Out of the three main holidays in the calendar, one holiday in particular stands out from the rest in the Christian community. It has been highly debated in Christian circles about how to deal with Halloween.
While some may just think it is just a time to dress up and get candy (harmless fun), others are very seriously against it because of some of the practices and roots that come with it. How should we go about Halloween? Should we celebrate it at all?
To get some other intel, I interviewed some of my fellow students here at Gordon as well as looked into some history to see what Gordon does around it. First I interviewed a student who did not grow up celebrating Halloween. She had this to say, “I kind of understood the reason we didn’t. Like with all of the spirits and demonic vibes that come out during that season,” said Ahva Olson ‘29. However she went on to talk about how even though she understood why she did not celebrate, it made her feel different from everyone else. She said, “Honestly as a kid it made me feel left out, seeing all my friends treat or treating and they weren’t doing any of that bad stuff”. I think she makes very good and well known points for the Christians who do not celebrate. Knowing the demonic connotations that come with the holiday, but also feeling left out because of not participating. I think that this is a common experience amongst the Christian youth growing up who do not celebrate. They don’t understand what their parents’ intentions are to a full extent so they feel left out of the fun.
Next, I interviewed some students that did grow up celebrating Halloween. I interviewed three other students and asked about their experiences as Christians celebrating Halloween. They all shared very similar experiences of trick-or-treating and other fall activities. One of the students shares, “We never did haunted houses or anything like that. We stayed on the fun side of it,” (Avery Carroll). So even though there was participation in certain activities, she was sure to make sure that she didn’t indulge in the demonic side. I then dove into some research on if Gordon had a particular stance on this. After looking around at the calendar, as well as other various places on the website, I could not find any opinion in particular. Which probably means that it is not important enough to say something.
So connecting back to the beginning when I introduced the topic of spiritual warfare. This happens all the time in the world but to feel it you have to be very tuned in. Especially Christians will feel it the most because we are actively, whether we feel it or not, resisting the evil forces of Satan every time we glorify the Lord. So on Halloween, the biggest day of the year in the satanist community, the spiritual warfare will be at its highest. With that knowledge it definitely validates some people’s decisions to completely stay out of the holiday. On the other hand, I think that there definitely are some harmless and fun things about the season. So the question still remains, how should we as Christians go about Halloween? From what I have gathered I think that there is no harm in doing some of the fun things that come with the fall season and Halloween. However, we definitely need to be aware of the serious things that go on during the day. I think we could even turn the intentions of Halloween on its head and go evangelize to counteract the plans of the enemy.
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