Trunk or Treat? Halloween?
A Brief Statement about Trunk-or-Treat
As a church we’ve put on a Trunk-or-Treat event for the last several years, and we plan to continue to do so. The main reason is because we think it’s a huge opportunity to minister to our community. However, doing anything related to Halloween has created confusion in the minds of a few of our people, so we wanted to take a second to explain. Our intentions with this event are to have fun, celebrate what we believe is primarily a cultural holiday, let our kids dress up and get free candy, be good neighbors, and create relationships with those in our community.
However, every year we get questions about why, as followers of Jesus, we would dare to involve ourselves in “the unfruitful works of darkness” (Ephesians 5:11). This is not a bad question, so let’s talk about it. Our position is that we simply don’t believe we are involving ourselves in the unfruitful works of darkness by holding a Trunk-or-Treat. We could certainly rename the event “The 24 Fall Festival,” but let’s be honest, is there really any difference?
The roots of Halloween (especially as it’s celebrated in America) are multi-faceted and have Christian, pagan, and cultural roots (1). We could try to untangle it all, but no one seems to completely agree. And we could say some of the same things about Christmas and Easter. The big difference between Halloween and Christmas/Easter is obviously the direct tie-in to Jesus. Halloween has no such direct tie-in, but neither do other events that we celebrate like the Super Bowl or New Year’s.
Everything is religious in the sense that all of our lives are lived for the glory of God and therefore everything we do is for Him. But in another sense, not everything is religious, or has to be put into a category of “good” or “evil.” We can eat food just because it’s good food and we enjoy it. We can take a hike just because we love the outdoors. We can build hot rods just because we like cars. We do all these things for the glory of God, but not everything has to be neatly divided into “religious” and “non-religious” categories. In fact that binary way of thinking about the world is actually quite confusing.
Many things we encounter in our culture fall into a grey category—they are neither wholly good, nor wholly evil. Take, for instance, Rock-n-Roll and Hip-Hop. Both musical genres are neither wholly good, nor wholly evil. There are parts of them that need to be rejected, but not everything has to be rejected. Beautiful rock songs and beautiful hip-hop songs have been written and performed, and we as Christians can listen to these songs and enjoy them. We don’t have to wholly dismiss all rock-n-roll as evil, or all hip-hop as evil.
As Christians, one of our jobs is to assess everything, eat the meat, and spit out the bones. There are things for sure that have to be wholly rejected (pornography for instance). And there are other things we can wholly receive as good (gardening for instance). But many, many things fall somewhere in the middle. In those instances, we choose to redeem the redeemable parts, embrace the good, and reject the evil.
This also means that you may disagree with us about Halloween, and that’s fine. As a church we embrace it as a neutral, fun, cultural holiday. There are aspects of it that we disagree with, but there are also aspects of it that are fun as well. And so, as a church we’ve chosen to embrace this holiday as an opportunity for fun and relationship building to the glory of God. If you disagree with us, honestly, that’s fine. But we wanted you to know where we stood. We have actually had multiple conversations about this as a staff, and we don’t think we’re acting sinfully.
Paul’s statement in Romans 14 is helpful in this regard. In the original context, he was talking about differing convictions within the church regarding which foods should/could be eaten, and which holy days should/could be celebrated. His words apply to us now. He said:
Romans 14:5-8
5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
With Paul’s words in mind, we hope you’ll join us for Trunk-or-Treat. But if you can’t do that in good conscience, that’s fine too. But let’s love one another, let’s not argue or judge one another, and let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt.
Thanks!
- The 24 Elders (Chris, Ben, Nathan, & Jay)
(1) https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/halloween-you-remember/