Trick or Treat?
Our Prime Minister aptly described the ISIS army in Iraq and Syria as “a cult of death”. While decent people all over the world are horrified by their murders, many young men have been recruited to their ranks from supposedly civilised countries like ours.
There is a Jekyll and Hyde side to modern western society: while we detest the cruelty of real-life killers dressed in balaclavas and waving black flags, too many of us like watching appalling savagery on the screen. We say hate and cruelty are wrong, but many watch it with fascination.
We have laws which (rightly) punish people for racist rants, but profitable movies, games and shows go unpunished which glorify viciousness. We have laws which (rightly) punish violent behaviour – though the penalties often fall short of matching the crime. Yet we have no law to stop entertainments which feed the love of violence.
While Biblical Christians seem to have less influence today, we can at least make right decisions for ourselves and for our families. We might not be able to persuade supermarkets to refrain from selling things for Halloween, but we can make up our minds we will have nothing to do with Halloween, a cult of death.
Halloween presents witchcraft as fun. Although made popular by business in America, it owes its strange practices to British pagans in the murky past. The end of October was marked by a night of fear in which druids killed people and offered them to their demonic “gods”. The druids carved turnips to hold an oil lamp as the leering face of a spirit. Later on in America, pumpkins were found to be larger and easier to carve. The doorknock, the demand for food, the trick (curse), the bonfire (bonefire), are all remainders of a ghastly tradition of human sacrifice.
Much effort is made to lure children into Halloween. While a fierce effort has been made to push the Christian faith out of state schools, many teachers lead their classes to “celebrate” this dismal event, making creepy costumes and masks. God’s judgment is looming on those who lead children to worship darkness.
We shudder to see a thug from Sydney teaching his son, eight years old, to behead a captive in Iraq; but in the western world we allow twisted profiteers to woo children to the love of violence.
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light . . . have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them . . . for it is light that makes everything visible.” (Ephesians 5:8-14)
With love in Christ,
Ken Martin, Minister