Stuart Segall, pastor of the Eureka and Crescent City, California, congregations, submitted a guest editorial titled "Halloween Revisited" to the local newspaper. The Eureka Reporter, which circulates throughout Humboldt County, ran the editorial the first week in November.

"What was most interesting was the calls I received from local pastors wanting to ask more questions about the subject and other 'holidays,'" Mr. Segall said. "I had two active pastors, a retired pastor and a youth pastor call me. The youth pastor used it in his Bible class for youth and on his youth Web site... He told me later it generated a great discussion."

The editorial began: "Now that another Halloween is over, I offer a little humble food for thought. I couldn't help but meditate on this again as I walked through my jam-packed neighborhood the evening of the holiday observing carnality from start to finish. It was also on my mind the next morning as I walked again through my neighborhood picking up trash all over the place.

"Any student of simple history knows that this 'holiday' has its origins in paganism with its roots firmly implanted in the dark world of evil spirits. Somehow, many justify that if you have rancid milk, and you throw in several scoops of ice cream, you will no longer have rancid milk.

"The Bible in Jeremiah 10:2 counseled the children of God to 'learn not the way of the heathen' [KJV], yet we seem to consider this not worthy. We just add the scoop of ice cream to the heathen pot and we seem to think it makes it right. So many Christian Web sites that I read all offer the counsel that there is no problem with Halloween as long as we Christianize it. The implication is that we have the right to take something evil in origin and somehow bring Christianity to blanket the past.

"Yet, Jesus taught simplicity to weigh this logic on His scale when He gave the illustration in Matthew 9:17 that you don't put 'new wine into old wineskins' any more than you would put a scoop of vanilla ice cream into a rancid carton of milk. Jesus also emphasized the same point in the previous verse when He spoke that 'no one puts a piece of unshrunk [new] cloth on an old garment.' It seems He is stating that His new way of life is not to be added on to old human, dark things.

"Jesus offers simplicity so we don't have to have great theological debates over the wisdom of these applications, yet how we try to rationalize past pagan holidays of days gone by and put new cloth on them. The question would be, does Halloween bear any good fruit, even though it brings in lots of candy?

"Kids at a very young age are bombarded with the dark side filled with horror and evil spirits, from the decorations to the entertainment. Is there any wonder why young children grow up to have a fascination with horror movies and video games filled with violence, abuse and often immersion into the dark occult world that they are exposed to in such entertainment? Year after year, they are reminded by the ever-growing preparation and completion of all that accompanies these things in Halloween.

"The fruit that Jesus [brought] bears a uniquely different outcome. I realize this is not the popular position with both Christians and others, and I'd better batten down the hatches, but what I am offering, again, is just food for thought, and you must decide if what I am setting before you is 'trick or treat.'"