I am going to get myself into some hot water here. I really am. I have done it before and undoubtedly will do it again but for some reason I always go where angels fear to tread. I should have written this article last April, on my way OUT of town, instead of a couple of weeks before I am to arrive BACK to Venice but in a minute you will understand why I’m writing this today at this time. You’ll not likely be reading much about this subject anywhere else. I am going to give you enough startling facts and information that will hopefully cause you to wake up and smell the coffee!
Increasingly, in this day and age, parents and grandparents are concerned. Very concerned. There is much to be concerned about. Our kids are being targeted and bombarded at every turn by media and material that lowers their morals and standards and values . Why is it then that so many parents, who have taught their kids since they could walk and talk,to not under any circumstances ACCEPT CANDY FROM STRANGERS, then do a 180 degree turn and are coerced into everything and anything that society, Hollywood or whoever puts across to our children as a normal, as an acceptable and as an inevitable event that we dare not question? Why do we then allow, even festively encourage, them to celebrate Satan’s holiday?
That is precisely what Halloween is. Ironically, it is one of the two holidays that public schools celebrate because they insist there is no ‘religious’ significance. There is no Christian significance but it is a pagan religious day, nonetheless, rooted in the worst kind of pagan rituals and worship. It is the Celtic Festival of Samhain, lord of death and evil spirits, originating back 2,000 before Christ and celebrated by Wiccans (witches). Their dark ceremonies led to gruesome deaths. Druid priests would go from house to house asking for fatted calves, black sheep and human beings which were then sacrificed to appease evil spirits. Amid the screaming and torture, while these people and animals where burned to death, observers would dress in costumes and dance and chant and jump through the flames in hope of warding off evil spirits. The lighted faces of Jack O Lanterns were placed on doorsteps as a symbol that damned souls lived in the home while food was offered and left for the spirits as treats so that a curse, or trick, would not be put on the occupant.
It is unimaginable that we are encouraging an observance of this unholy day. Most of the costumes, masks and cardboard cutouts at department stores and supermarkets are not cutsie or funny but depict fiendish creatures that look like they have come from hell itself. Blood-dripping vampires hang from store ceilings and their display racks are crammed with Dracula costumes. Dracula was a real person who lived in the 1400’s. He was a demented maniac who massacred 100,000 men, women and children in the most hideous ways. Has he now become a role model? A hero? ‘ Don’t be absurd !’, you say? Well, why is his caricature hanging everywhere I look during the month of October? Why are we desensitizing children to the macabre things that shock and horrify? The synonyms for macabre, from Roget’s Thesaurus are gruesome, grisly, grim, deathlike, deathly, cadaverous, ghastly, eerie, ghostly, unearthly, weird, dreadful, horrible, and horrific. It is bad enough that fear, mutilation, torture and bizarre murders are glorified through the string of TV programs and videos centering around Halloween, do we need to promote and glorify creatures from beyond the grave? Why take part in this diabolical unholy day? What positive influence will this have in our child’s life? Whatever we expose them to will have an effect on their well-being or the destruction of same, whether we admit it or not!
As parents, grandparents and especially as Christians, we need to take what the Word of God says seriously. Eph- esians 5:11 states that, "we are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them", which not only means expose them, but when I looked up the Hebrew word for ‘reprove’, the lexical aid used as an example was from Isaiah chapter one; "Judah, (the children of Israel) had been practicing religious festivals of their own design in rebellion against God". The prophet Isaiah called upon them to repent. Repent means a sorrow which results in a change of mind and a change of one’s conduct.
Let’s not rebel against God but let us repent and LET’S JUST UNMASK HALLOWEEN!