”A little imagination, a little generosity, and an evening together.”
Friends,
We have just crossed thirteen thousand subscribers here at Message From the Margins. During Halloween week. I could not have arranged that better.
Thank you for reading, sharing, asking good questions, and making this community a place I love showing up for. We’re celebrating with a week of strange Christian stories, from a pope accused of sorcery to Saint Peter’s showdown with a magician, culminating in The Strange History of All Hallows’ Eve on Saturday.
Bring a friend to the campfire. If you’re reading this because someone sent it to you, you’re very welcome to join us free. Help us get to fourteen thousand… purely to settle my nerves.
Oh, and I’m sorry today’s issue is coming so late. By some mysterious circumstance, my iPhone broke just on the day the new ones were released. Curious… so I spent my day at the Geek Squad, The Genius Bar, and every other place technologically learned people gather to tell me they can’t fix my phone. Alas, a new one arrives this week, and thank Christ above, I bought Apple Care this time.
Our Lady, Queen of Technology… Pray for us!
Your Brother in Christ,
We’ve reached thirteen thousand subscribers, just in time for Halloween. I’ve recorded a little welcome below. Thank you for being here, and bring a friend for this week’s strange stories.
Join us for Bible Study!
A gathering before the ghosts arrive
Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 27, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, join me live on Substack for The Sermon on the Mount Like You’ve Never Heard It Before. It’s free, and you’re welcome whether you know the passages well or are opening them with fresh curiosity.
Already subscribed? Use the event link below. New here? The free study signup includes a free subscription to Message From the Margins.
New readers: sign up for the free study
Existing readers: open the scheduled study
Can Christians Celebrate Halloween?
A little common sense about costumes, conscience, and a God who understands His children.
Is Halloween the work of Satan?
Well, it depends what you’re doing with it. If you’re doing the work of Satan, then yes, I would suggest finding another activity. There are plenty available.
But God is not such a dolt that He cannot tell the difference between children playing dress-up and Satanic worship. Give Him a little credit.
Your child knows he isn’t really Spider-Man. You know he isn’t really Spider-Man. I think we can safely assume that the Creator of the universe is also up to speed.
I would like us to have a little fun this week. Hand to God, that is part of the plan. We have spent plenty of time talking about the non-supernatural things that keep us awake at night, and we will have plenty more to say about them. For Halloween, I want to tell a few strange stories, explore some questions we’ve always wondered about, and enjoy your company. I suspect a few of us could use that.
And I don’t think we need to feel guilty about it.
Watch children playing superheroes for a while. Somebody needs rescuing, somebody has to confront the villain, and there is usually a passionate disagreement about who gets which powers. They take this seriously. Being the person who can help is an exciting possibility when you are small and spend much of your life needing help yourself.
Granted, the rescue may involve launching themselves off your couch and taking out a lamp. You are entitled to intervene before Captain America destroys the living room.
There is something lovely about a child wanting to be brave enough to save somebody. But I can already hear myself making a case for the moral benefits of a superhero costume, and we don’t need to do that either. Some child out there wants to be a sandwich. I have no theological defense of the sandwich. Let the kid be a sandwich.
Surely we can allow children an evening of make-believe without requiring them to demonstrate how it contributes to their formation in virtue. They want to wear a ridiculous outfit, see their friends, and come home with a pillow case of Sour Patch Kids. We understand this perfectly well until somebody persuades us that God might not.
What are we teaching them about God?
That is where this becomes a serious question for me. When we tell a child that an innocent night of fun might offend God, what do they learn about Him?
Imagine explaining that you were only pretending, that you didn’t mean anything bad, and being told that it doesn’t matter because you may have welcomed something evil anyway. How would you know what was safe next time? You understood what you were doing. The adults understood. Somehow, God was the One Who couldn’t be trusted to understand.
I worry about a child carrying that expectation into prayer. It is difficult to bring yourself honestly before God when you have been taught to suspect that He finds offenses you never intended in things you thought were harmless. You can spend a long time trying to get every detail right, hoping you haven’t missed the thing that will make Him angry.
A parent who worries about Halloween may love their child fiercely and be trying to protect them. I have no desire to make fun of that love. I do want to question advice that makes such a parent more frightened while giving them very little help in understanding what their child is actually doing.
