Satan, The Imaginary, And Halloween

Every year around this time Christians begin a discussion about celebrating Halloween, but perhaps speculative writers, more so. The conversation is justifiable, especially in light of the fact that Halloween has become a highly commercial, and therefore, visible, holiday in the US. As a result, television programs, movies, and certainly commercials have some tie in to the weird, the supernatural.

For Christians, there seems to be a great divide when it comes to celebrating Halloween. Are we taking up the cause of the enemy if we carve a pumpkin and hand out candy to Trick-or-Treaters? Should we offer alternatives—a harvest festival instead of a haunted mansion—for our church activities? Should we seize the moment and build good will in our community by joining in wholeheartedly, or should we refuse to recognized the holiday, turn off the porch lights, and decline to answer the door when masquerading children arrive?

Satan

As I see it, there are two critical issues that dictate our response to Halloween. The first is our attitude toward Satan and demons. Is he (and are they) real? How big a threat is he? How are we to respond/react to him?

Scripture gives clear answers to these questions. Satan is a real being, one referred to as the father of lies (see John 8:44) and as a being masquerading as an angel of light (see 2 Cor. 11:14).

In response to something Spec Faith co-contributor Stephen Burnett said in his article “Shooting at Halloween pumpkins”, I laid out an account of Old Testament references to Satan and his forces. Here, in part, is that comment:

Satan was abundantly active, starting in a certain garden where he brought his devilish behavior before Man and his wife. Another vivid depiction of Satan’s activity is detailed in the book of Job.

In Egypt, Moses faced Pharaoh’s conjurers. Certainly their source of power was not God, yet they duplicated a number of Moses’s miracles.

On the way to the Promised land, God instructed the people “They shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot” (Lev. 17:7 a). Forty years later in Moses’s farewell speech, he described how the parents of the current generation had behaved:

They sacrificed to demons who were not God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers did not dread. (Deut. 32:17)

I think it’s clear that the gods Israel continued to worship—and the ones worshiped by the neighboring people—were demons. Hence the admonishing to excise sorcery from their midst.

Unfortunately they didn’t obey but continued to involve themselves in demon worship:

But they mingled with the nations
And learned their practices,
And served their idols,
Which became a snare to them.
They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons (Ps. 106:35-37)

Then there was this verse in I Chronicles: “Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.”

I could give you verses from Daniel too, showing that Satan was active in standing against his prayers, and that he was in fact “the prince” of, or had cohorts who were, known locations. Isaiah, too, and Zechariah had prophecies involving Satan.

The point is, Satan was very active in the Old Testament.

Scripture is also clear that Satan is a threat. He is described as an adversary and as a lion seeking to devour (see 1 Peter 5:8). He’s the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), the tempter (Mark 1:13), the one who snatches away the Word of God (Mark 4:15), the one who can bind (Luke 13:16) and destroy (1 Cor. 5:5) and torment the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7), who comes against us with schemes 2 Cor. 2:11), who demands to sift some (Luke 22:31) and possess others (John 13:27), who hinders believers in their ministry (1 Thess. 2:18).

Satan is real and he is a threat, but he is not greater than God. In fact his doom is sure. Scripture instructs us to be on the alert against him, to stand against him, to resist him, but Satan is a defeated foe (Col 2:15 and Rom. 16:20). We are never told to fear him.

The Imaginary

The second critical issue when it comes to deciding how we are to deal with Halloween is our understanding of the imaginary. Dragons, vampires, cyclops, werewolves, zombies, goblins, orcs, trolls, and such are imaginary creatures from the pages of literature. Witches and wizards that wave magic wands and/or fly around on brooms are imaginary. Ghosts that float about like bed sheets and are friendly or who pop in and out of sight at will or move things about with a word are imaginary.

Are Christians ever instructed in Scripture to stand against the imaginary?

On the other hand, most of us recognize that these various creatures are or have been representative of evil. The question then becomes, are we handling evil correctly by giving attention to the things that have been used to represent it?

Along that line of thinking, I believe it’s fair to ask if we should avoid representations of snakes, because Satan entered one, lions because Scripture said he is one, and angels because he appears as one.

The greater question, it seems to me, is whether or not dressing up in costumes of creatures that have an association with evil might trivialized evil. For instance, the “red devil with horns and a pitch fork” image of Satan trivialized him so that fewer and fewer people believe he is a real being—not a good thing at all if we are to stand against him.

