Those with spiritual connections view devil’s night in a different light
While some think of Halloween as no more than an excuse to dress up in costume and enjoy a party, Halloween’s religious and spiritual background often means much more to religious observers of different faiths.
This Halloween, CU students will find the police force on the Hill to have quadrupled in an attempt to contain the amount of partying.
In the Wicca tradition, student Anna Charlock says that Halloween is the night that the “veil between the two worlds is the thinnest.”
Charlock was raised Christian and currently considers herself an agnostic. She practiced Wicca from ages 16 to 17.
“I guess I wish I was in a place where I could celebrate it more fully,” Charlock said.
Bobby Pruett, director of Christian Challenge, a CU-based ministry, believes that instead of focusing negative energy on the disapproval of Halloween, many conservative or evangelical Christians that he knows use Halloween as an excuse for a clean, non-alcoholic party.
“There is certainly no celebration of the darkness. We don’t talk about the roots of Halloween – that maybe one day it was a day to honor the dark world – we ignore that,” Pruett said.
However, Pruett does believe that there are demonic forces with evil goals active in the world.
“We believe that evil is personified in Satan,” Pruett said. “We don’t believe he’s just a make-believe figure like Santa Claus. We believe he is a real personality and he has a demonic force that causes great mischief in our world today.”
While some conservative groups allow a secular celebration of Halloween, many groups will not allow witch or vampire costumes. Instead, partygoers dress up as biblical characters.
When confronted with the idea that Pagan or Wiccan religions might not mean worshiping the devil, Pruett replied that since Pagans worship nature and things that he believes the Christian god created, Paganism is insulting.
“It’s a slap in the face of God when you worship the created rather than the creator,” Pruett said. “It’s not directly devil worship in the Judeo-Christian framework, but it is a crime against God.”
This difference in belief causes many of the negative associations conservative Christians have with Halloween in the traditional sense.
Tom Miller, the campus minister with the Campus Bible Fellowship, considers himself a more conservative Christian.
“My greatest concern (with Halloween) is making light of the devil who we believe is a literal horrific person who wants people to do evil,” Miller said.
The idea of the devil brings forth the idea of sin.
“The devil wants us to think that he’s fictitious instead of real,” Miller said. “He’s the one that tempted Eve to sin and Adam to sin and the devil tempts me and that’s why I sin.”
Instead of picketing the streets, Miller says that there is a larger focus in his religious community on in-house protest both within the church and the home.
“We’re against making light of the devil, but we’re not trying to tell the world,” Miller said.
Miller also said that he is opposed to all forms of immorality.
“Even though we’re strongly opposed to abortion, most of us are totally against tracking down every abortion doctor,” Miller said. “We don’t take the law into our own hands. The bible isn’t just to tell those Pagans, those heathens, how to live. It’s to tell me how to live. Then we can try to help other people with their own sins.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Alyssa Shapiro at alyssa.shapiro@colorado.edu
