Evil at the door or tell me again why Halloween is bad

Not having lived in a place that recognizes Halloween for most of the last decade, I frankly wasn't even aware of the upcoming "holiday" until Loni made mention of it in her IOW quote announcement for this week. Halloween wasn't celebrated in Saudi - nothing is - and it's not a big deal here in Australia either, altho this place has more costume shops per capita than any place I've ever seen!

That said, when my kids were little they loved Halloween and so did I. Some of my favorite photos feature the kids in costumes they picked out and I handmade, including a four-year run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and another three years as Peter Pan for my son, and several years as various Disney princesses for my daughter.

I remember when my daughter was in fourth grade, her school banned all Halloween activities. No costumes, no games - nothing. Apparently one parent complained and the district caved. I was upset.

I'm still upset.

Frankly, I've never understood all the hoopla around Halloween being an evil celebration, a pagan holiday or a day to honor witches and such. Much of it, I think is little more than propaganda, aimed at distractig us from the overwhelming and very real evil around us. (As if we aren't good enough at doing that already.)

It all reminds me of the parable of the biker, the rich lady and the animal rights activist.

The animal rights activist is standing on the street with a bucket of red paint. A huge, fierce-looking biker walks by decked out in full leather - chaps and a fringed jacket, skid lid, gloves, the whole nine yards - and the activist just nods and smiles. Ten minutes later, a frail-looking old woman walks by decked out in a mink coat and the activist drenches her in paint.

There's no difference between the leather and the mink - both came from animals raised in captivity for the sole purpose of being made into apparel - but the old woman was just an easier target.

And that's the way I see Halloween.

There are a lot of evil things in the world - child abuse, domestic violence, poverty, genocide. There are forces of evil vying for our souls on a daily basis - gambling, addiction, pornography, racism, sexism and extremism.

False prophets call from every street corner and everywhere we walk, someone has set a snare for us. God's people live in the midst of evil in our world, in our comunities, our homes and families and in our very hearts.

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. (James 3:16 NIV)

But it's a lot easier to bar our door to trick-or-treaters dressed as fairies and pirates than to deal with the sometimes overwhelming and very real evil that knocks on our door on a daily basis.