Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #65： Should Christians Celebrate Halloween？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about... 0.85

00:00:03.400 Should Christians celebrate Halloween?

00:00:05.800 So, important conversation about Halloween, and I think it's timely. 0.54

00:00:10.360 This episode should come out first week of October, I believe.

00:00:14.040 And lots of people are asking us this question.

00:00:16.420 Yeah, and we get this question every year. We did a podcast on it last year,

00:00:20.120 so we'll probably touch on a lot of the same points.

00:00:21.960 But here's just a refresher for this year.

00:00:25.460 Should Christians celebrate Halloween?

00:00:26.980 And if we shouldn't, does that mean that we need to opt out of all Halloween activity?

00:00:32.480 Where should Christians draw the line?

00:00:34.560 And if we're talking about not participating in Halloween because of its pagan roots,

00:00:39.420 then doesn't that mean that we shouldn't celebrate Christmas and Easter as well?

00:00:44.500 So we're going to go ahead and answer these questions and more on today's episode of Real Christianity.

00:00:49.920 Yeah, so a couple things before we dive in.

00:00:52.300 One thing, actually, I'll say is it's coming at that time of year.

00:00:56.480 we're a non-profit last three months of 2019 and that means that we're going to be talking a little

00:01:04.160 bit more about donations and supporting ministry and what I want you guys to know is that for

00:01:11.280 non-profits the last three months of the year is pretty much 80 to 90 percent of the funding for

00:01:19.280 the following year and so it's a big deal in terms of ministry and you know for those that don't know

00:01:26.180 this podcast, it's a hundred percent funded by God's people, um, through prayers and financial

00:01:32.460 support. And so we do this podcast completely, uh, for free and it takes a long time. I spent

00:01:38.800 even just for this one episode, it took me two and a half days, uh, you know, scattered throughout

00:01:43.760 the day, but probably a total of like 10 hours to write this episode content on top of just the

00:01:48.820 camera equipment and then the studio and, and getting Veronica in here. And we're doing it

00:01:53.020 when our kids are napping and paying someone to edit it,

00:01:55.420 paying someone to edit it.

00:01:56.180 And so there's just a lot of things that are going on.

00:01:58.320 So I want to thank those of you that have supported us financially,

00:02:01.620 that you've really invested into what I believe is eternal work.

00:02:05.540 If you guys just take a moment and go read the reviews of this podcast,

00:02:09.900 you'll realize how much of an impact the content is having on the people of

00:02:15.500 God. And it is just astounding. And so again, thank you guys for that.

00:02:19.380 I wanted to tell you guys a little bit about our plans for next year.

00:02:22.500 And so, Lord willing, I'm going to be able to write a book or start a book

00:02:26.100 and curriculum for planting biblical house churches.

00:02:30.120 You guys know that that's what we do, relearnchurch.org.

00:02:32.940 That's our ministry.

00:02:34.120 Lots of people have been asking us for that.

00:02:36.140 My hope is, Lord willing, to be able to start that book

00:02:38.620 and start building that curriculum, which is a big project for next year.

00:02:44.660 Our team is working on improving our companion ministry, ultimatemarriage.com.

00:02:48.940 We're trying to get that into churches and small groups.

00:02:51.360 as well as developing and filling our store, which is shop.relearnchurch.org,

00:02:56.720 with new resources on church and theology and parenting and marriage, pornography and addiction,

00:03:03.380 you know, all types of topics.

00:03:05.020 So we have lots of work.

00:03:06.180 We have a small team and a small staff that really is doing a lot.

00:03:11.540 And man, it would be nice to be able to hire another person in God's time, and I'm sure we will.

00:03:16.220 But we are definitely working hard over here as a team.

00:03:19.360 Um, and, uh, I think it's easy for people to believe that, Hey, someone else is going

00:03:23.300 to give and someone else is going to support the ministry.

00:03:26.640 Um, the truth is, uh, while we, we've been making it every month, um, we don't make it

00:03:32.440 by much in terms of just, uh, you know, having a modest salary, uh, paying our employees

00:03:38.600 again, modest, uh, rates as well as, uh, just, you know, buying equipment and producing

00:03:45.260 content and doing advertising for the content.

