Halloween, Santa and The Tooth Fairy

Proverbs 27:17
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

The highlight of my week so far has been a Facebook discussion on whether or not it is fitting for a believer to celebrate Halloween. You can imagine how peaceful that one went. Before I continue, I’ll just spill my guts.

No. I don’t take my kids trick or treating.

Yes, I think that it is possible to go out on Halloween and still be saved.

No. I don’t think that it is a sin to eat chocolate bars. (Those toffee twist wrapped things perhaps. Who likes those anyway?)

Yes, I think it tends to be a rather dark celebration.

Yes, I allow my kids to dress up. (All throughout the year in fact)

Yes, if you celebrate Halloween, you can come to my church.

Even if we wanted to participate, nobody comes to our house anyway out here in the country. Except that one time 3 years ago. I went to the fridge and grabbed a couple of pops for the neighbor kids. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite.

Can you handle that? If you celebrate Halloween and if you can handle that without getting all bent out of shape, congratulations. You have just demonstrated an admirable amount of maturity.

What should church look like? Should it be a place where we surround ourselves only with people who have the same personal convictions that we do? I’m not talking about blatant sin. I’m talking about extra biblical issues; the kind that aren’t specifically mentioned in scripture. Like the tooth fairy. Satan’s spawn I know, but not everyone has figured that out just yet. (Yeah. That was overkill.)

A friend of mine asked me a question a few weeks back,

“Have you ever tried to sharpen iron using something smooth? It doesn’t work.”

When we sharpen metal, what we are really doing is tearing off small pieces of the object. I know this passage in Proverbs isn’t speaking specifically on Church life. You can take away my Christian preaching stripes if you like. Do you ever wonder why the Holy Spirit only gifts some believers with the gift of discernment? And do you also wonder why He has chosen to bless YOU with that gift, and not the person beside you? :-)

For some reason, God hasn’t created the earthly body of His church to be a monolithic, uniform creature and I often wonder why that is. I know that this is speculation, but could part of the reason be, that some of our growth depends on having people in our lives who rub us the wrong way?

When we get into our debates over what holidays we should be celebrating, what movies we should watch and what kind of music should appeal to our regenerate nature, some people get terribly upset. If I can’t handle the personal convictions of another person, maybe I really am not all that secure in my own position in the first place.

I don’t know why, but the people that God has surrounded me with tend to be secure enough in their own convictions that they don’t get all bent out of shape when they hear that I don’t believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny. Fortunately, now that Halloween and Devil’s night are over, I have a new cause to champion. My friend just told me that the peace sign is an upside down broken cross. Looks like it’s time to mount my hobby horse and ride off into the sunset.