Halloween is upon us and I wonder if… by Tina Webb

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Tina Webb
I am the only mother that doesn’t let their kids trick or treat?

Yes, I loved dressing up and trick-or-treating as a child, but as a college student my views changed. I discovered that the many things that I thought were fun and harmless weren’t necessarily fun and harmless to God. It was a rude awakening to my half Christian and half secular worldview.

I owe that awakening to a scripture, a bible study and loved one that did more than dabble in the occult.

One of the first scriptures that I learned was Hosea 4:2, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”.

After reading this scripture, I went on a marathon of learning for several years. During one bible study on fear, the leader pointed out the number of times that the phrase “Fear not” is written. It made sense to me that if God so opposed fear, then He must oppose anything that causes fear. So I stopped watching horror movies. Was I going overboard? Maybe, but I was just trying to let my revived conscience lead the way.

Years later, my husband and I decided that our kids could go to church Harvest parties on October 31. These parties were a way to let the church kids avoid the door bell ringing of trick or treaters. The kids played non-themed games led by area college volunteers. It was a nice time to socialize with other parents too.

The decision to abandon Halloween really wasn’t that big a deal for me. When I was around eight years old, someone put needles in candy bars and as a result my mother chopped up all of our candy to make sure there were neither needles nor fragments of glass. Trick or treating became eating crushed fragments of Three Musketeers or Reeses cups. Not fun.

When I found out that a loved one had been involved in the occult as a teenager, I was shocked. I’d never heard of such things. However, the reality of spiritual warfare and the demonic realm became more real for me than the average Western Christian will ever know. This person learned to levitate things. How? He was told by his “psychic occult teacher” to invite his spirit guides to help him. They certainly did! It took months of special ministry to help him overcome this oppression. The demonic realm is a reality that Jesus contended with regularly and he admonished us to do the same.

My husband and I learned the origin of Halloween from a local pastor and decided that while we didn’t have to let our kids wear ‘scary” costumes or be entertained by scary themes; merely participating was getting too close to entertainment that glorified darkness rather than God. Each Halloween, we prayed for the safety of runaways, delinquents and other probably victims… after all we had learned that the Black Sabbath was real. Satanists do participate in human sacrifice even today.

Sometimes I continue to wrestle with our decision. It’s so much easier to let my kids join their friends in group fun. Peer pressure for parents is a reality. But I have to remind myself that according to Ephesians 6:12, there is a very real and evil world that I cannot see. Tradition and contemporary culture cannot define our decisions. The reality of Jesus’ teachings must supply that definition.

“Parenting, while daunting, is easier when we ask ourselves: how does the Father parent us?” (Selah, Daily Quotes for Daily Meditation)

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