Should Christians Celebrate Halloween? | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw and relevant. And I am so glad that you're here today, because we're going to talk about something that's right here, relevant, and that is what's happening tomorrow is what the world celebrates is Halloween.

We're going to stick our foot in the traffic.

Yes. Yeah, we are. We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about, is it right, is it wrong for Christians to trick or treat to celebrate Halloween? And I think that just by saying it, it's two different thought patterns. Celebrate is one thing, but trick or treat is something else. But we're gonna talk about it. I trick or treated when I was a child.

You hear that ring?

Yeah, I hear it.

No, you don't trick or treat when you live in Possum Kingdom.

Ron, you never got to trick or treat.

Not one time. That time when I was a teenager and I put on the cone heads from Saturday Night Live and we would beat on old people's windows and wake them up in the night. I did.

Ron, that is terrible.

We did. I put on cone heads and we would bang on their windows. And when them elderly people put up shade, we were sitting there with coneheads on run.

You could have given them.

They don't even know who the coneheads are, baby. Coneheads was 1980s SNL, Saturday Night Live. But we did okay. No, I never trick or treated one time in my life.

But was it because of spiritual.

No, we didn't. My family just wasn't built like. But we just didn't do that. We celebrated Christmas.

When you say your family wasn't built like that, what did you say?

We didn't get caught up in any type of celebrations. Celebrations or festivities. No, we just didn't. My mom and dad just weren't built that way. We were huge Christmas people and everything. I mean, like I've told you, even birthdays was. We just didn't do a lot. But now Christmas was overkill. You remember? I mean, everything blinked. Everything. Our house was like the Griswold's house at Christmas. But I don't even remember a Halloween growing up. I don't ever remember walking around anywhere. But I never lived in a neighborhood till I was out of that phase. We lived out in the middle of nowhere.

You know where I was from? I did. You had like one or two houses on the road.

Yeah, maybe on the whole road. And I mean, it never was part of our life. I do remember as a little kid, our church doing Something around Halloween.

Trunk or tree?

Yeah, one time it was like a little fundraiser or something. But even. It just. It wasn't a part of our. My daddy was a pastor. It wasn't a part of our family or our church culture. I never heard them talk about it one way or the other. I never heard them preach against it. I never heard him for it. It just. I didn't ask to go to what that time was Kmart and buy a costume. I didn't even ask because it just wasn't a part of our life. And I know that as we enter this few minutes of discussion, I know, man, there are people that so vehemently, I mean vehemently, have opinions like this. And I'm not trying to lose friends or gain friends. I am going to try to set this within a biblical context because the fact is, hope, I can take just about anything and prove my point with a couple of scriptures.

Yeah.

So there is, you know, you can take a couple of scriptures and yank them out. And I'm not saying everybody's pulling them out of context, but you can yank them out of their context, string two of them together, and you can always prove your point. Now, that's what I think. The Bible talks over and over again that debates are fruitless.

Right.

Debates are just fruitless. It's amazing to me the people that ignore that and get on and try to argue someone into their doctrine.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say, do not celebrate Halloween.

No.

However, there are scriptures in the Bible.

I'm going to do pro and con, but can I lay my foundation on the way I approach all life?

Yes.

How many times have you heard me say this? But I don't know that I've ever said it to our podcast community. Excuse me. People say they hate legalism, but I have always held to the fact they love legalism. Because if they can get somebody to say, do this and don't do that, they ask us that about what's okay for Christians to do in marriage with sex. And they want me to give them the okay. These are all right, and these are not all right. Okay. And they're like, the fact is, people love legalism. They love people to tell them what to do and what not to do. They really do. Because the more I tell you do and don't, the less you have to be led.

Yeah. But I think the root of that, though, Ron, it's not bad. I think people really do want to do right. So they're looking to leadership to say, you know, is this okay? Does the Bible say this?

But you got to work out your.

Own salvation to hear the Holy Spirit.

You've got to work out your own salvation and not somebody just to make all the boundaries of your life for you. Your boundaries have to be formed out of your personal relationship with God. Because there are things that are all right for others that are not alright for me. There are things that are all right for me that are not all right for others. And we want to make all of them right or wrong and hope. There's a lot of things the Bible just does not speak. If God does not speak, how does Ron think he's got the right to lay down the law?

The Bible doesn't speak. Always said, you have to go by your personal convictions.

You have to go by your personal.

Convictions and be led by your peace.

