When you send your offspring to knock on a door and ask for treats, you have no control over what sort of response that child might get.
“You kids get off of my property!” the homeowner might shout, tradition and glowing porch lights notwithstanding. Or he might drop a full-size Snickers bar into your child’s pumpkin-shaped bucket. A tiny treat would be the most likely outcome, but other options are possible as well.
“Money!” they yelled as they dumped their loot into a communal pile for parental inspection. As we sorted out the peanutty items they amused themselves by imagining what they’d buy with their new million dollar bills:
Eventually they were scooped up by my eldest, who planned on using the bills as bookmarks. The kids munched on candy while their father and I talked over the events of the day. I forgot all about the money until I was asked to hold it while the child changed out of her costume. It was only then that I examined the text on the bill’s back side:
The million-dollar question: Will you go to Heaven when you die? Here’s a quick test. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything, or used God’s name in vain? Jesus said, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Have you looked with lust? Will you be guilty on Judgment Day? If you have done those things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in Hell. That’s not God’s will. He sent His Son to suffer and die on the cross for you. You broke God’s Law, but Jesus paid your fine. That means He can legally dismiss your case. He can commute your death sentence: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Then He rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus alone, and God will grant you the gift of everlasting life. Then read your Bible daily and obey it.
My throat squeezed with annoyance that someone had slipped this horrific bit of propaganda into a child’s innocent celebration. What does a three-year-old need to know about lust? Or a five-year-old about blasphemy? Should my ten-year-old have her reading interrupted by images of death on a cross and The Risen Zombie Jesus? How dare they bludgeon my children with such a hateful, terrifying screed?
Perhaps I should have let her keep the bookmarks after a thorough debriefing. Instead I ripped them to pieces and threw them into the trash. After I calmed down I wished that they’d hired me to write their tract:
“Treat others the way you want to be treated.” Jesus taught this message some 2,000 years ago and you know what? It still applies today. Do you treat others the way you’d want them to treat you? Ask yourself this as you go through your day. When your siblings want some attention do you play with them or tell them to go away? If you find a camera on the bus do you turn it in to the lost and found or keep it for yourself? If your dad needs help with chores do you respond or pretend you didn’t hear? The Bible challenges us to be patient, kind and generous to the people in our lives. How can you do this? Make friends with the new kid at school. Offer to help your parents without being asked. Talk to someone who’s sick or lonely. Learn about a local homeless shelter, canned food drive, bookmobile or animal rescue and make a donation of time or money — or both! If you treat others as you’d like to be treated you might be surprised at how good it feels, and you’ll be following the example Jesus set so long ago.
That tract might have lasted long enough in my household to be read by its intended audience.
Yeah, the same thing would have happened in my house.
*sigh*
peace…
I don’t know where you stand with God and Jesus, but the tract that was given to you is more the truth than the one you have written.
Yes it may not be 100% suitable for a child, but the message is pretty clear. I have seen those tracts many times before.
To believe that the Halloween tract is “the truth” one would first have to believe that there’s such a thing as THE truth.
That may be *your* truth, but it’s not everyone’s, and it’s no one else’s right to push their own beliefs on others.
I don’t read even an ounce of truth in that tract, as I’m an atheist and do no subscribe to the beliefs written there. But I would never force someone else to read a lecture about my beliefs because it’s not my place to do so, just like I don’t appreciate being subjected to a lecture about someone else’s.
We did go to their door. :)
That wasn’t even a nice little snippet to let kids know that God loves them and that they should be good people because the Bible says so. That was disgusting sensationalist propaganda meant to instill fear in children. I would have been furious. Whether or not that’s their belief, it’s not everyone’s and they have no right to shove it down the throats of unwilling neighbors.
I think it’s awful and inappropriate.
I just think it’s bizarre to give a handout to a child talking about looking at a woman with lust in your heart. I mean, WTF (literally).
Brava! aag. I would have done the same. People that push their beliefs and or their version of “the truth” on others, especially children, just piss me right off.
AAG — I’ll go to your church. Mine seems to be overrun with paedophiles at the moment, and I’d much rather attend a service given by someone with healthy lust that isn’t in denial.
Oh, isn’t that just lovely. Sensationalist religious propaganda like that sends me into a towering rage. For kids, Halloween is a harmless little holiday where they get to play dress-up and eat candy. Why ruin their playtime with crap like this? If you absolutely MUST bring your religiosity into it, give your stupid tracts to the parents instead. Not that they’ll be any more interested in receiving them, but for chrissake, handing out tracts talking about lust to KIDS?
– PB
Fer cryin’ out loud….if you don’t believe in the dark, evil tenets of costumes, pumpkin carving and candy, leave your porch light off and don’t answer your door.
On a lighter note, speaking of “odd things received while trick-er-treating”. Our neighbors were trick-er-treating for the food bank and asking for canned goods. At one house, a fellow came to the door and seemed a bit confused at the request for cans vs. candy. Then he brightened up, told them to wait, and went back into the house. When he reappeared, he proudly placed two used, and then crushed aluminum soda cans into their bag. I don’t think he liked their confused, as opposed to grateful faces as he then straightened up, replied, “every little bit helps”, and shut the door.
For shame!!!
Wonderfully said miss – may I copy it to save for my kids when appropriate?
Of course. :)
Well that was special!
Good move. I like the rewrite. It’s actually more in keeping with what the New Testament is about, which, in all reality is what Christians should be following and staying the heck outta the Torah.
Jesus changed quite a few things when he showed up so you kinda gotta go with what he said, which is LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
I don’t understand why this is so hard for Christians to grok. Dude, I’m not one anymore and I know this…*sigh*
Sorry to hear that someone felt that it was his duty to intervene with the upbringing of the neighborhood children.
I like your version. I think that it contains important values that all children could use a little extra exposure to (though, as an atheist, my version would lack any reference to Jesus or the bible). But there’s a reason why tracts and other evangelical methods use language like that found in the ones your family got. It works when the goal is to bring in recruits.
Thanks, SaraBee. I was trying to write one that *might* appeal to Christians. :)
Amazingly enough, this happened to us our first Christmas in our neighborhood three years ago. Our son was 3 at the time, and I’d heard nice things about the man living around the corner. When the lad got to his house to trick or treat, he was given a bag with a bar of candy, some stickers, some other little booklet thing, and that very same million dollar bill.
We thought: how cool to give away a goodie bag! The rest of the neighborhood was just as generous; lots of people giving out full-sized candy bars and whatnot. When we got home and rummaged through the night’s haul, we got through the goodie bag. The booklet had some little Bible story in it, I think.
And then we saw the text on that play bill. I brushed it off, having been a life-long atheist I had gotten quite used to the more offensive sections of Christianity coming after me. But my wife, ever more aware having been raised Catholic, was furious. And she said the same thing, “How dare he give me 3 year old some propaganda about lust!? I don’t care about the message, he’s 3!”
I wound up doing the same as you, tearing it up and pitching it, as well as that stupid booklet (which on second recollection may have had something about masturbation and deities killing kittens). But we wish we had held on to it so we could share what this “good Christian” had given our 3 year old boy.
Sorry for the lengthy response. I just thought I’d share.
And I’m apparently e-tarded: I just realized my first line said Christmas instead of Halloween. Must’ve been recalling my annoyance with the Christianist there. My bad.