Be afraid

Today’s Halloween. So as a responsible Christian parent, I’m going to do all I can to protect my children and make sure that they don’t come into contact with any of the following:

Witches
Demons
Ghost stories and Spirits of the dead wandering about
Mediums and séances
Horror stories.
Graphic and bloody descriptions of violent acts.
Torture and execution
Psychopaths
Magicians

So that leaves at least a third of the bible that they can still read.

It’s wonderful that more and more churches are running alternatives to Halloween. But is there a danger that our ‘Light Nights’ and ‘Hallelujah Parties’ will backfire? That the message we send is a choice between the scary, dangerous horror movie ‘world’ out there, or the tame, safe Disney movie ‘church’ in here.

I’ve probably “lost the plot”, but next year I’d love to run a seriously scary Dream Halloween party. Maybe in the gothic splendour of Liverpool Cathedral at night. With the lights low, candles flickering, and the kind of music in the background that send shivers down your spine, we’d read one of the terrifying stories that Jesus told. Like this one:

There once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption. A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep. All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich man's table. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores.
“Then he died, this poor man, and was taken up by the angels to the lap of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell and in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his lap. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire.’
“But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you got the good things and Lazarus the bad things. It's not like that here. Here he's consoled and you're tormented. Besides, in all these matters there is a huge chasm set between us so that no one can go from us to you even if he wanted to, nor can anyone cross over from you to us.’
“The rich man said, ‘Then let me ask you, Father: Send him to the house of my father where I have five brothers, so he can tell them the score and warn them so they won't end up here in this place of torment.’
“Abraham answered, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score. Let them listen to them.’
“‘I know, Father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but they're not listening. If someone came back to them from the dead, they would change their ways.’
“Abraham replied, ‘If they won't listen to Moses and the Prophets, they're not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead.”