Is Trick-or-Treat a liturgical parade?

Modern Halloween is the epitome of blaspheming glorious ones.

J.M. Robinson

recently wrote to defend Halloween mockery against the objection that it runs afoul of Jude 8–10:

Blaspheming Glorious Ones

Josh rightly points out that when Christ triumphed over the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, he put them to open shame, leading them in triumphal procession (Eph 4:8; Ps 68:18; Col 2:15).

And the church, as the earthly body of Christ and the instrument of his gospel — the message of his triumph — cannot help but participate in this event.

Moreover, our participation is especially by remembrance — memorial is a key concept and practice in scripture; and not an intellectual or spiritual one, but a sacramental and material one: “Do this unto my remembrance” (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24).

How should we worship? Part 8: the Lord's Supper as covenant remembrance

The church is thus more than authorized to commemorate Christ’s victory-procession, parading the shame of the despoiled principalities and demons before the world — she is all but mandated to do it.

Thus far, so good.

My question, however, is whether any of this really speaks to modern Halloween practices.

I know Josh will not mind a friendly challenge. It is also only fair me to note that his article is speaking about general principles, not specific practices. I don’t know how he celebrates Halloween, or how he counsels his church to celebrate it.

But at the same time, he does seem to be trying to satisfy the objections and appease the consciences of Christians who are considering how Halloween is typically celebrated.

The paradigm model for that is Trick-or-Treat.

But Trick-or-Treat obviously looks nothing like a commemorative victory parade led by the church.

There is no clear way, symbolically speaking, in which it draws from Christian doctrine or history at all.

But there are many plain ways in which it draws from historical, cross-cultural pagan practices associated with the Day of the Dead — without doing much to redeem them.

Dressing up as evil and abominable things is not the same as mocking those things. It can show that you don’t fear them; but that is seldom what imitation does mean. Usually it is a form of symbolic participation in them.

Neither does having those demons running free, extorting offerings from those who fear their retribution, seem like a perspicuous way to celebrate how they can no longer run free extorting offerings from those who fear them.

I am not saying there is no logic to it. I see how you can say, “We are re-enacting the world that was, in celebration of how it is no longer the world that is. We have turned what was then a bad reality into what is now a good game.”

But it rings hollow — because it is indistinguishable from what the pagans are doing (and have always done in some form); and it does not synchronize with the actual model of scripture, which is a victory parade in which those demons are obviously captives.

If you were to have a great festival where Trick-or-Treat was interrupted by fireworks, and then all the people in houses turned upon the trick-or-treaters and chased them away, or captured them and dragged them into a procession up to the local church, after which the gifts they had stolen were shared among the congregation and the poor, that would be quite a different matter.

But tell me about a place where that happens!

Indeed, a chief problem with Trick-or-Treat is that the church is not present at all. Individual members may be; but the body is not.

Josh made the case well that the pageantry of Halloween belongs to the church. The celebration of Halloween is the church putting on her victory.

But church members doing whatever the rest of their culture is doing…that is not the church.

In this way, it seems to me that Christians participating in Trick-or-Treat (without serious modification to the practice) are, in fact, blaspheming glorious ones through irreverent mockery, and overturning the hierarchy of creation, by making the devices of their own minds—and the minds of their pagan neighbors—the standard for their liturgical practices; rather than Christ’s word, mediated through his body.

This is confusion.

Carnivalesque pageantry is clearly an appropriate way for the church to liturgically participate in Christ’s victory-march out of Hades.

So let’s see the church doing this.

Trick-or-Treat ain’t it.

Update

Josh responds here:

Trick-or-Triumph

What this response reveals is that the difference between us seems to be caused by speaking in general principles, rather than getting into specific practices.

I am somewhat ignorant, because Halloween is not celebrated here in NZ like it is in the US; however, it is my impression that All Hallows does not have any kind of formal celebration, following Hallows’ Eve.

I’d like to see Josh lay out how the liturgy of the two days actually works for his church (ignoring All Souls for now). Given the nature of modern Halloween practices, I really think we need to set out a model for how the church should adjust the cultural celebration — so the liturgical sequence that Josh highlights is actually highlighted. This is especially important given that children are so often the ones primarily caught up in Halloween, and we should be careful to ensure the sequence from carnival to cathedral, death to life, fringe to center, is very clear to them.