For many, the celebration of evil at Halloween is as meaningless to them as their celebration of Christ’s death at Easter. We have the opportunity to raise questions and address underlying realities.
Photo: [link]John Silliman[/link], Unsplash, CC0.
On Halloween this year, our church, St Mary Magdalene Gorleston will be preparing to welcome around 200 families from our estate, to pass through our annual ‘Light on a Dark Night’ event. This will be our fifth time running what has become a hugely popular community gathering point for those out trick or treating, as well as for those trying to perhaps avoid the some of the connotations associated with Halloween celebrations.
But this is no normal ‘light party’; no, it’s really about engaging with the dark. Let me explain.
There is no doubt that the celebration of Halloween has become a massive cultural phenomenon in many neighbourhoods. The hope of introducing the softer American-style ‘superhero’ costumes have hardly overtaken the very real obsession of kids and families with the bloody, spooky, skeletal elements of traditional Halloween celebrations.
As Christians, we have tended to feel disturbed by this cultural phenomenon, to not wish to answer the door, to encourage children to retreat into insular but safe-feeling Light Parties, and perhaps hold a deeper fear that the cultural popularity of the event reveals the very great distance of British or European culture to its Christian heritage.
However, we are called to be like Paul and be a Jew to the Jews and a Gentile to the Gentiles. We are challenged not to retreat from but positively engage with the prevailing culture. The church has done this throughout history, notably of course by turning the pagan festivals into Christian ones, such as Christmas, Harvest and Easter. And with this model in mind, I have been exploring our understanding and approach to Halloween.
Although celebrating darkness and death is rightly associated with evil, as Christians we can have confidence when experiencing the celebrations of darkness, through Christ’s death and resurrection victory over sin, death and the kingdom of darkness. We need not fear them anymore. We need not fear those who come to the door, the costumes, the scaremongering, the celebrations, the discos or the sweets.
Christ is greater by far and has victory over these things; he is present in us by his Spirit as we go out into the world, living as salt and light. If we, or our children, attend a Halloween disco or go trick or treating in celebration of the light of Christ, we are simply learning and demonstrating what it means to be in the world but not of the world.
It may appear to us that the world is celebrating darkness and evil at Halloween, but that may not be that simple. For starters, many of my friends and neighbours are not generally pagans who have an interest in satanic arts.
More often than not they are neighbourly, community-minded families who wish to introduce their children to their neighbours in a fun, responsible and safe way.
I’m afraid for many, the celebration of evil at Halloween is as meaningless to them as their celebrations Christ’s birth and death at Christmas and Easter. It is us who fear something deeper is going on spiritually.
Cropped.png "Engaging the massive cultural phenomenon of Halloween in our neighbourhoods")
However, none of that is to suggest that the forces of evil and darkness are not real, sinister, deceptive and powerful in our world. In fact, the history of Halloween’s close relationship with the church indicates that it has an historical Christian tradition in trying to warn us of the dangers the kingdom of darkness.
When we consider the comic but ugly gargoyles found on medieval churches, we are faced with something of how the church has approached and depicted the kingdom of darkness in the past.
The gargoyles (often practically water spouts!) symbolised the warning of the reality of evil, the dangers of being outside of the church fellowship, and the destination of those who do not take the salvation offered in Christ. The comic nature of the gargoyles somehow serves as a reminder that being secure in Christ, we can laugh at evil, being victorious over the satanic forces, and trample over them, even with silly childish costumes that mock the thwarted efforts of the evil one.
We mustn’t forget that people in the majority of the world do believe there are spiritual forces of darkness and evil, and even in the UK, secularism is starting to be overtaken by various beliefs in the spiritual realms rising up. We can see this as a threat, or we can see it as a wonderful new opportunity to find common ground for conversations.
At Halloween we can start raising questions in the minds of our neighbours by being unafraid to express that these dark forces are at work, reflecting the real battle that is going on.
We can express that Jesus is supreme as a spiritual force, not only because of his almighty power but because this power is expressed in goodness and light, achieving spiritual authority through the loving sacrifice of himself for us.
Not only is this a message for parents out there; our children need to be learning about the spiritual reality. They need to understand what is behind the troubles and sadnesses they observe and experience in the world so they can make sense of them.
They need to know that bad things don’t ‘just’ happen; evil powers are at work. Some of us may fear frightening them, but it’s not like they aren’t interested or already engaging with these concepts!
Many of their good-guy bad-guy stories, books, tv shows and films, reflect the battles in this world with evil and increasingly reflect a spiritual world. They need us to engage with these and show them who is ultimately victorious and behind all that is good.
There are so many possibilities for engaging positively with Halloween. For us at St Mary Magdalene, annually we turn our church building into a “Twilight Zone” of some kind for those who are brave enough to enter. They only then enter the Light Zone, through the cross of Christ.
To give you some idea, this year, families will be invited to ‘battle the dark forces and discover Light on a Dark Night’. The Battle Zone will be an almost pitch black, smoke-filled church, decorated with spiders, bats and other (gently) spooky decor and will have a series of battles (4 challenges) to be undertaken.
Volunteers will be dressed as if they have been in army gear and show the marks have being battle weary. To fight the evil forces, groups must climb through a cob web, shoot the witch dead, kill a ghost, get 10 bobbing apples and find a diamond in a slime bath.
Spoiler: despite early signs of success they will lose the battles. But there is a trail through each of the battles that show that someone (through visible hints of Jesus) has gone before them and won each battle. They eventually reach the cross where it is explained that Jesus has won all the battles for them and they are now able to pass through into the Light Zone as victorious.
In the Light Zone (our hall), they will be greeted by volunteers dressed in party-wear, whilst carrying small battle scars. Battle weary participants will be presented with a puzzle/story booklet-tract and the words ‘Congratulations - Jesus has given you the victory. This booklet will help you understand how. Welcome to the Light Zone.’
And then a full Light party atmosphere is created with victory music, fairy lights galore, hot dogs, hot chocolate, tea, coffee and crafts (this year, Shields of Faith and glitter covered chocolate apples). We find the parents, as well as the kids, always seem relieved to have arrived at their break in their trick or treating journey, and find that it really is good to have Light on a Dark Night.
Anna Price, Community Strategic Manager at St Mary Magdalene Church Gorleston in the United Kingdom.
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