Christians and Halloween

This morning, I logged on to Facebook and I saw the excited display of costumes, gearing up for Halloween tomorrow. Along with the cute kittens, princesses, and cowboys, were the usual vampires, witches, ghosts, and grim reapers.

Last week I walked into yet another store where I was hit in the face with skulls and crossbones and zombies and other evil images.

I passed by a house just last night that was fully decorated with spider webs, gaulish faces, and dimly lit orange and black lights around the jack-o-lanterns on the doorstep.

For the last three weeks, I have been closely monitoring every cartoon on TV and finally turned it off altogether.

It's everywhere. 

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Scripture says that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), so then why do Christians gravitate towards darkness with, what looks like, intense excitement and anticipation? If God sent His Son to save the world from sin, why do those who profess to be redeemed participate in things that are rooted in sin? Could it be that we love darkness more than we love the light? (John 3:19-21)

Among the insane amount of money spent on decorations, costumes, candy, and scary movies, many Christians justify and rationalize Halloween in spite of its occultic heritage. Even when the truth is shared, today's Church culture pleads away and excuses the origins because, well, heaven forbid we become legalistic, right? Friends, it's not about being legalistic. It's about being obedient, holy, and set-apart.

1 Peter 2:9
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; 

Every year, it seems as though people are more excited about this time of year. The horror movies attract the millions. There is a growing fascination with zombies, vampires, haunted houses, witches, blood, and darkness of every kind. The television shows and blockbuster hits are more sinister. Halloween is the second largest holiday in America, even surpassing - of all things - Thanksgiving. For some, Halloween is just an innocent holiday where we dress our children up, have parties, get candy, and carve pumpkins. For our family, it's not. And try as I might, I just can't understand why Christians love it so much. The origin is pagan and we see nothing to redeem in Halloween. We could try to carve crosses into our pumpkins but the origin is still the same. The carved and illuminated faces served as a signal to mark the homes that were sympathetic to the Satanists. We could only dress up our children an sweet little angels or shepherds but we would still be observing the tradition of wearing masks and costumes like those who did it to trick the evil spirits. We could stand at our door passing out Gospel tracts with our candy, but we would still be participating in an activity that is rooted in paganism. Don't get me wrong. If the Lord leads you to use this time of year to spread His Word, DO IT! But don't mix light with darkness. From the very beginning, God made a distinct separation between darkness and light. (Genesis 1:4) That same line of separation should be clearly evident in the life of every born again Christian.

It's really difficult for me to see how flippantly we toss aside a truth when it hits on something we like. My heart breaks for this world that is consumed with evil and gruesome images that have clearly desensitized us to the Words of our Father. Please hear me, friends, when I say, you can't join hands with pagans and occultists and attempt to Christianize satanism. It just can't be done. You can't have two masters or serve two separate deities. You cannot define yourself as a Christian and yet rationalize the mingling of light with darkness.