Halloween is coming. I know this because churches are putting out signs for such things as “Harvest Parties”. We used to be part of that because we would have an annual get together at our house with all of our children’s friends and their families. We called it a “Fall Festival” and would have up to 50 people join us. It was a good time.
Part of our reasoning was that because we had spiritual issues with Halloween we wanted to substitute something so the kids would not feel left out. Our motives were pure even if our thinking was not clear. Why?
The Christian response to fall is Thanksgiving Day, not Halloween. Halloween is our version of what the Mexican culture calls the Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Our school is decorated with skeletons and skulls. One year we had a cultural awareness assembly in which they demonstrated children offering up sacrifices at an altar to their dead ancestors. It seemed very similar to what I would think of as ancestor worship in Japan. Any way you slice it, it is a pagan holiday. You might ask yourself what is being harvested at your Harvest Party.
I can understand people who think it is just an innocent day of fun. I don’t agree but I understand. To me it is still living in denial. It is part of the way in which the Christian church has been watering down the standards of the Bible and morphing them into culturally acceptable clones. We want to enjoy pagan culture without being a part of it. I don’t know where the line is but relabeling Halloween as a Harvest Party may not be the best route.
Smiling skeletons are still skeletons.
homo unius libri
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