Last Saturday night, I went for a walk. It's easier being out on Halloween, because it avoids the problem of what to do with trick-or-treaters. And I got thinking about how to subvert Halloween - subverting often being much better and more fun than opposing... Of course, Halloween seems to by dying out slowly, so it's no longer as much of a problem as it was for Christians. Anyhow, here's what I came up with on how to subvert it.
- Use the fact it's Reformation Day on 31st October and All Saints' on 1st November.
- Hold a "heroes of the faith" dressing up event. Ideas - Peter and fishing nets (or fishnets), Daniel and some lions, David and a slingshot with some toy sheep, Luther with his beer or tonsure (depending on age), Zwingli with some sausages, Cranmer's wife in a box, Catherine with a wheel, Jael and a tent peg...
- Put up posters beforehand saying you'll give sweets to anyone dressed as a goodie. Give people stuff if they're dressed as Spiderman or whatever, but not if they're dressed as witches, devils or the psycho killer from Scream.
10 comments:
The megachurch down the road had a nice idea. They came round knocking on doors the night before and gave out sweets and a card telling people that God loved them. I'm a bit sceptical of the value of hit and run mission stuff like this, mission is surely much more about real relationships than gimmicks, but hey, at least it was a clever and eyecatching gimmick.
I don't agree that Halloween is dying out slowly, I am afraid. A friend said that Liverpool was the busiest he had ever seen it on Saturday night, and most people were in costume. It's just the door-to-door stuff that is dying out. Thomas was invited to a costume Halloween party for babies, and all his local peers went.
I'm sad to hear that Daniel. Yes, my observations were based mostly on the decline of door-to-door extortion rather than parties. But I can well imagine that it is a very popular excuse for students to get drunk while wearing silly clothes...
You're absolutely right, as usual. I've also noticed that a spate of 'vicars and tarts' parties always leads to a rise in vocations to the priesthood and a leap in the number of people becoming prostitutes. How wise of you to have spotted to causal relationship between children dressing up and the rise of satanism. I suggest you pour all your time and energy into fighting this cause. It's clearly the thing that the church spent all that money training you for.
Whoever said anything about encouraging the occult?
I think the problem with Halloween is that it trivialises it.
Living in a cul-de-sac, we probably wouldn't get many trick or treaters whatever. However, I agree with Daniel; I tried to go through Sheffield town center last Sunday night and it was completely rammed, quite possibly the busiest I've ever seen it. That was a week early, but still a halloween party.
I quite liked St C's idea of giving out a cute little cellophane bag of sweets, together with a leaflet detailing all their youth activities. Halloween's an excellent excuse to distribute Christian literature.
As for my church, we made pumpkins with a cross cut into them, so the light of the world was shining out of the cross and lighting up the Halloween darkness, because dark is scary as you can't see anything in the dark, but with Jesus (the light of the world), we know where we're going so it's not scary anymore.
I must admit, my usual disguise at Halloween parties is as a protestant martyr tied to a stake. This idea only really works for actual protestants though, so not for a sizable chunk of Christians in this country.
And dressing people up in the ways you suggest wouldn't trivialise the faith? Try to get your story straight, lad.
I heard on the radio yesterday that the amount of money spent on fireworks for Bonfire Night is in severe decline, but the amount spent on Hallowe'en (costumes etc.) is rising steeply.
In America Hallowe'en is huge, and everybody dresses up, but one can dress up as anything: it doesn't have to be something scary.
If I believed in the continuing intercession of those who have died in Christ, then I can see that dressing up as them could well be trivialising the faith.
But I don't, and some interest in church history, even if for the purpose of finding people to dress up as, is better than no interest.
Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle. It's not about their continuing ability to help us, it's about trivialising them and their lives and message. Admit it, you boobed.
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