Having grown up evangelical, Richard J. Muow offers an explanation as to why certain Christian communities still keep their children from celebrating the holiday:
What has changed since my childhood? Well, for one thing, in those days witches and warlocks
were fictional characters. Today Wicca and neo-paganism are a fairly visible presence in the religious marketplace. More significantly, Halloween is no longer mainly for kids. It has become an adult festival as well—identified in many minds as an opportunity for a bit of Dionysian abandon. And then there is the more general adult fascination, as evidenced in popular prime-time TV, with the subject matter traditionally associated with Halloween: zombies, ghouls and vampires.
So, do those recent changes mean that Christians should avoid Halloween? I’m ambivalent. Part of me wants to tell my fellow Christians to lighten up a little, keeping the focus on a day when kids can have some fun. … But the Christians who are worried about Halloween and all it stands for are struggling with different aspects of evil. They are wondering how to raise their children in a culture that often seems opposed to what they stand for. They are nervous about what reading Harry Potter and vampire stories might be doing to the souls of their offspring. They worry about obsessions with tattoos and bodily piercings, and they fear the “Goth” subculture’s influence on their teenagers.
These phenomena too are connected to what the Apostle had in mind when he told us that we wrestle with more than “flesh and blood” in our spiritual struggles. The Devil and his minions do not confine their insidious influences to “systemic” political and economic patterns. They also seduce us in other, more personal, ways.
(Image of a sexy Rick Grimes via Rob Bricken)
The Dish 