Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of Unchanging

Truth, the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Every year around this time, the ritual begins anew.

The weather cools off, the leaves change color, Christian start arguing about Halloween.

Look many people love this night, gives them excuse to host parties to kick off the holiday

spending season and to provide economic stimulus for the dental industry.

Use it as an excuse to flirt with things much darker than plastic skeletons and creative

jack-a-lanterns. Too many adults use Halloween as an excuse to throw out common standards of

modesty. What is the real history behind Halloween? What's all the decoration and tradition

about? Is there something spiritual behind all the ghoulishness? Back when I was a kid,

there was a series of comic book-style tracks that went around claiming that Halloween was a

pagan holiday called Samhain when ancient Druids used to carry out human sacrifices under a full moon.

Well, that story has even modern pagans who love Halloween to admit is mostly made up.

The very name Halloween means holy evening. It was a throwback to when Catholic Christians

prepare for the feast of all saints on November 1. And a few years ago, Kurt Cameron urged

Christians to make the most of Halloween's Christian origins to throw the biggest Halloween

party on the block. Not only is it a great way to make fun of the devil he argued,

it offers Christians a wonderful opportunity to proclaim Jesus' victory over sin and death

to their neighbors. Well, our Christian forebears might have agreed with this advice.

In his book for the glory of God, historian Rodney Stark argued that Christians and the early

centuries of the church frequently reacted to pagan practices like fortune telling, alchemy,

or sorcery, by not taking those things seriously. Augustine, for example, myth-busted astrology

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