AN EARLY HALLOWE'EN?

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:” (Colossians 2:16)

Without doubt I’m “opening a can of worms:” on this one.  Even so, I think I’ve written about Hallowe’en on the blog once or twice before.

At least twice in the past week as I drove around Framingham with my car radio on, I heard some very heated discussion about Hallowe’en and specifically whether Hallowe’en activities should be banned from public elementary schools due to religious reasons, the whole “politically correct” thing and the whole “separation of church and state” thing.   Apparently, a couple of Massachusetts public school systems are banning Hallowe’en this year and a number of others have already banned Hallowe’en within the past few years.  

It’s amazing to me how angry, well, how IRATE adults become about this.  Now, they get annoyed when Christmas and Santa Claus are kicked out of the schools, but touch Hallowe’en and WOW= they’re ready to egg your house, “key” your car, and smash your mailbox with a baseball bat!  

Boy, has Hallowe’en become a “sacred cow” in our society!  It’s amazing to me.

As with a lot of issues, I’ve “run the gamut” on Hallowe’en.  I will cut to the chase and say I pretty much DON’T like it, although I’m not as hostile and negative about it as I was at one time.  As a child from a middle-class Catholic family in the Boston suburbs in the 1960s, I remember Hallowe’en as one of my favorite days of the year, dressing in costume, and going door-to-door loading up on candy.  In those days there WAS a lot more DESTRUCTION on Hallowe’en than there was today, but if you liked candy as much as I did, it was a GREAT night!

The evangelical Christian community (“born again Christians” which is what I am now) pretty much had no trouble with Hallowe’en until around thirty years ago.  Up until that time, it was common for Protestant evangelical churches to hold Hallowe’en parties and other events.  I think the principal blow to Hallowe’en for the conservative Christian community came from a popular dynamic and charismatic speaker named Mike Warnke.  Mike claimed to be an ex-Satanist high priest.  Mike was a riveting speaker- cool, long-haired, captivating, sensational, and opinionated.  In the ‘70s Christians, especially young adults, bought his tapes left andright the way secular young people bought George Carlin tapes.  Sadly, much of Warnke’s “testimony” was later exposed as highly exaggerated.  (It wasn’t ALL fabricated, but enough of it was proven false that he pretty much disappeared from the traveling Christian circuit.)  Anyway, Mike Warnke attacked Hallowe’en head on.  His Hallowe’en material WAS accurate; in fact what Warnke was teaching and preaching was also being taught by German theologian Dr. Kurt Koch.  The bottom line was that Hallowe’en was a pagan, Druid festival, was essentially Satanic and demonic, was an absolute insult and affront to the Lord Jesus Christ and NO decent evangelical Christian should have anything to do with it.

What I guess could be called the “hate Hallowe’en” days in conservative Christian circles probably ran from somewhere around 1977 to somewhere around 1989.  In that era, many churches began offering alternatives to Hallowe’en for kids on the evening of October 31.  Typically, dressing up as ghosts, witches, etc. was a big no-no.  Kids would be encouraged to dress as Bible characters, or maybe friendly animals like big Teddy bears...stuff like that.  They’d still play games, and get candy, and everybody was happy.  The alternative to Hallowe’en events usually were called “Harvest Parties”.  I believe such Harvest Parties still take place, but I think there less common than they were at one time.

Many Christians just plain refused to give out candy on Hallowe’en night, shutting off their lights, and pretending to not be home.

I must confess that in that 1977-1989 era I was VERY anti-Hallowe’en.  I even wrote an anti-Hallowe’en letter to a major daily newspaper which pretty much had flames shooting out of it!  My own children were little kids in that anti-Hallowe’en era, and we never had them go trick-or-treating.  Like most evangelical Christians, we took them to the Harvest parties.

Again, I still don’t like Hallowe’en, but I’m not quite as “anti” as I was at one time and I think that’s true of a lot of evangelical Christians.  My daughter Amy has told me that out in the Bible belt city of Springfield, Missouri where she lives it’s not uncommon for even fairly high level evangelical clergy and denominational executives to sent their kids out trick-or-treating, so I guess things have changed in twenty years!

We give out candy, but we also give out children’s Hallowe’en tracts. Usually they're cute little stories with titles like, “The Happy Pumpkin”.  The bottom line of each tract is the kid is urged to “ask Jesus into his or her heart”. I’m sure that offends some of you, but if somebody comes to MY home asking for something, well, that’s what they’re gonna get!

Now, to the matter of schools banning Hallowe’en.  I’ve gone back and forth on it, but I’ve concluded that if I were a school official I WOULD ban it.  Our courts have taken the view that anything even remotely religious or offensive should be banned from the schools.  I think those are really stupid rulings.  I’d LOVE to have bold and open prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.  But it’s not allowed.  And Christmas is not allowed.  And Hanukkah is not allowed.  I think that’s stupid, BUT if all that other stuff is not allowed, then Hallowe’en should not be allowed either!