
imagination. It was a time for children to dress up and solicit candy
from their neighbors. (We were even taught to say “thank you”, which I’m
sure irked Satan no end.) Trick-or-treating allowed the entire
community to share in the Halloween festivities, as costumes were
admired and rewarded with goodies. Halloween reaffirmed social bonds
with friends and neighbors. These are hardly the “unfruitful works of
darkness” (
Eph. 5:11
), unless one is a fanatic who interprets that
phrase like, well, a fanatic.
(A parenthetical note to hypocrites:
Anyone who condemns Halloween, yet enjoys an occasional Bela Lugosi or
Boris Karloff film, or reads a Stephen King or Anne Rice thriller, or a
Harry Potter novel, or who watches “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “The
Wizard of Oz” or Disney’s “Snow White” or “Sleeping Beauty” or the “Lord
of the Rings” films or who plays fantasy-based video games or visits
Disneyland’s “Haunted Mansion” or watches a stage magician is a
hypocrite, pure and simple. It’s like a conscientious objector being a
fan of war movies. But hypocrisy is nothing new to the COGs, is it? And,
for that matter, is “glorifying violence” any less “sinful” than
“glorifying the occult”? (Hmm. I must have been imagining those LCG
members sitting in the theater when I saw “Terminator 3″.))
To all COG members out there: Is your
children’s Christianity so feeble as to be endangered by a plastic mask
and a few candy bars? Are your children so inadequately grounded in
their religion as to be tempted into a life of witchcraft by attending a
costume party? Are you yourself so poorly rooted in your faith that you
fear your children will ask questions to which you have no satisfactory
answers?
I have seen no evidence of children being
psychologically warped or seduced into a life of witchcraft and
perversion as a result of innocent Halloween activities. I HAVE,
however, seen many fearful and superstitious COG children who have been
conditioned to be abnormally hypersensitive to anything blackened with
the feared label “occult”. One child in particular comes to mind, whom I
witnessed shrieking in stark terror at the mere sight of a
jack-o-lantern. Are you raising fearful children who, like medieval
peasants, see Satan lurking behind every tree and demons skulking in
every dark corner? Are you raising children who fear they will “open
themselves up” to “demonic control” at any moment by the slightest
misstep? What a tenuous, precarious and paranoid spirituality! Satan is a
defeated enemy! We need not shrink inanimate mortal remains. Explain
that fear of black cats is an ancient superstition of the ignorant. Talk
to them about the fanciful creations of horror fiction, like werewolves
and vampires. It’s healthy to examine the things that frighten us. Tell
them about “ghosts” or disembodied spirits. (The dead are relatively
safe; it’s the living you need to watch out for!) And talk to them about
the subject of life after physical death. Tell them about the Lord of
Life who overcame death. Assuage their fears about those who can kill
the body but not the soul.
Halloween is also a good time to
reconsider our own views about death and the afterlife. The unbiblical
doctrine of “soul sleep” would be a good place to start. The Bible
clearly teaches (and centuries of experience demonstrate) that death
does not interrupt self-awareness; personal identity survives death! By
contrast, Herbert Armstrong’s so-called “restored truth” about “What is
Man?” is totally without biblical foundation, though his followers
blindly accept it. Measuring truth by the teachings of a morally
unprincipled deviate who was indisputably unqualified for ministry by
biblical standards (i Tim. 3:2-7;
Titus 1:6-7) is f
ar scarier
than any aspect of Halloween! (A rule of thumb, which I’ll throw in
free of charge: The farther an individual or group moves away from the
teachings of the so-called Philadelphia era of the Church of God, the
closer he moves toward genuine truth and balanced spirituality.)
So here’s my point: Objection to
Halloween is a reflection of something much broader: an obsession with
trivialities, a confusion of priorities, a primitive fear of the
unknown, an arrogance that finds “righteousness” in being odd-ball and
out-of-step. Fundamentalists can find something offensive or
objectionable in almost anything. They have a world view in which
virtually everything is “anti-Christian”. They have lost the ability to
filter the important from the inconsequential. The traditional COG
prohibition against Halloween ignores the facts of history,
misrepresents the modern holiday, and demonstrates a woeful lack of
spiritual discernment.
So, in a nutshell, my message to
Christians about Halloween is: Lighten up! There is nothing spiritually
harmful about this tradition. Sensibly observed, Halloween can be a day
of wholesome fun and merriment. Believe it or not, not everything in
life has to have some deep spiritual connotation.
Halloween is “Satan’s Holiday” only to those who concede it to him or
arbitrarily label it as such. Christians have been redeemed from the
forces of evil. We don’t have to give credence to Satan’s claimed
authority in any area of life. Don’t surrender to the fear, superstition
and hypocrisy of the fundamentalist, who wouldn’t recognize a little
harmless fun if he tripped over it, who is oblivious to the value of
fantasy, who has no idea what “magic” and “witchcraft”
really are, to whom everything paranormal is “demonic” and who trembles
before the power of Satan and his demons (whether he admits it or not).
Don’t fall prey to shady “scholarship” and flawed arguments about this
holiday. Don’t let anyone judge you in respect of this or any other occasion. Safe, fun Halloween activities are NOT “of the “devil”.
To believe other wise is just plain silly!
Should we follow our neighbors, like proverbial lemmings, off the dangerous cliff of pagan practices?