00:03:47.280 And so we're not like doing, you know, we're not like 100% funded.

00:03:51.880 We're actually by no means 100% funded right now.

00:03:54.060 And so if you guys just would consider praying about, yeah, maybe making a $10 a month donation for the next year or 50 bucks a month or just maybe a one-time gift.

00:04:06.460 We also have a group called The Pillar.

00:04:08.240 And the pillar is a group of people that I would say are radically generous and support us in a larger way.

00:04:18.100 It's at about $12,000 a year or more.

00:04:20.880 And we only have a few of these people.

00:04:23.140 But they really bring sustainability and stability to the ministry because we can rely on things.

00:04:30.300 And, you know, the public donations kind of go up and down, and they're very hard to rely on.

00:04:34.800 So if you want to be a part of the pillar, you can also just email me.

00:04:39.180 My email is just dale at relearnchurch.org.

00:04:42.040 And it would be, we have a handful of people that are part of that group,

00:04:46.260 and they are called by God to support our mission.

00:04:49.160 So if that's you, we'd just love to let you know that that's a thing.

00:04:52.260 And thank you guys for supporting us so far.

00:04:54.480 It really has meant a lot to us.

00:04:56.480 All right.

00:04:57.080 So jumping into this week's episode, as I said earlier,

00:05:00.580 I get messages all the time of moms asking me if they should be guiding their families into a celebration of Halloween.

00:05:08.960 And should they be buying decorations and carving pumpkins and going trick-or-treating?

00:05:13.860 So let's start with the most important question first, and that is, what is Halloween?

00:05:18.740 Where did it come from, and why is that important?

00:05:21.840 Yeah, so this is a good question.

00:05:23.180 I actually did a lot of research on this because there's a lot of conflicting stories on Halloween,

00:05:28.240 depending on what perspective the christian perspective can be a little slanted towards

00:05:31.940 like super super evil and then if you look at the you know the secular perspective it's actually

00:05:36.680 not not as bad as as you know some might might um paint the picture of halloween i wanted to go

00:05:43.320 back further so i did a lot of research um even if you i looked at history channel wikipedia had

00:05:48.320 some really great content there i'm going to just kind of you look at my notes here but halloween

00:05:52.460 originated with the ancient Celtic festival. It's called Samhain. And it's spelt Samhain. So you

00:05:59.220 probably, if you've done any research, it's pronounced Samhain. And that's the ninth century

00:06:04.120 in Ireland. And it's actually the celebration of the dying crops for the year. Like it's the

00:06:09.600 mark of the end of the harvest time. Things aren't growing anymore is kind of basically what this was

00:06:17.180 a part of. Well, that was the ninth century. In the eighth century, just a hundred years earlier,

00:06:22.460 uh, Pope Gregory III designated November 1st, uh, as a time to honor all the saints that had

00:06:28.880 been martyred throughout church history. And we know that as All Saints Day. So I want to first

00:06:33.960 draw just a perspective that Halloween and All Saints Day are two different days. So just keep

00:06:39.660 that in your mind right now. And so the evening, um, you know, before is Halloween. And I think

00:06:45.260 there was a, just due to the proximity of how close those days were, I think a lot of people

00:06:49.740 started incorporating some of the traditions of Samhain into All Saints Day, and I think that's

00:06:56.160 the case now. However, the Catholic Church has specifically said on their website that Halloween

00:07:02.500 and All Saints Day are completely different. Halloween is secular, All Saints Day is holy.

00:07:07.800 It's actually such a holy day of the Catholic Church that you actually have to attend mass if

00:07:11.440 if you're part of the Catholic Church, on November 1st.

00:07:14.560 And the secular Halloween that we want to talk about, the roots of that,

00:07:22.400 is to Believed as a night that released the dead spirits that control nature.

00:07:28.860 They've kind of been held captive underground by the kind of vegetation,

00:07:34.560 the live vegetation from the previous months.

00:07:36.640 So this is kind of where it comes from, that there's these spirits underground,

00:07:41.440 that are controlling nature and life and death.

