"Tracts and treats" and positive overtures to trick-or-treaters show evangelical Christians' growing willingness to challenge the devil on his own turf.
By SHARON TUBBS
Published October 28, 2004
Christians across the country are putting an evangelical twist on Halloween this Sunday. Along with Tootsie Rolls and lollipops, they're handing out prayers and biblically themed booklets intended to redeem sinners' souls.
Many see the holiday as a pagan celebration. For years, conservatives were content to dress their kids in angel costumes and head to their church's alternative "fall festival." Others simply turned off their porch lights and refused to participate.
But in a gradual shift in attitude, some now say Halloween is a day that Christians should participate in, for evangelism's sake. Christians are encouraging believers to make themselves spiritually useful on Oct. 31.
"The biggest trick played on Halloween is Christian kids and adults being bottled up inside churches or homes all night," Andy Freeman, a professor at Regent University in Virginia, wrote in an article for the Christian Broadcasting Network's Web site, CBN.com.
"Hiding from the devil in the family life center and surrendering the neighborhood to little ghouls, goblins and witches is a victory for old Beelzebub (the devil). He's got the church right where he wants it: inside the four walls, hunkered down behind the stained glass," Freeman wrote.
Mary Manz Simon, a consultant on the Christian children's marketplace who has written for religious magazines, said she hands out "tracts and treats" bags. The tracts are hand-size booklets that contain stories or information with a Christian theme. The idea is that parents will see the Gospel message as they sort through their kids' candy.
Simon said she hands out two kinds of tracts. One has a picture of a friendly scarecrow on the front and reads, "Hello." On the back is an invitation to her husband's Illinois church. The second tract says, "It's in the bag . . . not a trick but a treat . . . Jesus loves children."
"With spirituality now a water-cooler topic, Christians have a unique opportunity to use secular holidays as an entry point for Jesus Christ," Simon said in an e-mailed response to the Times. "Using Halloween tract/treat bags is one example of 21st century outreach."
Perhaps there is no better example of the idea's spread than the American Tract Society, a company in Garland, Texas, that distributes tracts like those Simon passes out.
If you thought Christmas or Easter was the busiest time for ATS, you would be wrong. Each year the phones ring constantly throughout October, vice president Mark Brown said.
The company has a variety of Halloween tracts. Some are cartoonish. They end with some form of the Gospel and information about becoming a Christian.
Halloween evangelism "seems to be catching on in a big way," Brown said. Sales for Halloween have climbed steadily over the years, he said.
ATS will sell between 3.5- and 4-million Halloween-related tracts this month, Brown said. The company sells about 30-million tracts a year, but Halloween outpaces all other religious holidays. Only special tracts based on The Passion of the Christ movie and those created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have sold more than Halloween. (Each sold 4-million or more.)
Although some churches buy the Halloween tracts, Brown said most sales are made to individuals buying packs of 20 for $2.50.
People use them two ways. Some hand them out to trick-or-treaters who come to their door. ATS encourages Christians to be sure to give candy along with the tract. Otherwise, Brown said, that's cheating the kids. The company also sells an "All-in-One Treat Pak" with a tract, crayons and stickers.
Other Christians take their tracts on the road. Like trick-or-treaters, they go door to door. Instead of asking for a treat, they hand the homeowner a tract.
Brown has taken his son, now 6, along with him for door-to-door evangelism. As people opened their doors, Brown said, they found it "hard to refuse" taking the tract from his son. Some people probably didn't know what the booklet was about until they read it later, he said.
Locally, Bill and Pam Malone, who have a ministry called Pray USA, are planning to evangelize at their home in a Clearwater subdivision.
They will set up a table in their driveway with Krispy Kreme doughnuts and hot apple cider or punch - and small Bibles. Their home will be decorated in white lights for the upcoming holiday season and Christian music will set the tone. They call their activity "Light the Night," in keeping with traditions nationwide that typically involve trick-or-treaters coming to a Christian's home for a puppet show or some other evangelical event.
In 1999, the Malones were visiting friends in St. Louis and told them about Light the Night. Now Mark and Irma Weber, who co-pastor a church there, cater to about 600 to 1,000 trick-or-treaters every year. They serve doughnuts and hot chocolate and give out mini Bibles and notebooks. As Irma Weber hands notebooks to teens, she says a prayer: "Lord God, let nothing go in this notebook that would defile you." To the children, she says, "Let your grades be raised so that you would know and understand the power of Jesus."
As far as she is concerned, every Christian should spread the Gospel on Halloween.
"What we're really doing is not running away from what Satan wants to celebrate as his high holy day," Weber said. "I think the word of God still says that we are to save that which is lost . . . What better night to give them some of God?"
As trick-or-treaters snack on doughnuts and sip juice at the Malones' home in Clearwater, the couple offer to pray. Most people agree to it, they say. Some ask them to pray for unhappy job situations. Others want to be healed from illnesses. Children have asked, "Please pray for me to get good grades in school," Pam Malone said.
In St. Petersburg, Bruce Watters will be praying, too.
"Can I pray for your family and children?" the local jeweler asks parents who arrive on his doorstep with their costumed offspring.
Watters, who also is a chaplain for the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, has handed out tracts with candy bars and other goodies for about three years.
"We know the kids come around and they're going to expect something," his wife, Patricia, said. "But they're not going to expect the tracts."
This is the couple's way of balancing the popular holiday with their spiritual convictions.
In Temple Terrace, Centerpointe Community Church will host its annual fall festival on Sunday from 4 to 7 p.m. The event is about children having fun, but also sets the stage for spreading the Gospel, said Erik Ronne, the church's youth pastor.
In the midst of the dart games and dunk tanks there will be a table for biblical literature and tracts.
"The event itself is a draw to get people on the property," Ronne said. "It gives us a chance to talk to the adults about where their faith is."
