Halloween and the Christian

Halloween has been a journey for myself and my family. Before I was a christian I blissfully participated and enjoyed this holiday. I, in no way attached any religious significance to it. After I became a Christian however I grew more and more uncomfortable with my family engaging in Halloween activities. The church we attended, although bible believing was filled with people who enjoy the world. They saw nothing wrong with dressing their children up, telling jokes, or receiving free candy. The more "religious" members of the congregation felt that if they handed out a track at the door and offered to pray for the people who came to them that they had redeemed the day for Christ. Others felt that they did not want their children to feel bad and so they made alternative plans, throwing fall parties and celebrating on the same evening as trick or treat. Honestly, at one time, our family went with each one of these ideas.

Gradually I realized that all the effort of not celebrating was just as much of an acknowledgment of Halloween as actually participating. I was sending my children mixed messages. I found a book that I felt covered the topic well. The book, Mommy, Why Don't We Celebrate Halloween" by Linda Winwood helped to explain in a way I could not at that time, why we had decided to stop participating. My children need to see and realize that as Christians we are different from non christian. If I send them the message that by being a Christian they are missing out and go to an extreme to substitute something "better" than the world I am sending them the wrong message.

One of the biggest lies that the church has bought into is the myth of neutrality. We think that certain areas of life are neutral and therefore neither Christian or secular. Books, movies, schools, education, clothing, holidays are neutral territory. This is not biblical. First John 4:3 says that "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God and this is the spirit of the antichrist." Anything that does not confess Christ, even or especially if it says nothing is denying his Lordship. There is no neutral territory in the war with Satan. It is either from God or it is not.

"The non-Christian takes advantage of the Christian by manipulating him into thinking that some things are neutral. Any territory which Christians acknowledge as neutral is territory which has been inattentively conceded to the devil as a playground for him to practice his hidden mischief. We are the rightful owners of this world." Teaching The Trivium

Another myth is that we can take something that is anti Christ and turn into something that is off Christ. We should know as followers of Christ that new living things can not be put into the old and the dead. (Luke 5: 37,38 ) There is a biblical process for regeneration which I will cover more in the next blog. It is an internal process that reforms and transforms us into the image of Christ.