00:07:44.200 And when things die, those spirits come out on this day.

00:07:47.820 That's where this was originated from.

00:07:50.600 And this is actually the origin of jack-o'-lanterns, right?

00:07:53.340 The idea that a pumpkin, it's dying, it's coming off the vine,

00:07:55.980 but then there's this like carving a face on it and putting a candle in it.

00:08:00.380 And it's this life coming, the spirit coming to be inside of this dead thing.

00:08:04.780 And that's kind of the origin of the jack-o'-lantern.

00:08:07.660 um uh halloween is a is a uh historically if you look it up and just look at pictures

00:08:14.520 it's a night where people would circle around bonfires they dress up in costumes and their

00:08:19.200 their attempt to dress up as costumes is to scare away uh evil ghosts bad ghosts uh is what what i

00:08:26.580 found online and you'd have these seances to welcome the dead the good dead spirits i guess

00:08:32.700 and so you see if you just search like Halloween and you look at pictures or the origins of

00:08:37.780 Halloween you're going to see all these people around bonfires and like old drawings of people

00:08:42.300 like circling around bonfires dressed up it's very satanic in terms of it's just nature

00:08:46.620 and again this is not crazy research I found a lot of this stuff just on Wikipedia's history

00:08:53.600 of Halloween and history channel with a few other kind of diving deep resources that I found online

00:08:59.160 But over time, Halloween has kind of evolved into what it is today, this American cultural holiday.

00:09:04.940 We've kind of sanitized it in an American culture.

00:09:07.720 It's trick-or-treating.

00:09:08.520 It's fun.

00:09:09.800 It's carving jack-o'-lanterns.

00:09:10.980 It's festive gatherings.

00:09:11.860 It's the harvest time.

00:09:14.160 But I want to say that Halloween still holds its spiritual roots.

00:09:18.540 It still does have that even here in American culture.

00:09:21.800 And there's actually a satanic strategy in play.

00:09:25.020 And I want to share this.

00:09:25.880 This is something that I just discovered in my time, and I thought it was fascinating.

00:09:29.860 I thought it's worth sharing.

00:09:31.580 Hopefully, you'll find it at least interesting.

00:09:34.740 So if you look at the satanic calendar, which is kind of weird to do, I was looking it up.

00:09:39.480 I was like just in my research for Halloween, and all of a sudden, I start all the ads on my computer become like weird, like devil games for like, you know, gaming.

00:09:49.520 It's really gross.

00:09:50.300 Anyways, I did this.

00:09:52.000 I'm looking up satanic calendar on Wikipedia.

00:09:54.320 I go to Wikipedia, and it really shows there's four central holidays in the satanic calendar.

00:10:01.980 And there's a lot more, but there's four that are central, and they're listed there.

00:10:06.120 The first one is your personal birthday.

00:10:08.840 And so the first and most prominent event for the satanic calendar is your own birthday, 0.59

00:10:15.060 which is this interesting reality of celebration of self. 0.70

00:10:19.760 It made me actually feel a little gross about having birthday parties,

00:10:22.500 but that's another conversation. 0.64

00:10:24.320 I'm not saying that that's wrong, but what it is, is we have that as the first and primary part of the satanic calendar.

00:10:32.420 The second one is called Walpurgisnat.

00:10:36.620 It's a very weird name. It's a German name.

00:10:39.180 It's on the evening of April 30th, and the very next day, May 1st, is St. Walpurgis Night, or St. Walpurgis Day.

00:10:49.500 St. Walpurgis is a German saint who was known for intercessory prayer of fighting off witchcraft.

00:11:00.400 And so that was the night that they would celebrate St. Walpurgis.

00:11:05.080 Well, and then all of a sudden, there is this Walpurgisnat night that happened one day before that.

00:11:12.520 And so it's interesting that there was this satanic holiday that was placed in proximity one day before St. Walpurgis Day.

00:11:19.500 and that's their first and most important kind of non-birthday holiday.

