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Unless you care what God says on
the subject! And if you accept the
teachings of Jesus Christ and true
Christianity, then it does make a
great deal of difference! God's Word,
the Bible, as we shall see, has a great
deal to say about why you should
not
be involved with customs such as
those centering on Halloween.
Let's be honest. One only has to
look at Halloween costumes and dec–
orations to see that it celebrates
death, devils, witches and darkness.
Christianity is the antithesis of these
things! Christians are supposed to
conduct themselves in a way that ex–
emplifies light and life, not darkness
and death.
The diametric contradiction be–
tween these two approaches is noted
by Ralph Linton in
Halloween
Through Twenty Centuries:
"Among
all the festivals which we celebrate
today, few have histories stranger
than that of Halloween.... it com–
memorates beings and rites with
which the church has always been at
war." He then goes on to describe
Halloween festivities as customs
30
which were "once forbidden to good
Christians."
Somewhere along the line, these
alíen pagan customs have worked
their way into what the world consid–
ers as Christianity.
G.W. Douglas discloses in
The
American Book of Days
that "the
mystic rites and ceremonies with
which Halloween was originally ob–
served had their origin among the
Druids centuries before the dawn of
the Christian era in the celebration
on the eve of the festiva l of Samhain
[the lord of the dead-Satan) ... .
The early [medieva l] Christian
church adopted the eve and the day
following and gave new names to
them, as it did with many other
Christian observance [sic] ."
Writer Dorothy Wood of the
Wichita Beacon
stated the case clear–
ly back on October 30, 1959. She
wrote: "This ancient night of revelry
for the devil and his cohorts has de–
generated.. . . lt's the Christians
who are to blame. For centuries,
they've been grabbing off all the old
heathen festivals. The midwinter
feast with its greens and feasting and
drinking has become Christmas. The
wild spring festival has become Eas–
ter, and the worshippers of Christ
boldly use the old pagan symbols of
fertility-chicks and rabbits and
eggs. Now they've completely taken
over Halloween."
A Serious Matter
God does not look at this lightly. He
does not want His people to "borrow"
pagan customs (Deuteronomy 12:29-
31) with their inevitable detriment to
the development of spiritual charac–
ter. He plainly and directly com–
manded through tbe prophet Jere–
miah: "Learn not the way of the hea–
then . .. " (Jeremiah 10:2).
Through Moses, God condemned
as abominable al! that has todo with
witchcraft, necromancy (black
magic), and other demonic works of
darkness (Deuteronomy 18:9-12).
In view of this biblical condemna–
tion, we should want to stay as far
away as possible from whatever falls
into these categories. Instead, all
across the land in this "Christian"
nation, children-and adults-dress
as witches, demons and other mani–
festations which honor the "lord of
death" on his special night.
People do not seem to realize that
Satan and his demons are the
ene–
mies
of God. Halloween purposefully
worships Satan. "Halloween decora–
tions," says tbe
Good Housekeeping
Book ofEntertainment,
"are quite as
important as the food. When plan–
ning them, remember that if the
room is to be
dim/y lit .
..
the deco–
rations must be bold to be effective.
Orange, black and red,
the devi/'s
colours,
are tbe colours associated
with Halloween.... you could make
a giant spider's web ... complete
with a large spider-one of the dev–
il's favourite followers ."
The apostle Paul summed up the
attitude true Christians should have
and should teach their children:
" . .. For once you were darkness [in
the
past-before
becoming Chris–
tians], but now you are
/ight
in the
Lord; walk as children of light [not
dressed as demons, witches, zombies,
and other beings of darkness] (for
the fruit of light is found in aJI that is
good and right and true); and try to
The
PLAIN TRUTH October/November 1979