Ah, the season of scares! It’s upon us. Whether you love Halloween or pretend it doesn’t exist, much of the world is preparing for something frightening at this time of year. If you look up the history of Halloween you’ll find that what began as an ancient religious festival to ward off evil spirits has become a secular celebration, where people actually dress up as and invite the very spirits the festival was originally supposed to get rid of! The earliest settlers of the American colonies largely rejected the holiday due to their strong Protestant beliefs, but since the early 20th century it has become a multibillion dollar festivity in the United States alone. Horror movies bring in almost one billion dollars each year, and those are on the rise. Even though I don’t like scary movies now, I’m pretty sure I saw every one ever made before the year 2000, so I get the draw. But, why do we love being scared so much that we’re willing to spend money on it?
I’m not a psychiatrist and I’m sure people have different reasons, but there is one explanation that I think applies to everyone. That is the fact that we were created to fear. Psalm 33:8 says, “Let all the earth fear the Lord.” Proverbs calls the fear of the Lord wisdom and knowledge. Luke tell us that God is to be feared because He can cast our soul into hell. That last point is exactly why I became a Christian and was baptized twenty-five years ago. You may think that’s not a valid reason to turn to Christ, but I would beg to differ. If we were created to fear God, it stands to reason that acknowledging His awesome power to destroy us is certainly a legitimate reason to give ourselves over to His will. In doing so we become His children and are no longer considered the enemies we were before our conversions. Interestingly, when I learned to fear God, I stopped wanting to be scared by Hollywood.
Obviously, after years of being a Christian, I’ve come to understand other attributes of God that make me less fearful and more grateful. His love is what motivates me now. Much like a good relationship between a human parent and child, when we’re very young we should have a healthy fear of our parents’ authority. It keeps us safe and sets us on the right track. As we grow older and have children of our own, we learn to appreciate our parents on a different level, and our relationships become more about love and respect. We start to understand why they did what they did and how it helped to shape us into the people we are today. Unfortunately, many people didn’t have a healthy experience growing up, and we’re seeing the aftereffects of a nation where children were never brought up to fear anything.
Maybe that unfulfilled God-given need to fear is what drives people to seek it out through entertainment. So, when I see the lengths that people will go to just for a scare, I try not to be too judgmental about how they’re going about it. I don’t want gory Halloween decorations on my lawn, and I don’t have any desire to watch the latest horror flick on the big screen, but it’s only because I have something more awesome to fear—God’s power. Instead of looking down on those who do want those things for the season, instead of a self-righteous proclamation that I’m a Christian and don’t celebrate Halloween, maybe it’s better if I recognize the boom of the Halloween industry as a healthy appetite for the very fear that God put into each of our hearts at creation. Maybe I could find an opportunity to share the Gospel by sharing the fear of the Lord. There’s truly nothing scarier than that!
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