And your personal convictions are worked out within you. And I'm going to tell you, there are people that if you did come out of witchcraft, if you were traumatized by some horror, if you struggle with fear, you struggle with fear and anxiety, you probably need to have nothing to do with. With, you know, is it October 30th or 31st? 31st, 31st. You probably don't have anything to do with that day. There are other people that putting their kid in a ladybug outfit, their daughter and their boy in a Captain America and getting a bunch of snicker bars is meaningless. It's just meaningless. It's going wrong.

They live in a community that is healthy and whole and they celebrate children and fun.

What is that then? It's two different people coming at it from two different contexts who need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.

Okay, now granted, Ron and I have never studied Halloween. Maybe we need to.

Nope, nope.

We don't know all the ins and outs of all of it.

Let me say that people about Christmas, I've had people, why do y' all put up Christmas trees? Don't you know? In the third century in Rome? No, I don't know.

Yeah, I had somebody in the hall the other day stop me and ask me, do y' all celebrate pagan holidays? And I said, okay, be more specific. And she said, you know, do y' all celebrate Halloween? Do you celebrate Christmas? I said, well, I don't think Christmas is a pagan holiday. I said, you know, I believe that we celebrate Christmas because Jesus was born and we put up a tree because it's made of wood, because he was born in a manger. And we give gifts because the wise, wise men came and brought Him.

But she's got it in her context.

That's her context.

She's got it in her context. So do you talk about the Easter Bunny at Christmas? Don't you know the Aphrodite fertility God had a study. No, I don't know, and I haven't studied because that is not what it means to me. Because spring and when I got a stuffed Easter bunny, flowers when I got a stuffed Easter bunny that I give to my granddaughter and she sleeps with it because it's warm and fuzzy. I'm not trying to study the God of Ephesus who was Aphrodite, who had a statue of abundance. I mean, you know, you can find something wrong with everything. And Paul talks a lot about conscience. He talks a lot about conscience. He tells me not to violate your conscience.

Right.

And vice versa. So, in fact, I do need to be sensitive as to what is a violation to you. Just because it's all right to me, I need to respect in your presence it's not all right with you. So we are to be respectful of that. But let me talk about this, because I want to get this out before we start. Just good or bad, right or wrong, if God doesn't speak, okay, like somebody say, well, yeah, he does have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness and give no place to the enemy. So therefore, you shouldn't do it. Okay? Right. On the other side, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. On the flip side, what are you gonna do with that one?

Yeah.

You know, so I can argue for or against, but I'm not here to argue. I'm here to let people know there is a bad side to everything, and there is an innocent side to everything, and it is not. It doesn't lie in what it is. It lies in what's in you.

Yeah, I agree with that. Because you just need to lock yourself in your house and drink water. Never go out to eat again because there's bars and there's crazy people out.

If you don't tell me not to let my kids get some sweet tarts while wearing a Captain America outfit. If you're going to tell me that, okay, you know, or my church not to have a Harvest Festival night. I've heard people say, well, if you even have Harvest Festival night, I'm not going to. Okay, okay. If you want to be consistent, then get your TV out of your house, get your smartphone out of your house, get your computer out of your house. You know, I got.

Get your. Doritos out of your pantry.

Because there's an innocent context to a phone and there's a very evil context to a phone. There's an innocent context to tv. There's an evil context to tv. There's an innocent context to kids getting candy. There's a very evil aspect to. I don't know where they are and where they might be, but I've heard witches and warlocks worship. I don't know.

Just to be clear, we are not for witches. We are not for warlocks. We are not for the devil. We are not for breeding fear. None of those things. We're not saying any of that. Haunted houses, all the things. We're just talking about a family event. You can go out. Just because you go out and trick or treat doesn't mean that you're celebrating the devil.

We had a neighborhood, wholesome people, wonderful people, great community. And me and my kids, we had a four wheeler. I had a little trailer that I would pull the four wheeler on behind a truck. And I don't know if you remember, we get the four wheeler and we did this. We didn't do it every year. We did it two or three times. Because I don't remember it being a real big deal at our house either, kind of, honestly. But when our kids were little, they wanted to go be with their friends and do something. And I would get that little four wheeler and I'd put them on that trailer and we would ride up and down the streets of the subdivision and to the houses that we knew and stuff. We'd let them stop and get some candy. Did I celebrate Halloween? No. Did I let my kids dress up like a Power Ranger and get some candy?

