The great Halloween debate

In the church community there is a long-standing debate about Halloween and whether or not Christians should take part.

As a child, my parent's let us go out for Halloween. We dressed up, went door to door and shared our candy with them when we got home. We were never allowed to dress up as something scary or evil, which really didn't bother us. There are so many other harmless costumes to choose from.

We did sometimes attend the "Hallelujah" parties churches held. Usually, everyone there was some sort of Noah's ark animal and you got WAY less candy than you did from Trick-or-treating.

I understand the reasons for people not wanting to take part in Halloween. There are a lot of evil costumes and movies and stories surrounding the occasion. But generally, kids who are trick-or-treating aren't thinking about any of that. They're thinking about their fun costume and the candy they'll get.

This year, we're handing out candy at home. And when we have kids, I'm pretty sure we'll let them go trick-or-treating, with certain stipulations about costumes. I think it's mostly harmless fun for kids and not something that will shake the faith we are trying to instil in them; it didn't for me.