00:11:26.800 The second one is Grand High Climax,

00:11:29.700 and that is an indulgence night of sex and food

00:11:33.780 and demon revels focusing on birth and children. 0.99

00:11:36.600 Okay, it's really gross.

00:11:38.140 Grand High Climax is, guess what date it is?

00:11:41.820 December 24th.

00:11:44.020 This was placed again right after Christmas had been taking place on December 25th,

00:11:48.300 So I start to see this weird pattern where there's these satanic holidays that are placed one day before church or holy, church-sanctioned holidays.

00:11:59.160 And so St. Walpurgis Day, then Christmas, and then here we go with Halloween.

00:12:03.000 And so Halloween, October 31st, and then All Saints Day, which is, again, just remembered the saints that were being martyred one day later.

00:12:11.400 And so basically, I want to say that there's a strategy in play,

00:12:15.540 that there's kind of a pre-day evil alternative to these church-sanctioned days.

00:12:22.160 I could be looking into it a little bit too much, but it was fascinating at the very least.

00:12:25.720 So I want to say that there could be a strategy in play.

00:12:28.560 I think there is a strategy in play in regards to Halloween.

00:12:31.920 And I think we need to know more about the spiritual conversation, which we will get into later.

00:12:37.240 That's really fascinating.

00:12:38.340 um so it sounds like i'm hearing you say is that the vast majority of people who celebrate

00:12:45.260 halloween are likely just innocent families who are unaware of its dark history yeah um so that

00:12:52.280 said christians need to be aware about the relationship between halloween and satanism

00:12:56.620 um just because it has become an american holiday where most of culture participates

00:13:02.500 doesn't mean that there's no spiritual involvement in what's happening.

00:13:06.720 So now that we know how Halloween came to be, should Christians celebrate Halloween?

00:13:13.400 Yeah, this is a big question about Christians.

00:13:16.080 And I'm specifically talking to that audience right now is Christians.

00:13:20.500 And so before I share our position of should Christians celebrate Halloween,

00:13:24.140 I'm going to share Anton LaVey's position. 0.86

00:13:26.740 Now, Anton LaVey is the founder of the Church of Satan back in the 60s, I believe.

00:13:31.880 and the author of the satanic bible and in regards to a discussion around halloween in an interview

00:13:39.340 he said i'm glad that christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out

00:13:45.160 of the year so that's a statement from the founder of the church of satan and the reality is halloween

00:13:52.820 is viewed as a satanic holiday by satanists it's on the satanic calendar on wikipedia you can go

00:14:00.900 look at it. It's on their website. We got to understand that. So there is spiritual roots

00:14:07.480 that are involved in the American Halloween that we all think is so friendly. I'm going to give

00:14:14.640 you guys three reasons why we have chosen not to celebrate Halloween. And Veronica will give

00:14:21.860 some clarity on what that means later in the episode. So the number one is that Halloween

00:14:25.940 is a celebration of darkness.

00:14:29.320 It really is.

00:14:30.820 It's really difficult to get around that argument.

00:14:32.900 It's a celebration of darkness.

00:14:34.020 It's an evening holiday.

00:14:36.140 It even happens at night.

00:14:38.520 And Ephesians 5.11 says,

00:14:40.700 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,

00:14:45.200 but rather expose them.

00:14:47.500 And so expose them with what?

00:14:50.120 Well, you know, one is bring them to the light

00:14:53.880 is what the narrative of Ephesians would tell you,

00:14:56.500 and also the narrative of the New Testament.

00:14:58.500 God is light.

00:15:00.020 And John alone, I'm teaching through John at church right now,

00:15:03.640 and in the first 12 chapters,

00:15:05.700 the reference of God being light is 22 times just in 12 chapters.

00:15:11.280 And so 1 John 1, verse 5 says,

00:15:14.140 this is the message that we've heard from you,

00:15:15.720 or that we've heard from him and proclaimed to you,

00:15:17.940 that God is light, and in him no darkness is at all.

00:15:21.360 1 John 1, 7.

00:15:22.960 But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

00:15:26.340 Matthew 5, 14, you are the light of the world.

00:15:28.560 A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

00:15:30.720 John 8, 12, again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world.

