With Halloween just days away, many churchgoers are engrossed in the annual debate: should they allow their kids to go trick-or-treating or should they forego the celebration of a “pagan holiday” and go instead to the more “innocent” fall festivals many churches have planned as a safe alternative?

Over at ChristianBlog.com, one writer raises the following points about a planned Fall Festival:

1) This festival has been held the last 3 years and always around Halloween.
2) Children are invited to attend in costume.
3) Children receive candy for playing games.

These three reasons in my mind say that this is nothing but a Halloween party in disguise. Why are we as Christians not only participating in a pagan holiday but holding a party for it in our church. I know for many Christians the pagan routs of this holiday are long forgotten. But that is not the point.

Actually, that is the point. It’s the whole point. And it’s a point that a lot of Christians seem far too capable of missing.

When a child dresses up as a favorite super hero, goes door to door in his neighborhood, and accepts candy from kindly neighbors, is he sinning because he is commemorating the practices of pagans who were only out to sin?

I don’t think so. What he is doing has nothing…absolutely nothing…to do with a pagan ritual. The child isn’t trying to embrace paganism. The child is merely play-acting.

The same kind of fight comes up now in the spring, when it’s time to celebrate Easter. There are many Christian parents who don’t want their children getting anywhere near Easter eggs. Why? Because before dyed eggs became a symbol of Easter, they were common in pagan rites-of-passage festivals in which the eggs represented rebirth and renewal. Some say, therefore, that the eggs have nothing to do with who Jesus was or what He stood for.

Maybe I am missing something, but I think rebirth and renewal is exactly what Christ was about: it was through His death and resurrection that we can all be reborn.

Rather than banning Easter eggs out of the fear of looking “un-Christianlike,” the linked article suggests, why not take the time during the dyeing of the eggs to actually discuss that parallel, and what Jesus means in your family’s life?

I guess that’s just too much work for some parents.

One might wonder why, if eggs are such a symbol of evil, why any Christian would ever have an omelette.

But the point is, that virtually anything can be interpreted more than one way, and many of those same things can be used as a way to discuss religion in the family and reinforce the importance and relevance of Christianity in today’s world. It’s a shame that so many Christians can’t see that today.

How does this apply to Halloween? Consider the origin of the holiday: it was originally a celebration of the end of summer. From an article on Beliefnet.com:

The spirits of dead people returned to earth at this time, [the pagans] believed, taking the forms of cats and witches and the like. Fearful that these spirits might do them harm, people attempted to scare them away by building fires and displaying pictures of grotesque faces. They would also place food offerings at their doors, hoping that any visiting spirits would take the treat and forget the trick. Our lighted carved pumpkins, masks, and trick-or-treat rituals have their origins in these practices.

So though this festival that has over the years morphed into today’s practice of trick-or-treating — which has nothing to do with paganism — originated out of a desire people had to ward off evil. Isn’t “warding off evil” one thing we Christians are supposed to do?

Virtually anything can be interpreted more than one way, and many of those same things can be used as a way to discuss religion in the family and reinforce the importance and relevance of Christianity in today’s world.

Like the Easter egg example, doesn’t the “fun” of dressing up in costume on an innocent holiday for innocent intentions lend itself to a quick mention of how Halloween started and how we as Christians can ward off evil in our own lives, by following Christ’s example, rather than being so afraid of “looking” like we’re not Christians that we’d voluntarily give up such opportunities?

There’s one other point worth making, and it’s about those fall festivals that still have the costumes, face painting and candy that is common to the “evil” Halloween.

I know I’ve given this example before somewhere, but I’ll give it again: years ago, a relative of mine once worked with a person who did not believe in celebrating birthdays or Christmas, so when the office wanted to plan its annual Christmas party, they had to call it a “December Party” or else that one employee wouldn’t participate.

It didn’t matter that they exchanged Christmas presents, decorated (in part) with Christmas decorations, and played Christmas music; the name was enough for this co-worker to decide whether or not she would attend. Calling it a “December Party” satisfied whatever moral trepidations she held about Christmas.

If a church holds a “Fall Festival” and encourages children to dress up in costume — even if only in the costumes of biblical characters — and offers candy and other “treats,” what message are they really sending? Who’s fooling who? And beyond that, when the church buys its candy from the same Halloween displays, and encourages kids to choose costumes with biblical significance from the same aisles that contain non-biblical costumes, aren’t they still putting their money into the “pagan tradition” and lining the pockets of those who are making money off the very thing they supposedly despise?

Rather than be hypocritical, the churches could invite the kiddies, costumes and all, for an evening of Halloween fun in which God becomes the focus…which is how it should be anyway.

Halloween party or Fall Festival? Too often, they’re the same thing. And as always, they’re only what we make them out to be.