Halloween

Halloween and the Lord of Spirits

/ Doug Clark / Leave a comment

Every year Christians argue about Halloween. Is it participation in the occult that we should be running away from, or is it harmless dressing up?  And I addressed some of that last year in this post, in which we came to the conclusion that the modern celebration of Halloween is neither christian nor pagan but rather secular – stripped of any spiritual significance… but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a spiritual reality.

And so this year what I want to do is dig a little deeper and say that Halloween really is about demons, and that we’re okay with running right towards those demons…

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Placing Halloween in a Christian Worldview

/ Doug Clark / 1 Comment

Halloween is a confused, and confusing time of the year for people who take seriously the idea of an unseen realm. We believe that there is a reality beyond our mortal eyes, save what Jesus allows us to see from time to time, and so we want to take that seriously and be careful with it. But is Halloween a carelessness? Are we welcoming unseen dangers? Or are we celebrating Christs victory? There is no single answer.

For many it is simply dressing up, having fun, and getting sweets… and I dare say – there is not much more thought about it – it is simply an opportunity for fun and a party, and the theme is – fancy dress, or maybe even spooky fancy dress…

Others may see it as having much more deliberately pagan roots – and may understand its roots to be in paganism, witchcraft, and Samhain… some even think it has something to do with celebrating death.

For others still – Halloween is rooted in the church, and is a church festival called all saints day…

But which is true? What is Halloween all about – what is it’s origin…

Origin?

The thing is there isn’t one single origin for what we call Halloween today. Neither the Christian or the pagan origins account for the popular celebration of Halloween as it is today.

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Trick or Treat!

/ Doug Clark / Leave a comment

Tonight I went Trick or Treating for the first time in my life… and I’m thinking about doing it again…

You would think that a good Calvinist and Reformed Baptist would be writing about the 500th anniversary of the reformation today, and not Halloween – but it is precisely because of reformation theology that I can write this post, where as a few years ago I never would have dreamt of it.

We never went ‘Trick or Treating’ when I was a kid, it just wasn’t something our family did. “Well, we’re Christians, and Christians don’t really ‘do’ Halloween.” I grew up accepting this, and believing it – I didn’t fully understand it, but I trusted my parents, and the teaching of my church’s tradition. I love that my mum and dad were careful about what they exposed me and my brother to, and that they trusted their own church leaders. But now that I’m a pastor and a parent myself ‘because my mum said so’ is no longer a good enough answer! I needed to work through it myself. And part of that process was talking to my mum about how they came to the decision they did when I was a child.

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