They loved being a Power Ranger too.

Yes. Pink, green. The red one, Chaz was red. Yeah. And I remember all that. And Chase was blue. Chase was pink. All the little Power Ranger weapons they fought with and everything, we had to buy them all. They loved a sword. So I do believe very much in the fact that the context of whether a thing be good or whether a thing be evil does not lie in the hand. It's in the hand.

It's like money.

It's in you.

It's like money.

I was going to go there. I decided not to. But now you bring it up. Money in itself, money. We're helping orphans in Colima, Mexico, go to school by the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. And those same dollar bills could solicit prostitutes in Vegas.

Right. It has no identity.

It's not the context of money. It's the context of you. It's the context of how do you see it and what do you do with it. Yes. And that's the point that people arguing for and against. I believe. Miss. It's not. It. It's the conduct. I can make food evil.

Yeah.

I can make food good. I can make money holy. I can make money filthy me. I can take Christmas and make it amazing. I can take Christmas and make it horrible. I can do that with anything in my life. And so I think that is what I would like for people to get out of. Get off of both sides of the track and work out your own salvation. If you got pentagrams and you got 666 and you got witches and warlocks, you need to get the heck away from that. You need to get out of it. It is evil, it is satanic, and it is wrong.

Yeah. Don't breed fear in your children.

That's wrong. Period. Okay, but those are never the side. Those are never the context of it. Where we participated. We participated in innocence and fun and costumes, and it was funny. And don't Shanlin look good in her princess dress?

We talked to our children about why they couldn't dress up as what maybe some of their friends did.

They were movies we didn't let them.

See, or Jason or Halloween or what's that one with that mask, that white mask with that big, long black mouth that always scared me. Forgot who that is. But anyway.

I know what you're talking about. I can't remember. That was a little bit after I told you.

But we would tell. We would talk to our children about that. As to, you know, why we don't go there. We don't open up portals.

We don't do anything that has to do with fear. We never did anything evil. We never did anything demonic. We never did anything that elicited fear. I never put my kids in any context that would make them afraid. So you're saying, how do we handle it? They wanted to be with their friends. They wanted a bag of candy. They wanted to participate. So we found the right people, we found the right atmosphere, and we made it fun. And we shunned evil, and we never participated in anything that was evil. But we did let our kids have a holiday with their friends that was clean and beautiful and fun. And we ate the candy and we moved on. And I'll tell you what, another thing we did, we never made a big deal out of it. There's some people that. I mean, it's almost like another Christmas just in A different way. So are there people who take Halloween and make it straight up demonic? Yes. Don't participate with that, even in movies. You know, I don't watch a lot of movies even now. I thought movies with a villain, I never minded. But now movies are not villainous anymore. Movies are now spirits. It's the conjuring and it's the this one possessed by this and this one possessed by that. And it's all these movies that now dabble in the demonic. I've never watched them. I don't know what's on there and I'm never going to. I'm not participating in that because that world is real. And I don't want myself, I don't want my mind, I don't want my spirit corrupted in any way. So take the innocence of it, okay? And allow your family to enjoy the innocence of it. If it has a corrupt part of it, shun it. Shun it with everything that you have. And that's what I always tried to do. But overall, Hope, it just never was a big deal at my house.

Yeah, it wasn't a big deal at my house either.

I mean, I don't know why it is. It seems like a huge deal.

And I don't think I going trick or treating as a kid.

I mean, you were worshiping the devil.

Yeah, I never had any inclination to worship. I loved the Lord even as a little girl. I got saved when I was 8 years old.

You just wanted to be Barbie and you wanted some candy.

I was trying. I just wanted some candy.

You wanted Barbie and you wanted to be.

I did. Listen, that was back in the day where your costumes were. That plastic mask that you had a rubber band on the back where you couldn't breathe. That was my costume and it was Barbie.

These people spend more money on their costumes now than they do their Christmas tree. I mean, I've seen people that go all out. It just doesn't mean that to us. And it never was a part of my growing up. My kids went to a Christian school. They wanted to do whatever their friends were doing. We found those wholesome environments and let them participate. But hope, even in my mind right now, I know we're in the grandkids days. But I still only remember that two or three times. It wasn't like every year. This is what we do.

So well, usually one of our three was sick by October with some kind of ear infection, some kind of virus going on and somebody couldn't go.

Ear infection. So you're right about that. I think all of our kids had tubes in their ears. Didn't they eventually have tubes?

