Halloween? Fall Festival? Harvest Party?

I came across this article (free registration required to read the article) from my hometown newspaper, The Fargo Forum, regarding some families' decision not to participate in Halloween. This continues to be one of those 'hot topics' within Christian circles, as some families choose to participate in the festivities while others opt to abstain from the tricks and the treats. Ever since I've been in paid church ministry, this has been an issue I haven't been able to get away from either. As a youth pastor, I was encouraged not to have Halloween parties or events. So we'd call them harvest parties or fall festivals. There were a couple of problems with this as 1) teenagers don't normally celebrate fall festivals and 2) with the costumes and the candy, our fall festivals didn't look much different than the 'pagan' Halloween parties, with their candy and costumes. If families like the ones in this article abstain from anything Halloween related, including church-sponsored candy and games, I can respect (though disagree with) their stance. But too often we in church like what the world is doing (who doesn't like getting some candy or seeing little kids dressed up?!?) but are uncomfortable with the origins, so we steal the candy and the costumes and then 'christianize' it by calling it a festival or asking that no scary costumes enter our Family Life Center.



I will not argue that the events surrounding Halloween have 'pagan' roots. Early on, the Church tried to redeem the holdiay with a celebration on November 1 called All Saints Day (though few have probably heard of it unless you're Catholic). Even more interesting, though, is how many of the holidays that Christians do hold sacred, including Christmas and Easter, have pagan roots as well. Ever wonder why Easter doesn't have a set Sunday, like Christmas or Halloween? Obvioulsy the dates that Jesus died and rose from the dead are set in history, so why does Easter move around? It's because it's based off the moon's movement, and is a certain number of Sundays after a certain moon movement. Jesus most likely was not literally born on December 25th. And that doesn't take into account other traditions such as trees, lights, gifts, bunnies, and chocolate. So why stands like the one this family takes might be commendable, do we apply the same reasoning or logic to other celebrations?