Halloween

These two issues—what we believe about Satan and what we believe about the imaginary—collide in this one holiday. But there’s another element that must enter into the discussion because ultimately, what we do on Halloween is done in front of the watching world. We need to ask, what does our culture believe about Halloween?

As other comments to Stephen’s post reveal, some studying the holiday see its historical underpinnings—either pagan Celtic practices or early Church traditions. But what do ordinary people today see? Are our neighbors celebrating evil? Or are they having fun dressing up as something spooky? Are they going to haunted houses because they want to invoke the dead or because they want a shot of roller-coaster-ride-like adrenaline?

While we can’t deny that a fringe element—perhaps even a growing fringe element—see Halloween as a celebration of evil, I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that the majority of people in the US view it as nothing more than a reason to party. The activities are consistent with the day but have little or no meaning, much the way most people celebrate Christmas.

How we as Christians celebrate Halloween, then, hinges on these three factors—our view of Satan, our understanding of the imaginary, and what we want to say to our culture.

Is there one right way of doing Halloween? I don’t believe so. I do believe we should avoid pointing the finger at other Christians and saying that they’re doing it wrong. Paul speaks to this issue in Colossians 2: “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath Day” (v. 16). Those who choose to celebrate are just as clearly not to point the finger at those who choose not to celebrate.

The only way we can insure that Satan has his day is by our disunity, our unloving attitude, our angry arguments over whether or not we celebrate Halloween.

This post is an edited version of one that first appeared at Spec Faith in October 2011.

I Hate Halloween

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday. For one thing, it wasn’t a real holiday–I never got out of school, as a student or teacher, because of Halloween. For another, it meant disruption–going to strangers’ houses or having strangers come knocking at my door. Then, for those of us who put only a little last minute thought into a costume, there was the embarrassment of people saying, “And what are you supposed to be?”

Add to this the growing emphasis on horror and fear-inducing entertainment–things I do not like–and Halloween is less to my liking than ever.

Beyond my personal issues with the day, however, I’ve come to hate Halloween because of the attitudes of different Christians. Again this past week I heard on the radio a Christian pastor telling his listeners about his book exposing all the pagan roots of Halloween.

There’s plenty to expose, too, but of course, there are believers who argue that the true roots of the holiday lie in Christian tradition.

Others accept it for what it has become–a day to dress up, to pull spooky pranks, to have parties, to get or give candy. In other words, in the culture at large, it has no particular pagan or religious significance.

Several years ago, I did a three-day series on Halloween (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), but in the end I came to a different conclusion than what I’d intended when I started. Here’s the bulk of the final post of that series. I based much of the article on a comment asking shouldn’t we have some agreement within the body of Christ?

I think that might be the problem–we’re all coming at this hotbed topic from different points of view, and yet we’re expecting agreement.

We aren’t going to find agreement because our past experiences and our present influences–all of which differ from person to person–affect what we think.

Because of my childhood background, I thought the school I taught in, by banning all Halloween trappings and celebrations, was behaving a bit like Chicken Little crying that the sky was falling–until Charles Manson and his “family” who had gone on a killing spree shaved his head and said “I am the Devil.” Suddenly I got it. Paganism, in stark rebellion to God and His law, was in our culture.

The students I taught needed to know.

But what did they need to know? That carving a face in a pumpkin was sinful? That dressing up like a princess and going door to door for candy is sinful?

That having a party called a Harvest Festival is OK but having one and calling it a Halloween Party is sinful?

Too often I think we Christians, in our zeal for the truth, forget why we’re teaching what we teach to children, and why we believe what we believe.

Would any of us disagree that Satan is real, and he is to be resisted? I suspect evangelical Christians see eye to eye on this point.

Would any of us condone participation in Wiccan celebrations? I imagine we would uniformly say we would not.

At the core, I believe we would be united in those points because we believe in Jesus and do not want to give any quarter to the enemy of our souls.

But from that point on, our agreement splinters based on our experience. Which is why I believe grace needs to reign. Grace and our oneness in Christ.

Scripture is clear how we are to treat one another though it says nothing about carving pumpkins or bobbing for apples or, for that matter, pretending to ride a broom.

As I see it, Halloween is a great opportunity for Christians to witness to the world, not because we all should give out tracts that night but because we can stand up and say, I love my brother in Christ MORE than these other things. I will respect my brother’s decisions and not ridicule or judge or accuse. I will not insist he does things my way. And if necessary to keep from offending him, because he’s got a weakness in this area, I won’t do things my way either.

