(Is it just me, or does everything about that blog title just sound completely wrong?)
Halloween is here, and all month long the Lord and I have been having a conversation around this very topic:
Should Christians celebrate Halloween?
I feel like this is not a tough question to answer if you know who and what you believe in. And yet, so many Christians today celebrate without even giving it a second thought. Well, the thought that has been running through my head all month long, every time I'm walking my dog through the local neighborhood decorated with skeletons, demons, gravestones and ghosts is this:
Did Jesus die on the cross for us to celebrate death?
Last time I checked the answer to that one was an overwhelming NO. The life, death and then resurrection of Jesus Christ was so that we could celebrate and obtain life. Eternal life. Life more abundantly. Jesus tells us in John 10:10, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
I want to stop here for a second and give some context to the place I'm writing from, because I was in no way always like this. Before I was saved, and even for a while after, I was all about Halloween. My room was decked out with sugar skulls year round and I had a huge affection for Dia De Los Muertos. I even have a Dia de Los Muertos sugar skull tatted on me.
After being dead in sin and lost in the perils of this world for nearly 23 years, I wouldn't dare go back to that after receiving life through salvation. Having my eyes opened to see what it was I was so deeply enamored with (let's call it what it is - an obsession with dead things) I couldn't believe how badly I had been deceived.
And yet, it's taken 3 years for my feelings towards the topic to fully change. A part of me still keeps asking, "Wouldn't it be ok to just celebrate the innocent things of Halloween?" Like you know, dressing my dog in a Halloween costume or decorating with spider webs and carving pumpkins.
But the more I look into the origins of all these traditions, there's really nothing Christ-like or innocent about it. At all. On top of that, I can't help but think what the enemy can do with just a little bit of compromise before we're comfortably trapped in a web of lies.
I know a lot of you reading this aren't going to like me for saying all of this, but it's something that has been weighing so heavy on my heart, especially this year.
Christ didn't die for us to continue to live a life dead in sin.
Do you think it would be easy for Him to celebrate this holiday? Even if you keep it 'clean' and 'Christian' it's a day that is deeply deeply rooted in pagan traditions. I'm sorry to say, but when it comes to this holiday, the church looks just like the rest of the world, and that is not what we've been called to do.
So I'm going to do the unpopular thing here and take a stand to say I do not celebrate Halloween as a Christian. Not even a little bit.
When you're ready, do the research, pray and read the Word for yourself. Ultimately, the choice is yours to make.