Halloween and our society

In Sunday's newspaper, there was an article in the "Your Life" section that interviewed local school kids and asked them what they were planning on being for Halloween this week. There were many kids that were included in the article, but the front page listed only 6, and all were 3rd graders.

What shocked me most in this article is that 4 out of the 6 third graders listed on the front page were planning on dressing up as psycho mass-murderers! (Two were going as Freddy Kruger from Nightmare on Elm Street, one as Jason from Friday the 13th, and one as Scream from the movie by the same name.)

Now, we can debate all day long about whether or not we ought to allow our kids to participate in Halloween. Some folks will say that dressing up for Halloween is harmless fun for children. Some may disagree, citing the explicitly Satanic roots of the holiday. But there can be NO debate about this whatsoever. How can there be?

How in the world can ANYONE think it is appropriate for any aged-child, much less a 3rd grader, to dress up like a mass murderer? How could anyone think it is appropriate to approve of such wickedness (if not explicitly, by saying it is okay actually to be a mass murderer, at least implicitly, by allowing them to aspire to be one, even if only for one night)?

Where are the parents of these children? Whatever happened to wanting to be a superhero? or something good and wholesome?

To me, this is an indication of at least three things:

1. The Christian worldview is vanishing from our society. The 16th century reformer John Calvin reminded us that one of the reasons that God gave us His law (in the Bible) was to restrain the sins of society at large and to keep all people, regardless of whether or not they believed in Jesus Christ, living moral lives. The fact that this kind of wickedness can be permitted under the rubric of "good clean fun" proves that our society is becoming further removed from the restraining influences of God's law.

2. Christians are becoming more ineffective in transforming our communities. The fact that society at large is drifting further from the restraining influences of God's law proves that the church is becoming less effective in actually transforming our society. When we couple this with the fact that we still live in the "Bible Belt," that part of our country in which a majority still professes to be Christian, we are presented with the convicting reality that that majority which professes to be Christian obviously has no desire to live according to that profession.

3. Our society has lost its heroes. So, in one sense, why should we be surprised that our children are turning to bad (in fact, downright evil) role models, when they do not have any good ones to choose from? The ONLY role models they have are moviestars. Why should we be surprised that they would choose to be like one of them? We desperately need to reclaim our world and our families from Hollywood. We need REAL heroes today, men and women who are honored for their faith, their good works, their virtue, their character, their courage, loyalty, hard work, sense of duty, selflessness, and sacrificial service to a cause greater than themselves.

Until we correct these things, I'm afraid all we can do is grimace at the prospect of 3rd graders wanting to be mass-murderers!