Considering Halloween in a proper light

A friend of mine recently shared a blog post he had found, called “Reconsidering Halloween”; he called it a balanced Christian approach to the night.

The writer talks about how her parents, back in the 1980s, took too narrow an approach to Halloween and would not let their children celebrate it, because it was a satanic holiday. And then, after laying the charge at their feet that they went too far, she takes essentially the same position. If this is fair and balanced, then so is Fox News.

Halloween a children’s holiday. There is nothing evil about it.

Anybody who has been around the block even four or five times knows that monsters are real. Halloween makes those monsters something we can see, something we can identify, and ultimately something we can defeat. It’s not a celebration of evil and darkness, it’s a celebration of the defeat of evil and darkness.

All the best horror movies have that message. Van Helsing and his crew stop Dracula. The villagers rise up and stop both Frankenstein and his monster. The young couple thwart the ancient evil of the mummy. Even Freddie Krueger meets his match in the end. The journey audiences take before evil meets its timely end may be frightening, but are they more frightening than life itself?

I’m more worried about the effect visiting some churches will have on the well-being of my kids, than I am about the effect of trick-or-treating at a house with a giant inflatable spider in the front yard.

In the movie you are guaranteed to see the end of the story and see evil receive the full recompense of its deeds. How is this a celebration of evil? You are assured that evil will fall and good will triumph. In what way does the destruction of zombies, the defeat of madmen, or the rescue of the innocents from further carnage undermine the cause of good?

Doesn’t this reassure us of the very message of the Cross, that evil has been defeated, and its days are numbered?

As a Christian, I’ve run into a lot of wingnuttery over jack-o’-lanterns, trick-or-treating and costumes, and it always annoys me. Baptize yourself in vinegar in you must, but don’t tell my kids they can’t enjoy themselves.