Yes, I know this is an odd question. However it relates to a question I got in class. I was sharing with my class how my home church does “Trick or Trunk” on the Sunday afternoon before Halloween. Our church had around 2000 attendees making it (for our size church) wildly successful.
One students was a bit bothered by this. He believes that Halloween is a bad holiday and therefore churches should avoid being “tainted” by that in any way. He suggested, nicely in truth, that perhaps my openness to churches celebrating, in some way, Halloween is “Liberal.” I assume he means theologically liberal.
In truth, both politically and theologically, I don’t identify as either conservative or liberal— or somewhere in between. The terms are too changeable, and so am I. Also, often the labels appear to be wildly inconsistent where I feel almost as if a perspective is given a label rather randomly.
As I thought about it, I realize that the celebration of Halloween is actually a good example of this. So here are some thoughts.
#1. Celebrating Halloween is Conservative. I was raised in a theologically conservative, ‘fundamentalist,’ church. In that church we celebrated Halloween with nary a qualm. If Conservative means looking backwards and aligning with the views of others who consider themselves to be Conservative, then celebrating Halloween is certainly Conservative.
#2. Celebrating Halloween is Liberal. There are different models of contextualization (according to Stephen Bevans). The Anthropological model is more in line with Liberal theology, and it is the model most likely to be open to the practice… giving weight to local culture. With this viewpoint, perhaps it would be appropriate to consider the celebration of Halloween as Liberal.
#3. Celebrating Halloween is Conservative. Conservatism looks to answers from the past and therefore is most likely (hopefully) to take the past seriously. Halloween is decried by some for its pagan roots. However, much of those alleged roots are actually revisionist. Halloween has relatively little to do with European paganism, much less demonism. Additionally, Halloween’s link to the spirit world is tied more to the idea of opposing evil spirits or ghosts rather than embracing them. Thus, from a historical standpoint, celebrating Halloween is more Conservative.
#4. Celebrating Halloween is Liberal. A lot of the people who oppose Halloween would self-identify as Conservative. Regardless of whether this belief makes sense as a liberal versus conservative issue, the labels tend to be more about how people use them than anything else. As such, in this vague sense, celebrating Halloween is Liberal.
In the end, I really don’t think Celebrating Halloween fits neatly into any Liberal/Conservative dichotomy. In fact, it is probably true that nothing much fits into such a dichotomy. I am reminded of the 5th chapter of the Epistle of Diognetus— a wonderful early Christian work that speaks of how Christians are fully immersed in their cultures that in most ways they blend right in, but in specific ways stand in contrast to it. This I believe fits into Stephen Bevan’s Countercultural Model of contextualization. That model is often thought of as being Conservative, even though I believe it could be argued either as Liberal (agent of conservation) and Conservative (agent of change).
Even looking at this— the “liberal” perspective aligning with conservation, and “conservative” perspective aligning with change does show, I think, how somewhat random the labels are.
Labels can be useful, but sometimes that are lazy. Once we put a label on something we often put a judgment on it— good or bad. However, instead it is better to go through the process of thoughtful, spirit-led, reflection— ignoring what labels people will place on the topic…. or on you.
For a more thoughtful look at how Christians can or should relate to “Pagan” holidays… one can look at:
