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[HOTL's Got Questions] Should Christians Celebrate Halloween? · HOTLCAST

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, welcome to uh Hollow's Got Questions.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what we call this now.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a bit.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: But here's our question.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Should Christians celebrate Halloween?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: What does the Bible say?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so we'll give some perspectives on this.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Alright.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: I I think you it's okay to celebrate Halloween, but I'll give the reasons why people say not to.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: And the Bible talks about not practice, like not participating in occult practices, like avoiding witchcraft, staying like not communing with evil spirits, like uh or dead spirits, things like that.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And those are things that you like see at Halloween.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like you see people dressed as witches, you see people dressed as ghosts, or like violence.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: We're told to like not be lovers of violence.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is dressing as a ghost, communing with undead spirits?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, I don't think so.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: I disagree with that, Landing for that reason.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: That even key evil can evil wouldn't even make, I don't think.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: But but Christians often do.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is is uh watching Harry Potter, is that participating in witchcraft?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's that's some of the problems.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: For some people it might they might think it is, for other people they don't.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so at a heart of the lakes, we have um we have a belief system based on God's word, based on other tra like historical Christian tradition from the church.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that we have is um as more than I brethren denomination, but is this, and it goes back to the 1800s, and I think it's a powerful statement.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the essentials unity, in the non-essentials liberty, and all else charity.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: In the essentials of scripture, we are to be unified and we are to agree a hundred percent.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: We can't disagree about the things the Bible has an imperative truth, and that it is the truth of God.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the non-essentials, we have liberty to agree to disagree, and in all else that doesn't fall under those, we have charity to be kind to each other.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, where does Halloween fall?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween falls in the non-essentials.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible does not reference Halloween at all, it wasn't a thing 2,000 years ago.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um Halloween is not a occult tradition.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know people try to make this stretch, but it's based off Oh and it's based off harvest traditions, which some of those have pagan origins, but just because something has a pagan origin doesn't mean it's bad.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so because like those things have transferred over time, like what we do now is we don't go out and we celebrate the God of the harvest and worship him and give our first fruits back to him so that we have a better harvest.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't have end of the harvest celebration of the God who of the harvest.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what people are doing, Halloween.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got to throw a lot of that stuff out.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: What Halloween has become is an American Americanized cultural tradition such as Valentine's Day, which people wouldn't say, oh no, celebrate Valentine's Day, it's after Saint Valentine, Catholic saint.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's we've created this modern holiday that we've thrown some basically um you know, we've thrown some covering over that makes it like a Halloween, like this Halloween, but and we do candy.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like giving out candy is not a worship of some deity.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is people take everything and they go too far.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's I think the problems Christians do.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I do think the Bible's very clear on not not being engaged with the occult and the demonic and the evil.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that we do is we have we have Halloween, which is Heart O The Lakes Ween, which doesn't really mean anything.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're not really overtly celebrating Halloween.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: We don't ever say Halloween, that's never a thing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: We celebrate Halloween, which is just our our fall party.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: But because the community is celebrating Halloween, we also want to be in the community and we want to love people and meet them where they're at.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we prefer is we we encourage people to not wear scary, grotesque, bloody, witchy costumes.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like we would rather them do something that's just not offensive.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like Spider-Man.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Spider-Man is not well, some people might find Spider-Special.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I love Spider-Man.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But like we we encourage people just to write, you know, wear things that are wholesome and clean.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do people listen?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, because we have the community coming in and we try to be loving and kind.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna toss out a child who doesn't know better, um, you know, or an adult who doesn't know better because they don't live the same standard of life that we do, and we're trying to love them into relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a party where we invite them in.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The number one way that people come to our church is actually through Halloween.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think people understand this.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way that we love our, we love our church community, we love the people in our area, we let them know this is a safe place where they can come and bring their kids and it's safe.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: We background check all of our volunteers, and so we want them to know Jesus love in a real and tangible way.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: We do not celebrate any of those things that would be any way, shape or form, a cult.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: We handle hot dogs, we hand out candy, we play games, we have fun.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: We love people.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, in doing so, does that mean that we worship the devil because we have a Halloween?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this falls under the Christian liberty.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can disagree.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a personal conviction that Halloween is bad, and that's okay.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I can agree with you.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: We can say, Yeah, I can see where you see that in scripture.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't I don't consider our Halloween Halloween.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't celebrate Halloween.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we don't decorate for Halloween at our house.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't have a bunch of ghosts and goblins and witches decorations around my house.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think we need to be careful about that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we can we can participate in the the culture of today without actually losing our salvation and our sanctity uh of who we are by loving people and being involved in in community relationships.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's important for people.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you go to a trunk or treat doesn't mean you're going to hell.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just but I think some people do believe that.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we have the ability to disagree because it is not covered under an essential in scripture.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of those things covered in the Christian freedom that we have to have the liberty to disagree and love each other and have charity no matter what.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But people get all up in arms about this, and people leave churches over this, and people, you know, get on Facebook and TikTok and they complain about it.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the the truth is there are Christians who are going to celebrate Halloween, and they have the freedom as long as they agree in the seven essentials or whatever the essentials are, that the biblical imperatives is more than seven.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then that's where we find our connection our our in our relationship with Jesus Christ and not in our disagreements over things that don't ultimately matter.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think, Ryan?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I mean I I think it checks out.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I think it's like I mean, for me, you know, I mean, and maybe I'm just a simple-minded on a lot of this stuff.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: I I try to suss it down to a to something simple, you know.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: I I see it as like like you can eat the food, you just don't worship the God, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's kind of how my mind works on it.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: Where it's like, yep, uh, you know, it it's uh it's okay to celebrate it as long as where my heart is at, and as long as my heart stays focused on Jesus and and this is a cultural fun thing, it's not a you know, I'm not actually worshiping the devil or a ghost.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've never worshipped the devil because I've worn a costume on Halloween.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a thing.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: Me either.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean you're referencing a scripture where basically Paul says like, hey, that that food that's that's been sacrificed to deities that are not God, you can eat it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just because it was sacrificed doesn't mean you're worshiping the God.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially what he's saying, just because you're participating in a cultural thing, it's not you're not worshiping the devil because that's not who you are.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's fine.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so I think Paul would give us the freedom to do that.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It says that in scripture.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: 1 Corinthians 10.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 10, yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then Philippians 1.27 says, only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I so to whether I come and see you or I'm absent, I may hear uh that you are standing firm in one spirit, and in one mind striving side by saying for faith in the gospel.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, we are to live in a manner worthy of Christ, no matter what we're doing, whether we're going to Halloween, a harvest party, a trunk or treat, whatever, whatever we're doing, whether we're going down through the community, going door to door, trick-or-treating, you can still live a life worthy of Christ, even in the culture of today.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when you try to say that you can't, you're really limiting our ability to be Christians in every way, shape, or form in every aspect of life.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't I don't personally feel like I'm gonna do that, but there I I do believe there are people with a conviction that they need to be separate from all things, and that's fine if that's your conviction, but that doesn't have to be shared by other Christians to be right.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can be right and they can be right because we have different convictions to the Holy Spirit.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you, whatever your conviction is, fine, but don't take it out on other people.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Recognize that you can you can have a different belief than the person next to you as long as you both have the same beliefs in Christ.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's ultimately what matters.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's this is a great conversation piece among friends and and church members with each other, but it should be a friendly conversation that leads to better understanding of each other and better understanding of God's word, not in disagreement and disunity and discord, because that doesn't honor the Lord, and that's not of of God.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we hope this helps and we'll catch you in the next episode of Hoddle's Got Questions.