Now that‘s what I think we Christians should agree on.

The Halloween Dilemma

Lots of good discussion over the last couple days about Halloween. It’s interesting to me how our past experiences and present influences color our beliefs.

Rachel and Morgan, for example, both grew up in homes that taught the evils of Halloween, but both of them now have a different view (for different reasons).

Zoe likened celebrating Halloween to drinking alcohol, and I think that comparison is apropos. Some people can “handle it” and others have to refuse to taste a drop.

Suzan shared her experience with occult involvement and Krysti shared hers witnessing the effects of Halloween trappings on her children.

Then KR asked the key question: shouldn’t we have some agreement within the body of Christ?

I think that might be the problem—we’re all coming at this hotbed topic from different points of view, and yet we’re expecting agreement.

We aren’t going to find agreement because our past experiences and our present influences—all of which differ from person to person—affect what we think.

Because of my childhood background, I thought the school I taught in, by banning all Halloween trappings and celebrations, was behaving a bit like Chicken Little crying that the sky was falling—until Charles Manson carved a pentagram in his forehead. Suddenly I got it. Paganism, in stark rebellion to God and His law, was in our culture.

The students I taught needed to know.

But what did they need to know? That carving a face in a pumpkin was sinful? That dressing up like a princess and going door to door for candy is sinful?

That having a party called a Harvest Festival is OK but having one and calling it a Halloween party is sinful?

Too often I think we Christians, in our zeal for the truth, forget why we’re teaching what we teach to children and why we believe what we believe.

Would any of us disagree that Satan is real and he is to be resisted? I suspect evangelical Christians see eye to eye on this point.

Would any of us condone participation in Wiccan celebrations? I imagine we would uniformly say we would not.

At the core, I believe we would be united in those points because we believe in Jesus and do not want to give any quarter to the enemy of our souls.

But from that point, our agreement splinters based on our experience. Which is why I believe grace needs to reign. Grace and our oneness in Christ.

Scripture is clear how we are to treat one another though it says nothing about carving pumpkins or bobbing for apples or for that matter, pretending to ride a broom.

As I see it, Halloween is a great opportunity for Christians to witness to the world, not because we all should give out tracts that night but because we can stand up and say, I love my brother in Christ MORE than these other things. I will respect my brother’s decisions and not ridicule or judge or accuse. I will not insist he does things my way. And if necessary to keep from offending him, because he’s got a weakness in this area, I won’t do things my way either.

Now that‘s what I think we Christians should agree on.

The Black And White Of Halloween

The only genuinely “gray” issue described in the Bible was the decision whether or not to eat meat offered to idols, and that, as it turned out, wasn’t gray at all.

Paul brought the issue up in his letter to the Corinthian church. He said, in essence, idols are nothing but a hunk of wood or metal shaped by man. They have no power and offer the Christian no threat. Therefore meat offered to them is not tainted or evil and eating of it is not an endorsement of the false gods.

However, some people who are not strong in their faith may be swayed into idol worship. If they see a mature Christian eating meat offered to idols, they may feel a freedom to involve themselves with the idol worshiping culture and eventually slip into paganism.

Consequently, Paul says, for the sake of these vulnerable Christians, a mature Christian should stay away from meat offered to idols.

However, that doesn’t mean he has to go to the extreme and conduct an investigation every time he eats at someone else’s house. He doesn’t need to ask a potential host before accepting an invitation if the menu includes any idol meat.

If on the other hand, someone volunteers that information, the mature believer, for the sake of the one telling him, was to refrain from eating. (See I Corinthians 10:19-33).

Acts 21:25 sums up the position of the church leaders in Jerusalem:

“But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication” (emphasis mine).

Now how am I tying this discussion with Halloween? In yesterday’s post, I suggested that celebrating Halloween is a genuinely biblical gray area (unlike other issues that have been shoved into this category today because of our cultural tendencies – i. e. A Christian shouldn’t say dang because a weak believer might then think it’s OK to swear.)

Without a doubt, Halloween has pagan underpinnings (see Wikipedia), though Catholics and Anglicans also see it as having religious connotations. What’s a believer to do?

Is this day wicked because pagans hundreds of years ago said it was? Are all the trappings and traditions associated with it evil because they once were (and in some circles, still are) wrapped in pagan worship?

Or, as C. S. Lewis believed about myth, can Halloween be “redeemed” because of Christ’s work on the cross? Can Christians use the holiday, as Morgan suggested in her comment to yesterday’s post, to reach out to our neighbors and show the love of Christ?

