Of course, this is all irrelevant. Today, Halloween is a completely commercial holiday devoted to the sale of millions of tons of candy and decorations. Christmas, Hanukkah and Easter all have vaguely religious connotations today, but does Halloween? Today I went and asked a class of 2nd graders why we celebrate Halloween, and most of the answers I got revolved around dressing up and getting candy from strangers. Two of them, both amazingly precocious, suggested that it was some kind of harvest celebration. Four of them, three of them first generation from Mexico, all talked about it in terms of the day of the dead and the dead coming back during the night. None described it as a religious holiday, nor did they connect it with religion in any way (which I admit, surprised me).
Of course, many fundamentalist Christians have perverse fascinations with things like this, and Halloween is no different. I did a quick search on Halloween from a Christian perspectives, but my favorite link was pointed out by a friend of mine. You can find it here, but let me try to sum it up for you; when the godless unsaved children come to your door, preach to them.
Now, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and witnessing is one of my least tolerated annoyances. Combine the two, and you're just asking for trouble.
I suppose the basic premise of this article is that Christians should just calm down and be good consumers like the rest of us. They should buy some candy and a pumpkin, and then settle in to read bible tracts about how everyone else in the world is going to hell for a multitude of reasons. Once they've accepted that Halloween is a corporate executive's wet dream, perhaps they can leave my mindless pursuit of free candy alone.
Related to this story is Landover Baptist, which just happens to have a really great Halloween page up. The Objective Christian Ministries site has a link to them, and has been trying to shut them down. If you've never heard of www.bettybowers.com or www.Landoverbaptist.org you should check them out. They're both highly entertaining, and due to the first amendment, will be around for a long time to come.
Spherical Time (St Matthew)