00:15:33.920 Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

00:15:38.360 John 12, 46, I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

00:15:44.920 So darkness is really the opposite of light.

00:15:49.280 And 1 John 1, verse 4 and 5 says,

00:15:52.920 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

00:15:56.380 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it.

00:16:00.280 And so I just want to say, one, it's a celebration of the opposite of who Jesus is, is the light.

00:16:06.660 And I didn't have enough time to put too much emphasis on how much celebration of darkness is,

00:16:12.900 mostly because it's so obvious.

00:16:14.780 But we will get into more of the nitty-gritty details about Halloween here in a second.

00:16:18.180 So that's point number one.

00:16:19.480 Yeah.

00:16:20.020 And just to bring a clarifying point, Dale's talking about why we don't celebrate Halloween.

00:16:25.800 And as he will point out later in this episode, there's a difference between celebrating and being present.

00:16:32.340 It's the same idea of kind of like being in the world, but not of the world.

00:16:36.080 So Dale and I think that there's an opportunity for mature Christian families with older children to be present during Halloween that pushes the light of God and the light of the gospel forward.

00:16:48.180 But let's go ahead and move on to point number two of why we don't celebrate Halloween.

00:16:53.500 Yeah.

00:16:53.680 So number two is Halloween is a celebration of death.

00:16:57.580 So number one is a celebration of darkness.

00:17:00.780 And then we're going to talk number two is a celebration of death.

00:17:04.140 And so this is why your local Home Depot and Target stores are covered in morbid and decaying and dying witches and skeletons.

00:17:13.400 It's a season to make children more comfortable with evil and the distortion of God's image.

00:17:18.760 I'm going to say that again because it might be, in my opinion, one of the most core statements of the entire podcast.

00:17:24.240 I want you to hear this.

00:17:27.820 Halloween, the season, is a season to make children more comfortable with evil and the distortion of God's image.

00:17:39.360 That's really what's happening there.

00:17:41.220 I want you to become comfortable.

00:17:42.360 It's not that bad. It's not that scary. It's not that wrong. It's a night to elevate nooses and

00:17:49.980 demons and gore and horror and fear. And hey, you don't need to be afraid of that stuff. You don't

00:17:56.320 need to be away. You know, it's not scary. It's making you feel comfortable, a child feel

00:18:00.860 comfortable with things that we shouldn't be comfortable with. An appetite for horror movies,

00:18:07.100 for example in your teens is cultivated in your childhood this has been proven over and over again

00:18:14.020 and if you're comfortable with a playful form of human perversion you'll eventually become

00:18:20.060 comfortable with a less playful form of human perversion and satan is a patient incrementalist

00:18:26.720 we got to remember that he's in the long game here and so when you when you are comfortable

00:18:34.320 with these small things and these kind of scarier movies.

00:18:37.000 You know, I remember as a kid, I'd watch Are You Afraid of the Dark on Nickelodeon.

00:18:42.940 And then I started watching Tales from the Crypt, if you guys remember that.

00:18:48.140 I was not in a Christian home as a kid.

00:18:50.980 Tales from the Crypt, and that was on like MTV,

00:18:53.080 and it was this weird decaying skeleton kid or skeleton dude.

00:18:57.220 Then when I was maybe 13 or 14 or 15, I was watching Chucky and Friday the 13th

00:19:03.620 and weird all only around watching goosebumps is a probably nine ten year old i was pretty young

00:19:10.000 yeah and just weird gross gory distortions that are attacking god's image so as christians we

00:19:17.120 don't look forward to death um death is actually our enemy death is our enemy uh we don't celebrate

00:19:24.660 death we look forward to life we don't look forward to the rising of the dead we look forward

00:19:28.200 to the resurrection of the dead there's a difference there we look forward to the

00:19:32.560 resurrection of the dead to eternal life there's a difference there and one thing i want to say

00:19:36.500 and i want to remind you is that christ came to conquer death on the cross we don't celebrate

00:19:41.660 the thing that christ came to conquer so that's a really important point we're not going here

00:19:47.440 to celebrate because what you're seeing in halloween is not eternal resurrection to life

