On Friday, I went to my first protest here in Lima. Generally, I’m a fan of protests. Free speech and Democracy in action. It’s the “cool” thing to do when you’re a college-ish aged white kid – standing up to the establishment. Even better – this was a church protest.
Every year, the kids at Kilometer 13’s compassion program hold a protest against Halloween. A protest march, that is. All of the kids bring posters that say things like “Say No to Halloween, Say Yes to Jesus!” And they have pictures of jack-o-lanterns in red circles with slashes through the middle. Many of the kids wear sandwich-board style signs with messages on both sides. One girl, who must have been about 4, wore an adorable pink sandwich-board sign with white cloth frills around the edges that said “No Al Halloween”on the front and “Christo Te Ama” on the back. Unfortunately, I’m still kind of paranoid about bringing my camera places in light of getting robbed a month ago, so I don’t have pictures of this event. I really, really wish I had brought it, because the photos would have been awesome to share.
So as you probably already knew, I wasn’t exactly in favor of the cause behind this particular protest, but that doesn’t matter. I kept that little fact to myself. Living with this bit of hypocrisy is a small price to pay to be able to say that I participated in a protest march against Halloween on the streets of Lima, Peru. There were about 60 or so kids marching, and 5 or 6 older leaders to help keep them in order. We walked a good 9 or 10 block loop, the whole time shouting “¡No al Halloween! ¡Si al Cristo!” and other variations on this basic theme. People in the neighborhood came out of their houses and stores to watch us. Most just stared in bewildered silence, but a few clapped along.
I’m still not exactly sure why the churches here are so anti-Halloween. They say it’s all about the Devil. I must say I’m kind of unfamiliar with the origins of Halloween and trick-or-treating myself. I kind of like the idea of kids dressing up and getting free candy. I guess the pagans just have all the fun holidays…
Oh well, I thought the protest was tons of fun. Of course, I’m still pro-Halloween. But I’m definitely not anti-Halloween protest marches. If the churches here want to be against Halloween, I say go for it. All the kids had a blast. They had been talking about it with excitement earlier in the week. I think they’d be pretty disappointed if next year the adults told them that things had changed and Halloween was okay now. They have a blast drawing pictures and making posters. And who doesn’t like the idea of marching around a neighborhood en masse shouting “¡No Al Halloween!” at the top of your lungs?
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1 comment:
That's awesome!! Ironically, I was at a Halloween party with Leigh Ann's church group...she's Evangelical Free, which here in the US is a fairly conservative church.
But I think one thing your experience reveals is that the Christian church outside the US is perfectly comfortable discussing spirits, demons, the Devil, and all things supernatural, whereas here in the US, on Pentecostals do that, and they're considered crazty by most Christians here.
Just an interesting observation; glad you enjoyed the protest.
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