When the sun goes down three nights from today, ghosts, ghouls and goblins will hit the streets in droves. They will hunt for your house in the dark and will not stop until they’ve reached your door. They will demand a sacrifice of Snickers, bubble gum or Milky Ways. But a much scarier beast is already on the prowl. This beast is the Halloween naysayer-the person who is vehemently anti-Halloween and believes everyone else should be also.
They’ll scoff at your celebration and chastise you for participating in a demonic holiday, yet their role as God’s messenger is not fooling anyone any more than my devil’s costume is convincing people that I’m a servant of Mephistopheles.
Most objections come from certain Christian circles that cite Halloween’s origin as an ancient pagan holiday. Because occult and pagan groups observe Halloween as a major holiday, some argue that Christians should have no dealings in the matter. Supposedly, all that participate honor Satan, knowingly or not.
With such a strong conviction by many that Halloween is evil, there must be something terribly wrong about these groups and their Halloween practices, so I targeted a group of pagan worshippers on campus to discover how they felt about Halloween.
My first meeting with the Wiccan\Pagan Student Alliance (WPSA) will be a disappointment to anyone hoping for a description of the macabre. There were no witches in pointy hats, nor people paying homage to the devil. In fact, they were some of the nicest people you could meet on campus. I sat down to stay awhile and learned a good bit about their ways.
What most refer to as Halloween, they call Samhain (pronounced SAW-win), which literally means “summer’s end.” They trace the festival back to the ancient cultures of Britain.
Along with trick-or-treating and bobbing for apples, some of them practice witchcraft, worship numerous beings and even attempt to contact the dead. However, I could find none that did not condemn any violent act that someone might perform on Halloween.
Almost all either discounted the existence of a supreme evil being or acknowledged Satan’s existence as something reserved for Christianity. One member said, “I think the problem with paganism is that it’s immediately associated with the devil.”
The charge that anyone who celebrates Halloween serves the devil is ludicrous and shows double standard. If a non-Christian exchanges gifts at Christmastime, does that immediately mean that he unknowingly serves Jesus?
Some violent acts occur in the name of Halloween celebration, but these do not justify abandoning the holiday completely. Evil acts are committed every day. Even if the Satanists ban together to adopt Jan. 1 as their national day of hell raising, we should still ring in the New Year as always.
For those Christians who insist anyone’s celebration of Halloween is evil, they should read the verse in Romans that says, “One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike…why do you regard your brother with contempt?”
There is nothing wrong with not celebrating Halloween or any other holiday. When asked about Christmas and Easter, one member of the WPSA said, “I tend to downplay those holidays because so much attention is put on them (by Christians).”
Downplay any holiday you wish, but if anyone else wants to celebrate in reasonable fashion, sit at home and protest quietly. On Oct. 31, just turn your porch light off and sit in your house while everyone else enjoys the evening.
Remember, this is a time for the children to dress up, not for adults to act like children.
Michael Stewart is a junior philosophy and religion major.