Halloween vs. Harvest?

Romans 13:12a “Let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light!”

Over the years we have been asked many times why we don’t participate in Halloween or our church’s harvest party. As we near Halloween I know that we will once again be asked. So to save anyone having to ask I figured I would share why we do what we do.
When we first married and had Shyloh we did the normal dress up and take her around to show off to all our relatives and collect her loot. We got saved and gave our lives to the Lord when she was 3. Within a year or two we started feeling convicted over our participation in what is a dark day. We started reading up on what that day represents and means. We decided to stop celebrating Halloween and start going to our church’s harvest party.
We did this for a few years until God once again got our attention with how we celebrated October 31st. I still remember it as vividly today as the day it happened. I was in Wal-Mart picking out some muslin to make some little Jewish girl costumes for my 3 little girls. They had each picked a bible character to be for the harvest party.
While there we ran into a relative who had been one of the ones who had been upset with us a few years before when we stopped trick or treating. She asked what we were doing and listened with a small smile on her face the whole time the girls excitedly told her what they were going to be and where they were going that evening. By the time they were done talking her smile had grown into an even bigger one and it almost looked like she wanted to laugh. She looked at me and said, “So, they are dressing up, going to collect candy, but you don’t call it Halloween you are calling it a harvest party? Call it whatever you want, but its still the same thing!”
I was so offended at the audacity of this person and I couldn’t believe how rude she was! I came home and told Duane all about our encounter and he was offended too. We went on to our party that night but neither of us could completely enjoy it. The whole night it ate at us. Could she be right? All these children dressed up with their candy did resemble all the children walking up and down the streets or the children attending all the “safe Halloween” get togethers going on at the city parks.
Until the next Halloween came around we prayed and sought the Lord on what to do. The following year came and we sat our children down and explained that it was much more important for us to be an example to all our unsaved family than to go the harvest party. If our family perceived it the same as Halloween then we wouldn’t attend. That year we took the kids and bought them some candy and took them out to play at one of those places with all the tubes to climb thru and balls to jump in. We didn’t want them to feel left out or anything! lol The Lord wasn’t done with us yet on this subject!
About 5 years ago Duane and I watched the Pagan Invasion: Halloween Trick or Treat with Chuck Smith and we were forever changed. I cried through much of the show and was so saddened that I had been so deceived into thinking that what we were allowing our children to be apart of was harmless fun. In the movie they interviewed a man who had been born and raised with the purpose of being a satanic priest. He described being a little boy of about five years old and witnessing his first human sacrifice of a little girl the same age. He described how they drugged her and sliced each wrist and ankle to allow her blood to be spilled. I was horrified. Words could not express how we felt. We sat in stunned silence for awhile processing all we had just saw and heard.
He was delivered from that life and now serves the Lord whole heartily. One of the statements that impacted us the most was when he shared how grieved he is every Halloween when people who profess and claim to be Christians dress up their children and take them to these “Christian”parties and say they aren’t celebrating Halloween they are just letting their children have innocent fun when it is actually a very dark day that many animals and people are hurt on.
We made the decision that day to take a stand against the darkness of that day. Over the years we have boycotted certain clothing lines when the news told of the women and children working long hours in awful sweats shops to make the clothing. We have taken a stand against abortion and many other things that we knew grieved the Lord’s heart. We felt that for our family this was even more important since the day glorifies Satan and all he stands for.
We don’t offer our children a substitute for Halloween and have taught them that as Christians there are many things over their lifetimes that they will have to say no to. We don’t need to always to give them substitutes for things that the world offers and we feel that teaches them the wrong message about Christianity. We don’t want them to think that they are missing out on something in life and in the world by being a Christian and that’s why we are are always trying to offer something to equal what the world offers. We want them to stand up for what is right just for the sake of it being right. Our family tends to agree with the author of an article called " Are 'Harvest Parties' for Christians?" (written by a self-avowed former witch and now active Christian).
As Christians we are called to be set apart from the world. This is one of the things that we feel the Lord has called our family to be set apart on. Halloween in a night that we think of the innocent lives that are harmed and forever changed because of the things and events that take place on that night. We have chosen, with our children, to pray and intercede for those lives.
I’m not here to tell you about the history of that night or the events that take place. That is something for you to research yourself and then take that before the Lord and seek Him on what He wants you to do with that knowledge. This post is just to tell you what OUR family does with that night and why. I just saved you from asking us. And please do me a favor, don’t email me telling me why this day is harmless or why I am mistaken. We are following what the Lord had told US with how he wants OUR family to handle this day. We will stand before the Lord, not humans and give account one day for how we lived and obeyed.
Much love~