00:19:53.120 it's real truly dead death it's sinful death and that's what's being glorified on that day and not

00:20:03.380 even just that day it's it's already happening now oh yeah you know walking around the stores yeah

00:20:08.160 yeah so there was a study on ncbi that showed an obvious link between horror movies and suicidal

00:20:13.660 behavior including suicidal ideation hopelessness self-harm and low life satisfaction and we know

00:20:21.660 that suicide and depression are on the rise across the world it's heartbreaking and devastating it's

00:20:27.020 so sad and so why would we want to place our children in any environment or annual tradition

00:20:33.420 that nurtures a desire for fear and morbidity the enemy is so strategic and you don't go from

00:20:41.020 a clean and pure childhood to enjoying movies about fear and gore and horror there's a process

00:20:49.500 that allows you to get there and the entire halloween season is designed to kindle that

00:20:56.700 process within your child it is it's really it's just a weird it's desensitizing them little bit

00:21:05.380 by little that's a good word right there is desensitizing them and um yeah we need to work

00:21:10.380 on shielding our kids um number three so number one and two again is halloween is a celebration

00:21:15.720 of darkness Halloween is a celebration of death and Halloween is a celebration of evil now again

00:21:21.140 I know it sounds like oh but no but we're just dressing up as little mermaid and like going and

00:21:26.400 having fun so there's varying degrees but what I'm not talking about what you're doing I'm talking

00:21:33.200 about what's happening at a spiritual level what's happening on uh whether that whether your

00:21:41.300 situation is you're going to go over to your friend's house and have some trick-or-treating

00:21:43.800 and it's all going to be fun and games,

00:21:45.400 that's different than what is happening in the Satanist community

00:21:48.960 that same night down the street from you.

00:21:51.740 And so I want you to just be aware of the spiritual landscape

00:21:55.480 of what's going on.

00:21:57.320 You get to determine in your own family how you're going to walk this out.

00:22:01.880 But you've got to realize that it's not an innocent holiday.

00:22:07.280 Yeah, the Satanists are rejoicing in the fact that

00:22:09.680 people that aren't even really aware of what's going on

00:22:12.620 are joining in with them in the celebration of death yeah when you have this kind of um nostalgic

00:22:19.440 relationship with halloween as you get older because it was so fun as a kid it's easier to

00:22:27.640 kind of get into that let's watch some scary movies and that scary movies takes you down to

00:22:30.920 like let's let's start having some ideas that have to do with those scary movies and i'm already

00:22:36.720 depressed and it's a multi-faceted complex attack by satan that this is just happens to be one

00:22:42.840 acute event that we can be prepared for so halloween is a celebration of evil so i'm not

00:22:48.740 saying that non that all non-christian celebrations are evil because there are other non-christian

00:22:56.000 holidays that aren't evil i am saying that halloween specifically is rooted in evil and

00:23:02.140 elevates things in scripture that scripture tells us not to elevate so that is what's happening

00:23:06.240 but we talked about earlier what what about other pagan holidays and pagan just means

00:23:12.340 non-christian it can sound like a terrible word um it just means non-christian and so uh you know

00:23:19.880 isn't christmas pagan too um you know if christmas is a pagan holiday doesn't doesn't that make it

00:23:25.500 evil um the short answer is no uh you know christmas really means the mass of christ's

00:23:32.180 birth it's the celebration of the mass of christ's birth um and you know history has a variety of

00:23:38.240 different stories on the origin of christmas um and even if it is has a pagan or it would be weird

00:23:46.460 for me to have a celebration of christ's birth um uh be pagan however regardless of where it's from

00:23:53.580 the church has kind of adopted and sanctioned that even in the fifth century as christmas being

00:23:59.500 on a church holiday.

00:24:02.280 And we can't compare Halloween,

00:24:05.940 which is the celebration of death and darkness,

00:24:09.040 demons, you know,

00:24:11.680 all these gore, horror, and fear

00:24:14.060 with the celebration of our Lord Jesus Christ

00:24:16.600 at the birth of his life.

