Wayne Weekly “Boo! to Hollow-Wean”
Written by Teddy on October 28, 2015
Some things are always hanging over our heads as Christians…like Halloween.
Throughout the years of being a Christian, including raising a family under the authority of God’s Word, I could always depend on the “Halloween question” to challenge me each fall.
When my family was very young it was easy to downplay Halloween. As the children got older, Evie and I found ourselves wrestling every year on how we were going to deal with what now has become a major observance in our country, and financially lucrative second to Christmas.
When I was a kid, we went out “trick-or-treating”. It was not so much about the occult or mutilation as it was about eating candy. Halloween was less weird and certainly not as celebrated as it is today. Today Halloween stores make a “killing” on costumes. Candy companies design their seasonal wrappers in orange and black. Corn mazes and spook houses are plentiful. People are obsessed or possessed with Halloween.
Evie and I, over the years of the Halloweens we experienced, have gone through diverse strategies of playing it down. We have kind of ignored it to at least a degree. We have come up with ways to make it more of a Harvest party than a ghoul thing. We’ve focused on how to salvage the “un-holy” day and make it a time to evangelize in some unobtrusive way like handing out tracts or Christian comic books with candy (never without candy, please). We have participated in church events that have a non-evil Halloween theme, attended Christian “spook houses”, and currently are involved with a church sponsored “Trunk or Treat” outreach.
I don’t pretend to have the knowledge on how Christians should or should not celebrate Halloween. Honestly, at times I want to turn off my front porch light and go to bed. I actually dislike the holiday for all it really is. I don’t want to give credence to witchcraft, new age junk (actually the same old same old), or the so called living or un-dead that has hit television and movies big time over the past few years. But I do want to reach people for Christ. So if the end of October gives a platform for touching lives with the gospel, well then I will involve myself in some way, and pray that the endeavor will be spiritually fruitful.
However you look at it, Halloween is not a wholesome celebration. Since it can wean people away from healthy living with a possible result devoid of Godly living, focusing on the occult and leaving children hollow and empty of real meaning, it should perhaps be renamed “Hollow-wean”.
Boo! to Hollow-wean.
