I kinda wound up at our church's one last minute and under a mild protest (because by the end of yesterday I was wrung out. I have a fervent dislike for days like yesterday).
I still don't know what to do with the whole Halloween thing here. Is it a cultural thing for me, and if so, is it exempt from biblical examination like so many Christians think? I've read article after article and I still don't know. Some seem to be full of excuses, "this is bad BUT.." or some kind of weird "we'll just do the 'christian' version of whatever they do" or "just preach the gospel". Nothing seems to jive with me. I've held my daughter, trembling with fear at the store because of the images and sounds around her, trying to talk her out of a conniption, and the most sincere explanations sounds hallow to me.
Anyway, I'm trying to come up with some kind of balance... the whole in the world/not of it thing. In the end there were some stores I just could not take her to, she would freak out so much. And that wasn't some kind of religious stance (I still went to those stores, just without her). It was a mothering stance. I couldn't keep putting her through that when she clearly did not have all the mechanisms to deal with it. I did try and use it as a teaching tool, and we learned some lessons, but some of the bigger lessons she isn't ready for and so I felt it best to protect her, rather than make her tough it out. (and by tough it out I mean trembling, crying, hysteria to the point of choking and almost throwing up).
One of the stores, and I won't mention it by name, had halloween stuff up from September 1st. In the beginning it wasn't too bad, but in a couple of weeks they had a soundtrack going that sounded like Saw III. I'm not kidding, it was gruesome. In another couple of weeks, they had another track running over the top of the other one. It was of a man making noises like he was being smothered or choked, crying out for help, sobbing in despair as (it appeared) he was being murdered. And this was a craft store.
Should I have written a letter to the manager? I hate to be one of those people, but I did feel that was going a bit too far.
Now they're playing Christmas HYMNS!!! Saw III to Christmas Hymns... incredible.
Anyway, the girls dressed up as fall butterfly princesses. It was a bit of a last minute mish-mash, but I'll put some pictures up.
I was curious about our church's trunk or treat. I wanted to see what the deal was. One thing I liked was that people did some lovely themes to decorate their trunks, like butterflies and fall. I was a bit disappointed to see spooky themes on others. Amelie was very uncertain about it all, but seemed ok once we weren't around those ones. Some of the teenagers costumes were also scary, and I wondered about that. They had a cake walk and a few other games.
I had read articles talking about how trunk or treats, or church events for halloween could used as evangelistic outreaches, but honestly (and I am not trying to bag our church at all) it just felt like a 'safe' place to do all the regular halloween stuff. I don't want to see that. If church desires to be different from the rest of the world to draw others to Christ, you have to BE different. Not just a sanitized version of whatever the others are doing.
So I'm thinking, how could our church do this differently? What could stay the same? I don't want to be a halloween nazi, but at the same time, this holiday really bothers me. How do I teach my kids some balance in this wildly unbalanced world?
Comments, thoughts, how have you figured this out?? Would very much appreciate your opinions...
In the meantime, (and give all of the above) here are photos of my hypocrisy...
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