I Don’t Have A Problem With Halloween

…as long as you don’t have a problem with Christmas.

I’m not really big into decorations. I don’t decorate for different holidays. I barely even decorate my room. But I don’t mind that most people do. From mid-October until after January 6 (my dad’s birthday and Epiphany) it seems most houses have all kinds of decorations in- and outisde, from the Charlie Brown motiff with scrawny tree to that of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation style.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and we celebrated a “fall festival.” It was basically the same thing as Halloween but without the name. There were still pumpkins, candy, and costumes. I don’t recall any Bible stories being told. There was even a “scary house” which made use of the patricians and created a haunted house in the fellowship hall. Basically Halloween, complete with trick-or-treating and haunted house, just with a different name. That never really set well with me.  Even to a elementary school kid, I didn’t understand why merely changing the name made so-called evil things, ok. Semantics don’t sanitize a thing. So if Halloween & its festivities really are evil, then these actions don’t do any good and actually lead to more harm.

My parents never taught that Halloween is evil. Just like they didn’t teach me about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus. I knew these things existed, well, not really existed, but the idea of them existed was prevalent among my peers.

There seems to be a lot of people in the Church that preach Halloween as evil, that’s it’s the Devil’s New Year, that it’s full of demons, and they would never let their kids get wrapped up in such pagan rituals.

While it’s true that Halloween pulls from the ancient pagan holiday of Samhain. That is true, but it just look at the name “Halloween,” it derives its name from the Hallowed Evening (before All Saints Day).

Most of our holidays have both sacred and secular traditions. And that’s where my problem lies. Pretty much all the people (and every one I’ve known) that say Halloween is evil are the same people that put up Christmas trees and hang wreaths, both of which has pagan origins.

Ancient Romans decorated trees for their Winter Solstice Holiday, Saturnalia. Ancient. Ancient Germans & Swedes used wreaths to celebrate the new year, or rebirth of nature or the sun.

So if one doesn’t celebrate Halloween, then it only stands to reasons not to put up Christmas trees or wreaths. I’m sure we could find many more pagan origins to stuff we believe or practice. Some of them very well may be types or redemptive analogies placed by God.

It’s not really the tradition that matters. It’s not really the actions that matter. It’s the motive behind the reasons and the importance we place on those actions.

This might spark another post about actions and motives, good and bad.