Pastors Combat Halloween With Online Op-Eds
Sweet Ares! We've been so caught up covering the conservatives' Wars on Islamo-Fascism and Anti-Christmas and the liberals' War on Butter Cow that we missed the most famous nebulous socio-political media war of all: The War on Halloween! Fortunately the Christian Broadcasting Network has an entire Internet section devoted to this, so we can easily play catch up right quick. (Hint: They think Lucifer is behind it .)
CBN's Halloween page makes it really easy with big headlines like "The Enemy's Victory: Darkened Homes & Harvest Parties" and "Suffer Not the Trick-or-Treaters." One writer, however, appears to think about participating in Halloween and then conclude that it's run by the devil. Still, we will engage Pastor Eric Watt of Virginia:
Should you and I be involved in the celebration of Halloween?
Finding the answer to this question has been an interesting journey in itself. I interviewed several people and then researched what many leading Christian writers, authors and spokesmen have written about the subject. I also searched various websites like www.christianitytoday.com, www.focusonthefamily.org, and www.cbn.com to read what others might be saying. What I found was an agreement on the origins of Halloween, but a mixture of recommendations about allowing our children to participate in this super-charged media driven holiday.
Pastor Watt then launches into the history of the holiday ("The waning of the sun and the approach of dark winter made the evil spirits rejoice and play nasty tricks"), which apparently predates the creation of Hallmark.
But despite the modern nature of Halloween as a fun way for people to be neighborly and kids to get candy, Pastor Watt sees too much Satan, too little... who's the other guy... Zeus. God, rather:
My suggestion? Christians should be teaching their children (age appropriately) that:
* there is a spiritual world filled with goodness from God and evil from Satan (Eph. 2: 1-10);
* life with Christ has power over darkness (I John 4: 4); and
* those who celebrate Halloween either are unaware of its roots, or are intentionally promoting a world where evil is lauded and viewed as an ultimate power.
To counter the evil influence of Halloween, we need to join together and celebrate the reality of the heroic efforts of Christian saints over the evil in their day.
I'm totally dressing as Pastor Eric Watt for Halloween. And then I'm going to burn myself on a pyre.
Halloween [CBN]