A Brief Response to Halloween?

15th July 2002

1. What Halloween is

Traditionally, the first day of November is All Hallows Day, that is, a day of all the saints - like St. George's day, but much more so. That's now all but forgotten, but the evening preceding it - Hallow E'en, or Halloween - is a big commercial holiday. The idea seems to be that all the evil spirits are at work for a final fling before saints' day. Traditionally, it is supposed to be the one night of the year when witches come out.

Halloween is rather bigger in America than it is over here: Trick or Treat comes from the other side of the pond, and has only really been happening in Britain for twenty or thirty years.

2. What the bible says about witchcraft

Witches in the bible are roundly condemned.

• Deuteronomy 18:10-12 warns: ``Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD."

• Deuteronomy 18:14 further explains: ``The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.

• The evil King Mannasseh of Judah ``sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced sorcery, divination and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil'' (2 Chronicles 33:6)

• In Micah 5:12, God warns Israel, ``I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells.''

• Galatians 3:1 uses the word ``bewitched'' to describe Christians who had been led away from grace, back into law.

• Galatians 5:20 describes witchcraft as an ``act of the sinful nature''.

There is much, much more.

All this should leave us in doubt that the bible takes witchcraft and sorcery extremely seriously. We are not, in general, at liberty to laugh it off or treat is as a joke. If we doubt the reality of magic, and the ability of some people to perform it, then the bible removes those doubts. Neither does the bible allow us any room for modern concepts like ``white witches''. It clearly teaches that witchcraft is absolutely real, and utterly detestable.

At its root lie matters of manipulation and control - attitudes that lie at the very heart of the rebellion against God that is the ultimate cause of all sin.

3. Our response to Hallowen

The question we have to deal with is this: to what extent is the modern Halloween anything to do with the witchcraft that the God of the bible so detests; and so how seriously should we take it?

There seems little doubt that real witchcraft, or at the very least attempts at it, will happen on Halloween - even in Crouch End. At the same time, the numerous kids' parties and suchlike are hardly likely to be venues for black masses. We certainly don't need to fear Halloween - neither the reality of it, nor the sanitised kids'-party version, because we all know that ``He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world'' (### reference)

Matthew 10:16 tells us to be ``as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves''. For me, that applies to Halloween as follows:

• I want to be as innocent as a dove in terms of having nothing in my life that is to do with anything supernatural other than God.

• Being as shrewd as a snake probably means that I do that by distancing myself from Halloween.

So personally, I wouldn't go to a Halloween party, nor send my children to one. (There's one at Matthew's playgroup.) As much as anything, that's to prevent myself, or the kids, from getting anaesthetised to he concept of magic.

It's not necessary to make a big fuss about it, in a way that will alienate non-Christians. We just say, ``We don't do Halloween in our family'' and leave it at that.

Discussion Point: Does the same reasoning apply to Harry Potter books?

 
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If you're reading a paper copy of this document, the soft-copy can be found at www.miketaylor.org.uk/xian/halloween.html.