‘But we don’t have to cower before it.’
Right. That’s the flip-side.
It’s good to be aware of evil. But it’s also helpful to many kids to make light of it. Running around looking like ghosties — laughing and having fun. Good mental health.
And it’s true that even the activities we know as Halloween trick-or-treating can be used of the Holy Spirit to illustrate godly principles. Among which is that God has decisively defeated evil and what we are now looking at is a mop-up operation. I’d simply want people to think the whole thing over as best as they can, and be careful what they do as they do it. The more we cooperate with the Lord in this mop-up operation, the more we are blessed. We can be used of the Lord to use the existing Halloween pageantry without grooving on it. Treating evil lightly needs a perspective — is it the perspective of mucking around in evil? Or is it the perspective of standing in God? And I hope this is a balanced answer.
And it’s true that even the activities we know as Halloween trick-or-treating can be used of the Holy Spirit to illustrate godly principles. Among which is that God has decisively defeated evil and what we are now looking at is a mop-up operation. I’d simply want people to think the whole thing over as best as they can, and be careful what they do as they do it. The more we cooperate with the Lord in this mop-up operation, the more we are blessed. We can be used of the Lord to use the existing Halloween pageantry without grooving on it. Treating evil lightly needs a perspective — is it the perspective of mucking around in evil? Or is it the perspective of standing in God? And I hope this is a balanced answer.
It's good, not evil, for Christian kids to have an alternative and for Halloween to be used a community outreach to the lost.
It's more dangerous to deny kids a fun day at this time of the year, make them feel like they are missing out and, potentially, drive them away from God.