Shane Winnings: Going Against Your Convictions Is a Sin
Next, Promise Keepers CEO Shane Winnings addressed the flip side of Halloween: Christians who feel called to “redeem the time” and go “be a light” in the darkness. That’s fine if you have the faith and conviction for that, he said, referring back to the Apostle Paul’s words.
Winnings continued:
The Bible says that if you go against your own convictions, it is a sin. But Paul also says we need to do a good job of making sure that we’re not causing other people in the faith to stumble. That means that we’re not coming down hard on people who feel one way or the other when it comes to things that are not explicitly written in the Bible. This is not comparable to eating meat sacrificed to idols because that was explicitly condemned in the Old Testament. Halloween was never mentioned in the Old Testament. So now that we’re under a new covenant, it’s understandable that people aren’t sure where they fall.
For anyone still on the fence about Halloween, Winnings said, “I personally believe you’re never going to regret abstaining. Like, I just don’t think you’re going to get to heaven and God’s going to go, you know, you really could have watched a little more horror movies. You really could have listened to more secular music.”
In September, Winnings issued warnings about the dark, “demonic” horror movie “Him.” That type of entertainment is “not good for my mind, it’s not good for my heart, it’s not going to help me in my walk with the Lord,” he said then.
RELATED: ‘Demonic’ Movie Promise Keepers CEO Warned Against Is Full of Twisted Christian Imagery
To wrap up his video about Halloween, Winnings noted that choosing to abstain from worldly things such as Halloween saves Christians the headache of trying to weigh what’s sinful or not. “Trying to pursue holiness is godly,” he said. “It’s not holier than thou. It’s not self-righteousness. I think it’s wisdom. I think it’s wisdom if you’re unsure to just choose the route of abstaining from the thing in the world that might give off the appearance of evil.”
Winnings concluded:
As Christians, we are called to live above reproach, especially leaders. Living above reproach means that we’re not even giving people the opportunity to point a finger and wonder. So if you’re not sure [about Halloween] and you can’t do it out of full conviction and full faith, I think you should just back away. If you do have the conviction for it, if you do have the faith for it, if you really don’t believe it’s bad or it’s evil and you could stand before God and testify to that, I think you should do that.
