ChrisMoncus.com

READ THIS WHOLE ARTICLE. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!

Do I have your attention? If not, humor me and pretend.

I stumbled across this article today from a guy named Jeff Gill. He writes that Halloween is the second most important Christian holiday after Easter. “Huh?” was my response but after reading I FULLY agree with him. I think this will forever change your perspective on Halloween, especially if you grew up in the same type of churches I did where we did have our “Hallelujah Nights” and “Fall Festivals”, both on October 31.

Amanda and I are going to be doing this very thing on Wednesday with our friends, the Lewis’. It will be a good night.

So PLEASE READ and RESPOND back with your thoughts.

The original post is here if you care to leave a comment for him.

Otherwise, read the entire article below.

—————————————————————–

Halloween: the Christian’s second most important holiday
19 October 2007 by Jeff Gill

Easter is, of course, the winner. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus there would be no Christianity. That is important to celebrate.

I am relegating Christmas to the number three spot because it is owned by commerce. Yes, Christmas is a wonderful family holiday. Yes, we Christians celebrate the incarnation of God (even though Jesus never said we should). Yes, I love Christmas. But frankly, we Christians just don’t own it anymore. The shops do.

We don’t own Halloween either, but we could.

I grew up hearing about the evils of Halloween – satan worship, demons, razor blades in apples – not from my parents, but from the Christian culture I lived in. I grew up going to Halloween alternative events, having lots of fun in my bible character costume, knowing that I was safe from all the devil-worshiping psychos that were certain to get me if I dared to risk knocking at the doors of the heathens in my neighbourhood.

Then one year I tried it, and I didn’t die.

As soon as my son was old enough (3) I introduced him to the joys of trick-or-treating. That was when I started realising that Halloween is the second most important holiday for Christians.

Jesus said there are two commands that matter: love God and love your neighbour. The Easter holiday is all about the first command. Halloween is all about the second.

What other day of the year can you put on funny clothes and be welcomed at your neighbour’s house? In my neighbourhood Halloween is the only day of the year that that people actually get out of their houses and chat with the neighbours that they don’t know. It is a night of celebrating community.

In the neighbourhood behind our church they throw a party at the shop and lots of people come out and have a great time. That’s where we went trick-or-treating last year.

On Halloween people let down their guard and come out of their houses. And unlike Christmas, it is not fraught with expectations and busy-ness. So here is my plan of how Christians are going to take over Halloween:

Full disclosure: I will be on holiday over Halloween this year, so for me this is more of a memo for 2008.

1. Ignore the demons and the occultists. (Almost) no one else in your neighbourhood cares in the least about that stuff. They are interested in costumes and sweets. Paul tells us to overcome evil with good, not with huddled prayer meetings in the church basement. If you want a prayer meeting, do it on the 30th. If you want to do some real spiritual warfare, put on some silly clothes and go hang out with your neighbours.
2. Cancel your anti- and alternative events. In the words of Disney’s little mermaid, ‚ÄòI want to be where the people are.’ Hint: they live around you in those house-shaped things. Stay home, put some pumpkins in the window, hand out a bunch of sweets (not tracts!) and have a nice chat with all the witches and axe-murderers that come by. Even better, go outside and meet the little ghouls’ parents lurking at the bottom of the drive.
3. Be positive and proactive. Find out in advance where the nervous old people live. Let them know that there will be adults out and about and that you will keep an eye on their house. Have some extra glowsticks to give to kids who need to be more visible. Find good places to hide so you can jump out and scare the trick-or-treaters. If you are feeling really ambitious, have an open house/garden with games and hot chocolate and snacks.
4. Check your motivation. You are doing this because God commands us to love people, not because you are trying to score crowns in heaven by getting converts. People can smell a rat a mile away.
5. Make Halloween the starting place. Probably sometime over the course of the evening you will meet somebody and there will be a bit of a connection. Go with it. Invite them to join you for bonfire night. Have their kid over to play with yours. Give the relationship opportunity to grow. And remember it is about loving people, not converting them. That is the Holy Spirit’s job.

Doesn’t that sound like a lot more fun (and useful) than anything else you could be doing Halloween night?

—————————————————————–

Below is a critique on this post and my response to it. Enjoy. I’d love to know what you think so leave a comment.

Marvi says on October 31st, 2007

Was searching the internet on Christian responses to halloween, and unfortunately this was the first on the list. This article reminds me of Jesus’ temptation, shows how cunning the devil can be by using scripture for his own purpose. There is nothing Christian about halloween whatsoever.

1Cor. 10:21 “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.”

Found this article which i hope will help. http://www.christianhelps.org/halloween.html

My response to it the next day…

Hey Marvi. Thanks for dropping by.

I hate that you say “unfortunately” in response to coming by my website. You charge me with using scripture for my own purpose, yet I did not quote any. And I do agree that there is nothing Christian about Halloween. There is also nothing Christian about our lost friends, or the hurting family across the street, or us before we knew Christ. Still somebody reached out to us.

You quote scripture to show me that I’m taking part in demonic actions. Since when is giving underprivileged kids candy a demonic action? Since when is a kid dressing up as Spiderman or a princess a sin? Since when is sitting on the front porch with ten friends a sin? I guess the only day that it is a demonic sin is on October 31. If our neighborhood were to do it in mid January you would have no adverse feelings. In fact, last week I gave a kid who wears his Superman costume all the time a mint. I guess I’ll have to ask God’s forgiveness.

Does that just sound silly to you? It should.

You may still be stuck on Halloween though. How about the fact that Easter’s date was chosen not because that’s when Jesus rose from the dead but when a religion’s fertility festival was going on. Or to be more blunt, it was the day when the whole community had a sex fest orgy. Should we not have Easter services for this reason? NO!

How about Christmas. Most theologians will tell you that Jesus was probably born in late summer, of 6BC, not 0AD. The day we celebrate Christmas on was determined for a few reasons. From Wikipedia,

In part, the Christmas celebration was created by the early Church in order to entice pagan Romans to convert to Christianity without losing their own winter celebrations. Most of the most important gods in the religions of Ishtar and Mithra had their birthdays on December 25.

That sounds a lot like what you are accusing me of doing, taking a pagan holiday and using it to win souls to Christ. If you want to stick to your guns then I’d recommend you not celebrate Christmas or Easter ever again. You wouldn’t want to drink the cup of demons would you?

Sound silly? Radical? Crazy?

It does. And it’s what you said to me. You are saying Christians shouldn’t use bad for good, shouldn’t take Christ to the world on a very opportune day, and shouldn’t be a part of anything resembling non-christianity.

That, my friend, is not Christianity. That is ultra-conservative religion.

For that reason, I pray that God will open you up to see Him and true relationship with Him, outside of the rules placed on us by denominations and pastor’s opinions.

Your thoughts?

—————————————————————–

What do you think?

This entry is filed under Christian Life, Christianity, Church, Halloween, Holidays, Stuff, Thoughts.