But I think people truly are asking the question for the right reason. You know, they don't want to do wrong. No. They don't want to violate the Lord. They love the Lord. They don't want to do anything that would get on the side of evil. I get that. I don't either.

Well, the Bible's. I've always said where the Bible don't speak. The second line of authority is your conscience. So if there's not a specific command given in the Bible, then you have to go to your conscience and your boundaries, your personal convictions and boundaries. That is where I say walk out your own salvation with fear and trembling. I know people. I'm going to go here. I know people that are Christians. And to come anywhere near, anywhere near a glass of wine would have just been an anathema and a blasphemy. We move out to California, and we're 40 minutes from Napa Valley.

It's a whole culture.

Oh, my gosh. And those people sitting there, they drink their glass of wine with tears running down their face, talking about Jesus. Yeah, it is. It is. Listening to the text they were raised in.

Do you remember the time we went camping with our kids?

Yes. They were little. I know. Where you going?

And we were sitting around a campfire, and Chase and Chase went up.

The Great Confronter.

Yeah.

They were German.

She was probably seven or eight at that time. This German couple was sitting beside us, and she was drinking a glass of wine.

We were doing s', mores, and they came over to sit with us, and that's typical in camping culture.

So she came over with a glass of wine, and Chase said, why are you drinking that? That alcohol. That's alcohol.

He had a Coca Cola. He had a Coca Cola and he.

Had a Coke in his hand. And she looked. She didn't. She kind of was taken back. She looked at him and she said, what do you mean? He said, that's bad for you. And she said, oh, no. What you're drinking is way worse than what I'm drinking for your body.

She said, I can tell you it's a whole lot better than what you're drinking for your body.

And we just were stunned.

Yeah, we got quiet because I'd never been hit like that. So you Chase. You know, Chase is going to be. He's going to call it out right there in the middle of everybody. But that's what I'm talking about. You got some people that within them that is wrong. And you know what? You need to stay with your convictions.

Yes.

You need to stay with your convictions. Okay? But you can't make your convictions somebody else's convictions.

Right.

And you can't go around judging everybody because their convictions and their lines are not in the same place. And even if it ain't convictions, people ain't at the same place in their journey.

That's true.

They're just not. Everybody's not. That's why the Bible says in Romans 14:1 except those whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters. People in different seasons in their journey with God do disputable things. And the Bible says, don't go around, be pointing it out all the time. Said, just understand, maybe they're not where you are. So does it seem like I'm hitting this thing right down the middle? Doggone straight? That's exactly where I'm hitting it. Because I don't think the context of it is external. I think the context of it is internal. And I think you have to work these things out unless the Bible has given you a clear directive. I mean, fornication is wrong. Murder is wrong. Stealing is wrong. Lying is wrong. Okay, we go down. God has told you exactly how he feels. There's no wiggle room when you get into these other areas of life. It has to be, what is the Holy Spirit doing in my life? And what is my personal boundary with that? And I am a person of deep convictions, and I try to live out those convictions, but those did not come. My convictions didn't come from Bible. My convictions came from my walk with the Holy Spirit. Does that make a difference? So I have God's boundaries by his word. And then where God doesn't speak, I have my boundaries out of my relationship with God. And that. That, that, that is what you have to be faithful to. You have to be faithful to that.

So, Ron, if you could dress up today and go trick or treating, what would you dress up as?

I dress up like Ron. With more hair.

Ron, seriously.

No, I had really good hair when I was young. I had really good hair.

What would you be?

Something with abs.

Oh, my God, you'd be a superhero with abs.

Yeah. I like to save people.

You like to save people?

I like to show up when people in need and I like to save people. I always liked Batman.

You did?

Yeah, I was a Batman kid. So what'd they call it back in the day? Cartoons that came out? Was it Justice League or something like that? I didn't like it. Cause Batman always got his tail kicked.

Not always.

Superman was always the man. And Batman always got beat up and in trouble and he needed to be saved.

No, no, no, no, no.

I wanted Batman. Not that one. No, I'm talking about. This was a cartoon. Oh, this was the cartoon. And in the cartoon, Batman was just not real good. And man, you reaching way back with that hope. I was in the 60s. That was 60s. That was a long time ago. Yes, but probably a Batman outfit. What about you? Yours is Barbie.

No, I wouldn't be a Barbie. I'd be something funny, like a hot dog or something.

No, you would not.

Yeah, no, I.