00:24:18.600 Like we can't, we can't,

00:24:19.920 they're nowhere near each other.

00:24:22.660 Halloween doesn't have any of these

00:24:24.440 kind of redeeming qualities

00:24:25.700 that these other holidays, like,

00:24:29.500 Easter or Christmas has and so it is it's it's in its own category I just wanted to point that out

00:24:36.340 you know oh should we not celebrate St. Patrick's Day I'm like well you know that's a different

00:24:40.240 conversation Halloween is unique and it's different than other holidays yeah okay so the big question

00:24:46.360 is that people ask us is um so do you just sit at home and lock your door and turn off your lights

00:24:51.940 yeah do you do anything special do you go to the local church with the trunk and treat kind of

00:24:59.080 thing um personally no we do not um our kids are pretty young so in this season we personally just

00:25:06.080 try and work really hard to shield our little ones from darkness um home depot and those are

00:25:11.640 like the worst places to go this time of year if we need anything from there i'll send dale by

00:25:16.560 himself because they have the you know the giant blow up yard things you put in your front yard

00:25:21.160 yeah witch and flying on a thing yeah like yeah demon looking things they're just ghosts hanging

00:25:26.760 from nooses and i'm not i don't need my children seeing that so we try and avoid those stores if

00:25:32.360 we can but i mean obviously we still go to some stores where there's going to be halloween

00:25:36.500 decorations um but we we just don't partake in most churches sad attempt to redeem and sanitize

00:25:44.580 halloween um but we do celebrate fall and we enjoy the fall season we usually get together with

00:25:53.140 some other families for a harvest party or you know sometime near Halloween but it's usually

00:25:58.640 in November and we do understand that some families with older children who are established

00:26:05.640 in their faith use that night as an outreach night which can be fruitful but we personally

00:26:11.260 at this stage in our life do not I know last year we live on property we live on seven acres and

00:26:17.820 all the properties around us are 40 acres 50 acres 100 acres so we don't get trick-or-treaters

00:26:22.480 out here um so we do have some friends um the last couple of years who do live in town who will

00:26:28.780 just come to our house and hang out here and we'll have a movie night with the kids and eat dinner

00:26:33.960 together and fellowship together but uh we don't we personally at this time do not yeah partake in

00:26:40.180 any of it yeah and so there's a really important question i want to pose even just for the church

00:26:44.200 you know is it okay to use an irredeemable irredeemable event like halloween as a church

00:26:52.060 sanctioned evangelism tool because that's like a weird thing you know a lot of people ask me

00:26:57.040 questions like it's so weird how we use halloween to like draw people in it's like this weird

00:27:01.240 dark thing that we use as the church to pull people in like they've related it like do we go

00:27:05.920 to the strip club to like get people to come to christ and i think that's different um you know

00:27:11.780 i think i think yes you can the church can use halloween to pull people in so much as it's

00:27:18.820 is actually offering an alternative to the public.

00:27:23.360 And the problem is, right now,

00:27:25.140 is the current solution for Halloween in the church

00:27:27.180 is almost identical to the world's solution for Halloween.

00:27:29.960 It's like, oh, we're going to do a trunk or treat.

00:27:32.720 And the only thing different between trick-or-treating

00:27:35.720 and going to the trunk or treat

00:27:37.100 is the trunk or treat happens in the parking lot of the church.

00:27:40.380 But everything else is absolutely the same.

00:27:44.300 There's kids dressed up as different crazy things

00:27:46.200 and vampires and stuff going on.

00:27:48.820 And instead of, like, that's the church's attempt to make it better is that it's at the church parking lot.

00:27:57.800 And that's so much better now.

00:27:59.180 I think they've done a pretty bad job, actually, of making it redeemable.

00:28:04.200 Actually using the opportunity and using it well and offering an alternative to Halloween.

00:28:10.740 Yeah, I'm sure there are some churches out there, but majority.

00:28:14.280 Yeah, the majority.

00:28:15.080 But yeah, and those are just some of the churches we've been to in Southern California when we were down there doing that.

