Some Churches Spooked Over Halloween

Halloween is the witches’ night out, a feast of death when spirits roam the Earth.

Even as some real witches prepare to reconcile themselves with the dead in secret rituals on Oct. 31, there is a growing concern among some Christian groups that the road to satanic cults may be paved with cultural celebrations that take lightly witchcraft practices that are forbidden in the Bible.

“It’s a very real thing to a lot of people and it’s growing,” said the Rev. James Andrews, pastor of The Chapel, an interdenominational church in suburban Buffalo, N.Y. “I think it (the biblical prohibition) certainly applies to today because there is so much witchcraft going on.”

In the 19th chapter of Leviticus, God tells Moses to inform the people of Israel that “You shall not practice augury or witchcraft.” In the 18th chapter of Deuteronomy, the faithful are again warned: “No one shall be found among you . . . who practices divination, or a soothsayer, or an augurer, or a sorcerer.”

But a powerful fascination with witches still exists. In a 1988 Gallup Poll, 29% of teens said they believed in witches, up from 25% who professed a belief in witchcraft in a 1985 poll.

In most churches, the witches of Halloween lore, like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, are tolerated or ignored.

“In what we might call mainline churches, there is, if not an accommodation, a sense of turning the other way and saying it’s no big deal,” said Andrew Hill, associate professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College.

But in increasing numbers, conservative Christian churches are offering their own alternatives, and in some more militant cases even seeking to limit public celebrations of Halloween.

In Louisville, Colo., an elementary school once banned Halloween when parents said it promoted devil worship, but later lifted the ban when other parents protested that it was depriving their children of a good time. In Georgetown, Del., a church group failed in its effort to stop a town Halloween parade from being held on a Sunday.

If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em at their own game is the more successful approach taken by Andrews’ church.

He said his church attracts some 600 kids each Halloween for a “Fright Night” during which the Christian message is mixed with some old-fashioned thrills and chills. “We do put the spoof on Halloween and present them the living Gospel,” he said.