Mark gives us an encounter worth remembering here. People are bringing children to Jesus so that He might be near to them, and the disciples rebuke them. Jesus sees what is happening and becomes indignant. He tells the disciples to let the children come, then takes the children in His arms and blesses them (Mark 10:13–16).
Notice who receives the rebuke. The adults have appointed themselves gatekeepers, and Jesus corrects them. The children receive His embrace.
That passage cannot settle every parenting decision, and it certainly isn’t an account of Jesus attending a Halloween party. But it tells us something about the Lord we are introducing to our children. When our efforts to protect their faith leave them afraid to approach Him, we ought to stop and ask how we got there.
Yes, use your conscience
None of this requires us to turn off our judgment on October 31. We know perfectly well how an evening of fun can become ugly, and we can usually identify the problem without speculating about hidden demonic involvement.
If your costume makes a joke out of somebody’s disability or suffering, find another costume. If the child you’re frightening is crying and asking you to stop, stop. And if you’re an adult going to a party, the usual obligations concerning alcohol, driving, and other people’s boundaries remain in effect. Putting on a mask does not make you less responsible for the person underneath it.
Those are choices we can examine honestly. Who might get hurt? What are we enjoying at their expense? We can answer those questions and change our plans where we need to.
Likewise, deliberately seeking to worship evil would be a serious religious choice. Dressing up as a fictional character from KPop Demon Hunters does not establish that anyone has made it. Ask the child about the character. Listen to the answer. The word “demon” on the packaging cannot tell you more about that child’s intentions than the child can.
And you are free to stay home. Some children hate being frightened. Some families would prefer a movie and a bowl of popcorn. Nobody needs to be marched past a twenty-foot Costco skeleton to prove that their theology is sound. We can make different decisions without accusing the family down the street of betraying Christ.
I’d like to leave the porch light on
Speaking of the family down the street, there is another part of Halloween I think deserves our attention. People buy things to give away to children they may never have met. They turn on the light, answer the door, and let a small person explain a costume they have been waiting all day to show off.
For an evening, the neighborhood makes arrangements for children to be welcome.
We spend so much time lamenting how little people know their neighbors. Here is an occasion when they actually walk up the path and say hello, even if one of them is dressed as an inflatable dinosaur. I would hate for us to be so busy looking for the devil that we failed to notice the neighbor at the door.
There is room for us to enjoy one another here. Take an interest in the costume you don’t recognize. Give the shy child time. Be generous with the candy. And if you’re spending the evening with adult friends, enjoy them too. You do not have to spend the whole party discussing the collapse of civilization. It will still be collapsing on Sunday.
I know the world is heavy. I know some of you will go home from the party to the same worry you brought with you. I’m not asking anyone to pretend otherwise. But you can love someone who is ill and still laugh at your friend’s ridiculous costume. You can care about what is happening in the world and spend an evening enjoying the people in your little corner of it. There is no betrayal in that.
So yes, celebrate Halloween if you’d like to. Let the children play. Take the photograph before somebody spills something down the costume. Enjoy the brief, glorious period when your biggest household dispute is over who ate the last peanut butter cup.
And when Spider-Man comes to the door, ask him how the crime-fighting is going. He may have quite a lot to tell you.
I think God will understand.
And Let Us Pray…
Lord Jesus,
Bless the children setting out on their little adventures
and the neighbors preparing to welcome them.
Keep them safe,
help us be considerate of one another,
and teach us to receive the happiness of an evening together with gratitude.
Amen.
And Now It’s Your Turn
What did you love dressing up as when you were a child? And what would you choose now, if nobody could talk you out of it?
Know a parent wondering whether it’s all right to let the children enjoy Halloween? Send this their way. Or share it with the friend whose costume has been ready since August.
If you enjoyed this, join us free for the rest of Unlucky 13K Week. I’ll bring the strange stories, and you’re welcome to bring the questions. On Saturday, we’ll explore how All Hallows’ Eve became the holiday we know.
Already subscribed? Thank you. Sharing one piece with someone who would enjoy it is a lovely way to help this community grow. Fourteen thousand has a reassuring sound to it.