With the success of popular TV shows like AMC's The Walking Dead - our fascination with death and corpses is on the rise. Based on a comic book series by the same name, The Walking Dead focuses on a post-apocalyptic world where flesh eating zombies rule.
Night of the Living Dead was a popular horror movie made in 1968 featuring zombies, and still boasts a cult following today. So what fuels our culture's obsession with death? Could part of it be denial of our own mortality?
Halloween seems to bring out the worst in morbid costumes and decorations. Death and gore are glorified. Zombies, demons, witches and spooky monsters abound. What are Christians to do with this "holiday" that is celebrated from infancy to adulthood?
First of all - a little history lesson on Halloween: It was a Celtic pagan festival, and then became the Christian holiday known as All Saints' Day, but later morphed into the secular celebration of today.
Halloween activities include trick-or treating, wearing costumes, carving Jack-o'-lanterns, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, committing pranks, telling ghost stories or other frightening tales, and watching classic horror films.
In traditional Celtic festivals, large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces and placed in windows to ward off evil spirits. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America where pumpkins are both readily available and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their doorstep after dark.
The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, originating in Ireland and Britain. Poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1st), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2nd).The early Christian church moved a festive celebration called All Saints' Day from May to November 1 and renamed it All Hallows' Eve, from which we get the word Halloween. This was an overt attempt on the part of believers to infiltrate pagan tradition with the truth of the gospel. It was a bold evangelistic move designed to demonstrate that only the power of the resurrected Christ could protect men and women from the destructive ploys of Satan and his demons.
An article posted on ChristianityToday.com in 2009 cited a Barna Research study which had this to say:
“The majority of American Christians do not believe that Satan is a real being or that the Holy Spirit is a living entity, the latest Barna Research survey found. Nearly six out of ten Christians either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the statement that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil,” the survey found. 40 percent strongly agreed with the statement while 19 percent of American Christians somewhat agreed. In contrast, about 35 percent of American Christians believe Satan is real. 20 percent strongly disagreed with the statement that Satan is merely symbolic and about one-tenth (9 percent) somewhat disagreed. The remaining 8 percent of American Christians responded they were unsure what to believe about the existence of Satan.”
Anyone who is not in Christ is one of the "walking dead" already (in the spiritual realm). What can we as believers do to counter-balance a society that deems Halloween “harmless?” For starters, we can have an open door for evangelism and education. The deception of a holiday such as Halloween, with its witches, vampires, demons, skeletons, and overall theme of evil, can become an opportunity to demonstrate the dynamic power of Christ to redeem us from death. Halloween distorts the reality of true spiritual warfare, and glorifies the dark side of the under world.
Although death and the grave are very real, evil has been defeated by Jesus Christ through His death on the cross. We are more than conquerors over the powers of darkness, demonstrated by Jesus’ resurrection Colossians 2:15, and the Holy Spirit’s power in us as believers Ephesians 6:11-17.
Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life – He is Lord of the living, as death has no power over those who believe on His Name. If you want to have a life changing personal relationship with Jesus Christ - please visit Steps to Peace with God
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus… For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” I Thessalonians 4:14; 16
Deborah is the author of a Christian non-fiction book titled “Mission Possible”. It is written for women who love the Lord Jesus, but their spouse doesn’t share their passion. It will encourage and challenge the reader to embrace God’s promises for their spouse and future together. Visit http://www.spirituallyunevenmarriage.com
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