00:28:19.120 I mean, I think a good alternative would be something like a harvest community dinner on the lawn, depending on where you live, that season, time of year, on the lawn, you know, big community, free food for the community, family night movie with a gospel presentation at the end.

00:28:37.980 Because I go, I'd gone to so many Halloween things and I never heard the gospel being preached.

00:28:44.780 The only thing that I associated with the Halloween night

00:28:47.820 is that it was in the church campus.

00:28:51.180 That's it.

00:28:52.340 When I was in junior high, I remember going with some friends

00:28:54.860 and rather go to the church campus

00:28:57.400 only because I was guaranteed more candy.

00:28:59.940 Yeah.

00:29:01.200 Not because of the gospel.

00:29:03.820 Yeah, and there's really no other presentation of Jesus there

00:29:07.980 except that you're on the church campus.

00:29:10.300 Or there might be scriptures on your candy.

00:29:12.380 Yeah, right.

00:29:13.020 somebody might somebody might put scripture on the candy yeah and so you know i i just think that

00:29:17.540 there's a the church could do a better job of coming up with ways that okay let's be a little

00:29:21.960 bit more different let's not jump in the halloween thing and try to make that like sanitized let's do

00:29:27.200 something like an actual alternative um and i think i remember even as a kid you know yeah during a

00:29:34.520 halloween night going to like a all-night movie night thing at a church once before i thought that

00:29:39.760 was better you know you didn't dress up you just came and you brought your pillow and sleeping bag

00:29:43.480 and hung out with a bunch of kids in this big building and we watched a movie and that was fun

00:29:47.780 it was when i was like 12 or 13 um and i remember that being actually i do remember hearing the

00:29:54.280 gospel that one so there's a church somewhere in southern california that's doing a good job

00:29:57.700 um but what is what is why does all this matter around halloween uh first thessalonians 5 22 says

00:30:04.540 abstain from every form of evil abstain from it you just don't want to be a part of it

00:30:13.040 we want to expose darkness we don't want to be in fellowship with it or we should be careful with it

00:30:21.160 even in its one onesie twosies small moments that you kind of think that it's just nothing

00:30:28.940 it's a big deal think about some of the memories you have as a kid that you just had it just

00:30:34.780 happened one time you were watching that movie and it had that one nudity scene that one time

00:30:38.940 and how you can still remember it and you're in your 30s like there's things like there

00:30:43.500 you got to just be really on guard for your kids minds especially when they're young and so we got

00:30:49.360 to remember that when we're in a world filled with suicide murder wickedness um immodesty you

00:30:58.680 You know, gosh, we didn't even talk about the way that teen girls dress on Halloween.

00:31:05.520 Fear, depression, anxiety, all the things that are plaguing our generation right now.

00:31:12.880 In a world filled with these things, we can't believe that dressing these little things, these horrors, up in cute decor a few nights, or, you know, one night a year, for some people, many Halloween parties per year.

00:31:27.500 makes them any less of what they really are is what they're evil they're not holy and um so we

00:31:36.500 just say guard your little ones especially train up your older ones to get out there and be the

00:31:42.640 light and defend when the time's right in their life and um and you'll know that as parents i feel

00:31:50.140 like i can go out to a halloween party preach the gospel and be apologetics you know defend the truth

00:31:55.300 um you know have a great conversation with people do relational evangelism i feel like i could do

00:32:00.940 that but it's because i'm trained to do so um and you know we need to learn to basically um

00:32:09.820 just recognize the spiritual landscape of halloween and how we as christians can um be more

00:32:18.440 prepared to present it so that's the end i'm sure there's things that you're going to ask

00:32:22.820 other questions that we just didn't get a chance

00:32:25.020 to focus on. I've realized

00:32:27.020 that there's a frog in my studio

00:32:28.760 as I'm filming this right now. I'm watching it hop over there.

00:32:31.440 But we'll close out this episode

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00:32:54.120 shop.relearnchurch.org or relearnchurch.org forward slash rc um thanks for joining us

00:33:03.360 on this episode of real christianity we'll see you next week see ya

Dale Partridge - October 02, 2019

Real Christianity #65： Should Christians Celebrate Halloween？

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