W! T!
Give 'em Scripture Candy, which has Bible text on the wrappers. Or give them "...EvangeCandy, 'the only candy with color-coded Gospels on every wrapper'..." which "are fun for children"!
What children? What kid looks at the freaking wrapper of the candy he's gobbling? "Holy shit, I'd better read this wrapper just in case it contains Bible text which will save me from Satan!"
Or eschew candy entirely and give them "gospel tracts". That's an awesome idea. It'll certainly guarantee you a year's supply of free toilet paper, once you unwind it from your trees and bushes. Lookit that, the one about "bread cast upon the waters" is actually true! Sort of.
Look, I'm a Christian, born and raised Methodist. I have pretty strong feelings about my religion, too. But for crying out loud, can we please just get a freaking grip already? Here I thought the worst thing you could do to a kid who's trick-or-treating was to give him fruit--boy, was I wrong.
"Did you ever wonder why Halloween seems to primarily feed off of a market of 3-13 year olds? This is a Satanic ploy for our children."
Hold it! Stop right there! A Satanic ploy? Do these people listen to themselves?
Oh, but "I don't think that Christian children should completely abstain from the festivities of costumes and candy, because they can be a light through their alternative behavior. [I personally plan on dressing my children up in Biblical and God-honoring characters that will draw people to ask questions.]"
What kind of questions?
Ordinary kid: "What the hell are you supposed to be?"
This woman's
OK: "Who the fuck is Ezekiel?"
WK: "Well, in Bible..."
OK: "Okay, shut up." [punch hit kick etc]
Even better, dress the kid up like Judas. Give him a fake noose to wear around his neck, too, while you're at it. Make a pillar of salt costume for your daughter and she can be Lot's wife.
"This Halloween, spiritually invest in your neighborhood children and don't make the mistake that I have made of ignoring the doorbell. Please do not shut yourself off to this generation. You have a unique opportunity to invest in the Kingdom of God without even leaving your home. Suffer not these little children and consider how you can protect them from the hauntings of the Enemy."*sigh*
* * *
While we're on the subject, let's deal with the stupidity that is the "hell house", shall we?
The basic concept is that of the object lesson: each room of a hell house is a diorama, showing people in morally questionable situations, and the message is that unless you turn to Jesus, you'll end up in hell.
Yeah, it's pretty fricking retarded. People go to a haunted house to be scared, not for a stupid sermon. The only message a haunted house should have is "this shit is scary".
For better or worse, the concept of hell doesn't scare most poeple. People worry about a lot of other things more, things a lot more immediate, like being able to make the house payment this month, and finding the money to pay for the kid's braces, and trying to get promoted at work; if people think about it at all, it's somewhere in the deep background, something they worry about late at night when they've managed to stop worrying about everything else.
For many Christians--particularly the evangelical sort--that is the biggest worry of all, that anyone will go to hell. That's nice of them; really, it is. I can't fault their intentions.
But we all know which road is paved with good intentions.
Hell houses and the above ludicrosity (I don't care if that's an actual word or not, that's how annoyed I am by it) don't serve to bring people into the faith. Christians have a reputation for being people who are excited by simple, stupid, boring things, and who shun anything that might even hint at being somewhat sinful, and who will lecture the fuck out of you if you're not "on fire for Jesus" like they are, and try to convert you to their faith...and they have this reputation because--well...have you ever hung around really devout Christians?
Devout Christians will go to hell houses and feel good about them--but what does that say about them? "Look at those people! They're going to go to hell, but I have nothing to fear from this because I've accepted Christ!" That's awfully arrogant of you, isn't it? What's the point of preaching to the converted, anyway? How do you "scare straight" someone who's already straight?
The only way you can get "regular" people into a hell house is by tricking them into it, and that's not only unfair, it's counterproductive: what person is going to say, "Well, crap! Here I wanted to get scared, but you've converted me to Jesus!" when he's annoyed that he paid good money for...for what?
If you want people to come to Jesus, you're not going to accomplish that by tricking them into hearing the message. All that does is foster resentment, something that Christianity can ill afford.
It's all part of a larger theme, which is that Christians have to "do something" about Halloween, which is "of Satan" because of its pagan origins.
If we have to "do something" about Halloween, then we've also got to "do something" about Christmas, too. Christ was not born on December 25; early Christians celebrated his birth on that date because it came near the end of the winter solstice bacchanalia of the pagans, and it made it easier for pagans to stomach becoming Christians. So we'd have to do away with Christmas being on December 25 and move it to sometime in the spring or early summer.
Of course there are already Christians who are thinking about that. I once heard a woman ask--in all seriousness!--this question, on a radio show: "Do you think that 'Santa' is an anagram of 'Satan'?"
Arrgh!