In the weeks leading up to Oct. 31, there seems to always be discourse within Christian circles about whether the church body should be participating in celebrations for Halloween. Some Christians argue that the church should not be celebrating, while others advocate that the church should participate. A handful of community members on the Oklahoma Christian University campus gave their thoughts on the upcoming holiday.
Rylee Cherry, junior, shared her cross-cultural experience of Halloween during her upbringing in New Zealand.
“When we first moved to New Zealand, Halloween wasn’t really a thing there. But I was the only kid at the time with our [missionary] team, and all the adults really wanted me to still have the traditional American Halloween experience. So in my house, we just moved in and I’m pretty sure we still had boxes around. They had me dress up, and they all dressed up, and each family went behind one of the doors in our house to a room, and they had me “trick or treat” around the house. So I didn’t know any better than that, Halloween wasn’t a really big thing there, but they made it a thing for me,” said Cherry.
John Harrison, professor of New Testament, spoke about Christ’s dominion over evil.
“I support a fun treatment of Halloween. I recognize that on that particular day, there are dark things that happen. There are organizations that perform dark things, and I think Christians should be aware of our traditional understanding that darkness and evil is a problem in the world. But we also celebrate the fact that Christ is Lord over all of them, and we have nothing to fear from them in Christ,” he said.
Harrison shared how he and his family will be celebrating the holiday weekend.
“We’ll have trick or treaters come by our house. My family will get together, I have two grandchildren, and we will play games and do bobbing for apples. Now, my wife is British, and she has British traditions, and so we’ll do some of her British traditions. People will dress up, and we will have chili and just hang out together as a family, and be grateful for the family we have.”
Gloriana Connolly, freshman, shared her experience with Halloween.
“I had a Christian family growing up. My parents, well, everyone in my family was a pastor or did something religious as their work. We all celebrated Halloween as a family. It was a family holiday, but we never dressed up as anything demonic. We sometimes read Bible stories before going trick or treating. We were just very intentional about it,” said Connolly.
Kent Hartman , professor of Bible, shared his experience with Halloween in Australia when raising his children.
“Our family, we always went trick or treating. We did it in Australia, when no one trick or treated in Australia. We told all our neighbors we were going to do that, and they didn’t know what to do, so we said, ‘Just have some candy.’ Well, some of them tried to give us money, some of them had no idea what to do. And so the kids dressed up and did six or eight houses in the neighborhood. We’re on a cul-de-sac. So every year after that, they all wanted the kids to come by again and do trick or treating,” he said. “To me, it’s just something fun. It’s a weird holiday, really, for much of the rest of the world. But our kids always enjoyed it.”
Hartman spoke about what he might want to say to a fellow Christian who did not want to celebrate.
“I would just say that if you feel you shouldn’t celebrate, I wouldn’t celebrate. You don’t want to go against your conscience, and if your conscience for some reason says it’s wrong, I think you should not celebrate it. And it’s like anything: we’ve got to make our own decisions on everything that we’re doing. There’s a lot of pressure, obviously, if you have children, because other friends are doing it. And so you have to really think about, ‘Is this a hill I want to die on, or is it just something that I can live with?’ I know some people just say no, we’re not going to do it. I’m not upset with them, and I wouldn’t celebrate it if I thought it was bad and wrong,” he said.
Ryan Dillinger, senior, shared his thoughts on Christians dressing up for Halloween.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dressing up, as long as it’s modest and not gory. If you have ill intentions with what you’re dressing up as, then I don’t think that’s very biblical. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with putting on different clothes and going to ask for candy with good intentions. I think it’s the same standards that apply to normal clothing. If you’re just putting on a silly costume, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” said Dillinger.
Eli McCoy, International Programs Specialist, shared his thoughts.
“Jesus can tell the difference between devil worship and your two-year-old dressing up as a pumpkin,” said McCoy.
2 Timothy 1:7 ESV:
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
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