A third option. Can Halloween be as innocuous as, say, video games? 😈

Ah-ha! Most people know there are video games and there are EVIL video games. Seriously.

Might not Halloween be viewed in the same way? Some people enjoy it as a cultural event, a fun time with family or friends, a chance to create memories around traditions such as carving a pumpkin or dressing up in a costume. Others see the side of Halloween that promotes violence and gore and glorifies evil spirits.

Both are right. Both are present in the celebration. Consequently, a believer might choose to stay away from the holiday altogether or to participate in the “sanitized” version of it.

The key thing in what a Christian decides about Halloween, I think, is grace, not legalism. What I decide does not have to be what my neighbor decides. In other words, if I choose to open my door, distribute candy and hand out tracts in the process, I must not look down my nose at my Christian brother who only hands out candy.

Nor should the believer who decides to stay away from the holiday hang a sign on their door chastising everyone else for choosing to celebrate it. Conversely, the Christian who celebrates Halloween with gusto must not treat those staying away from the holiday or substituting a harvest festival for it with a superior attitude.

The only movement away from a personally held belief about the holiday should be by a mature Christian on behalf of a believer who could be at risk, either because of violent images or pagan influences. I think that covers many parents and teachers. For them, Halloween may end up, just like the “gray” area in the Bible, being pretty black and white.

What About Halloween?

My post at Speculative Faith yesterday was a reprisal of an article I first posted here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction more than two years ago. One commenter asked about the original piece I alluded to that had spurred my thoughts. So this morning I went to work with Google search (did you know you can customize the dates of your search? I just learned that today 😀 ).

In the process of hunting down the article that said disparaging things about C. S. Lewis, fantasy, and Narnia, I came across a host of other similar pieces. It was a little daunting.

One was written by a man who referred to himself as a former witch. He explained in some depth what certain scenes or lines from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe meant to those steeped in witchcraft.

Because of his past experience, I admit, I gave him much more latitude than some of the others. One woman said she’d been a Christian only five years when she saw the same book on the shelf of the library at her son’s Christian school and felt a “red flag” in her soul.

In case I haven’t admitted this here yet, I had a similar experience as a teacher. I saw a student reading a certain book (not one of the Narnia chronicles), and a “red flag” went up. The problem was, I was completely and utterly wrong. The book was not what I feared. At all.

But back to C. S. Lewis. The point that both these bloggers, and others I ran across, were missing is C. S. Lewis’s beliefs about myth. He loved myth before he became a Christian, and one of the tipping points in his conversion was a realization that Christianity told the True myth, that all the others were shadows of the Real story—hints, suggestions, partials, not the Complete. More than that, he believed that the True story redeemed all the other partials.

Consequently, Bacchus, a pagan figure used to symbolize winebibbing, among other things, when redeemed became an example of reveling in God’s creative work, His generous provision. He represented joy and laughter and celebration as God intended.

What does this have to do with Halloween? While I was running an errand (do we still say running when we drive? 😉 ), I was listening to a Christian radio station and the announcer or speaker (you can tell how closely I was listening) mentioned a pamphlet (I think) that discusses Halloween and magic. (Here’s where I became attentive).

Halloween, he said, is second only to Christmas for kids, but it is much more than dressing up and getting candy. This pamphlet would explain the pagan origins of the holiday and the meaning of much of what’s behind the celebration.

So there I was, thinking the people opposed to Narnia and these people peeking into the history of Halloween are thinking the same way. They’re thinking where it came from, not what God could make it.

I understand the Halloween issue from both sides. I grew up believing it was an innocent (though rather stupid) dress up day when you got candy. After all, witches were pretend and so were ghosts (my first costume was an old sheet with eye, nose, and mouth holes cut out).

But I also understand from the other side because I taught at a Christian school that had a strict policy against promoting Halloween. And the rationale was to keep kids from dwelling on the all-too-real dark arts that were fast making inroads in the culture.

Here’s my conclusion. This is a genuine, Biblical gray area. Some people really are in jeopardy because of their understanding and/or past involvement with paganism. For me to pooh-pooh where they are and to tell them how silly it is for them to be afraid of the pretend world of make-believe, is wrong. For them, putting on a witch mask may be too close to reality.

So if I’m right, and celebrating Halloween is a gray area, how then am I to behave? And what does all this have to do with reading books like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? I’ll try to address those questions next time, but please feel free to voice your opinions in the interim.