You'd be something glamorous.

No, I wouldn't. I'd want to be something fun, funny, like a big outfit, like Patrick from spongebob or something.

Patrick Star.

Patrick Star. Yeah.

I don't believe that. You'd be Elsa or you'd be Barbie.

Elsa.

Oh, you'd be something. You'd be frozen. You'd be something like that if you were doing yours.

If I was a little girl. I'm talking about now.

I'm talking about now, too.

Oh. Oh, my Lord, have mercy.

You'd be a Runway model or something like that. That's what you'd be trying to be. But anyway, I just. Not anything revelational. I just want to bring people back out of the context of your personal convictions. But anything, anything, whether it's a movie or whether it's a party or whether it's anything that has anything where it is degenerated into demonic overtones, you need to stay away from it, because that is real. That world is real, and it is evil.

And if you're living your life wanting to serve the Lord and wanting to please him, and he's first in your life, he'll lead you. He'll guide you, he'll direct you. You'll be led into all truth.

And you need to obey that. You need to obey that.

Right? Wrong. Or, you know, whether you do it or you don't do it. Just let the Holy Spirit lead you. And don't take no crap off people judging you.

Right. If you have a level of discomfort with it, just say no, that's not for us. And like I said, I'm kind of.

Judging you either way. If you do or you don't.

I'm kind of glad that it wasn't.

You lead your family.

I'm kind of glad that it wasn't a major thing for our family, because if it would have been a huge deal with my kids, I don't know how I would have reacted to that, but I just don't remember it ever being. No, it just.

Sometime they didn't even dress. They'd go out in their street clothes.

Just to get candy.

They wouldn't want a costume.

They just go knock on people's doors and ask for candy.

And Chaz would take a pillowcase.

Yes. He wanted lots of candy.

He wanted it all.

Wasn't Chaz the one that would look at him and, like, say, is that all?

Yes.

Yeah. If they didn't give enough, he wanted more because he hid candy. He did.

He loved him some candy.

You pull his bed out and clean under his bed, and there was 6,000.

Candy wrappers and in his drawer.

He hid it, though. He wasn't gonna let nobody have it. Anyway, guys, we love y', all, and maybe this helps give you a context. I didn't wanna come and preach you a sermon, but just let you know, personal convictions are everything when it comes to living the majority of your life. There's a lot of areas that you live and make decisions every day where the Bible doesn't have a specific directive. Okay. And when it doesn't, you have to go from your personal walk and respect everybody enough to have their personal walk, because you're going to have things that I may not. There's been times, hopes, like, you know, we got invited such and such. And she looked at me and kind of did her eyes, and I'm like, yeah, I don't want to go to that. It's just not an atmosphere. I don't want to. I just want to be in. And we just look at it and say, no, we're not doing that. So long and short of it. That's about all I had to say. We spent about a half hour talking about it anyway. Yeah. All right, y' all tell about the next one, though.

The next one?

What podcast?

What is it?

Remember?

No.

How to Develop. People Asking how to develop a prayer life.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is the east coast pastor of Society 242, which is our young adult ministry. And he said, let me. He said, let me tell you, in my life group what I get asked all the time. He said, people just don't know how to develop a prayer life. I said, you know what that even means? That is a great, great conversation. I said, and we're going to do that next, so tune in on that one. I got some great things I want to share with you.

Yes. And before we go, I want to let you know about a conference that I'm having in January calling all Queens. It's in San Antonio, Texas. Say Hope, why is it in San Antonio? Why is it not in Greenville or at your California campus? Because I have many churches in the Texas area who wanted to come together and have something big, something great. And the Holy Spirit really dropped in my spirit that this is the center of the United States, Texas. And it's a great meeting point for everybody who follow our ministry, who love Ron Carpenter Ministries, Hope Carpenter Ministries. So start your year off right in January, 15th, 16th, 17th, we're going to have worship by Lizzie Morgan, Ashley Hayes, Stephen and Laurie Ward, then speaking by Kelly Steele, me and Christine Martin and several others. It's going to be so powerful. It's your appointment with God. So go register hopecarpenter.com events and I'll see you in January.

We're at a marriage conference in February.

Yep. So that's in beautiful Monterey, California.

We go back and forth. We was in Greenville last, last time, so now we're back on the west coast, this time in Monterey. So go get signed up for that. And until then, it's Ron and Hope.

Unfiltered, real raw and relevant.

We'll catch you later. Thank you.