Christians and Halloween?

Why do we have Halloween?  Where does it come from?

This is from Wikipedia:

“Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that…it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)”.^[1] The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly “summer’s end”.^[1] A similar festival was held by the ancient Britons and is known as Calan Gaeaf (pronounced Kálan Gái av).

The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the “lighter half” of the year and beginning of the “darker half”, and is sometimes^[2] regarded as the “Celtic New Year”.^[3]

The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family’s ancestors were honoured and invited home while harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks. Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm. In Scotland the spirits were impersonated by young men dressed in white with masked, veiled or blackened faces.^[4][5] Samhain was also a time to take stock of food supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. All other fires were doused and each home lit their hearth from the bonfire. The bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.^[6] Sometimes two bonfires would be built side-by-side, and people and their livestock would walk between them as a cleansing ritual.”

This is the original celebration, a pagan celebration that involved a belief in evil spirits.  The dressing up originally took the form of evil spirits.

So how do we get the name Halloween?  It was the habit of the Roman Catholic Church, and its offspring the Anglican Church, to proclaim feast days and celebrations to coincide with pagan ones.  The idea was to give pagan peoples a choice, an alternative to what they were used to doing so that they might give those days a new significance.  November 1 is called All Hallows Day, a feast day to honor those who had been canonized as saints in the religion.  The night before All Hallows Day is called All Hallows Even, which eventually turned into Halloween.  As is often the case, people with pagan traditions do not give up their pagan notions.  The night before All Hallows Day, it was traditional to dress up as an evil spirit or something evil in order that the spooks that were believed to be roaming about would pass you by.

There are many other traditions associated with Halloween: trick-or-treating, jack-o-lanterns, etc. But the purpose of this study is not to learn about all those traditions.  For even an introductory look at Halloween, such as we have done right now, should warn our hearts and make it plain that Christians ought to have nothing to do with this practice.

Let us look at a few verses:

 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22   Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 22   Abstain from all appearance of evil.

This means first that we should be diligent in searching the scriptures and praying about a matter before we participate in it or condone it or approve it.  It’s easy to say, “Aw, it’s just a bunch of harmless fun!” and then not even try to see if the Bible teaches us that it’s okay to participate in pagan rituals, just for fun.   Then it gives a guiding parameter: abstain from all appearance of evil.  God knew that we were going to face situations where evil may not be our intent, and evil may not be in our hearts or in our actions, but an evil light could still be cast upon our testimony.  If there’s any doubt, if there’s any potential for your actions being interpreted as approval of that which is evil, why take a chance?  Why give a nonbeliever a reason to believe that spiritually, you’re no different from them?  Why just fall in and do the things that lost people do?  How does that help our testimony?

Ephesians 5:7-11 Be not ye therefore partakers with them. 8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: 9   (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) 10   Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. 11   And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

So here we are, saved.  We are saved from spiritual darkness.  We are saved from spiritual ignorance.  What you find when you examine the practices associated with Halloween is that they are all born of spiritual ignorance.

For example, the custom of dressing up comes from the belief that evil dead could roam the earth on a certain day of the year and that you could fool them into believing you were one of them and therefore escape harm.  It’s foolishness, but that’s how people thought back then.  The bible plainly teaches us that the lost dead end up in hell and can never escape it.  If there are evil spirits, they are demons like unto Satan; to think you could fool one of them is ridiculous for they are old as the earth itself and cunning.  No, it seems, rather that Satan, the fallen angel, is the one who has fooled the people of the earth, inspiring silly notions about death and ghosts.  When people don’t know what the Bible says, they believe all manner of lies and deceptions.  All of the original practices of Halloween are based on this fact.

Once again, in verse 10, we see the words “proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.”  Too many people fail to search the scriptures to prove what is acceptable unto the Lord.  Too many people look through the scriptures to discover not what we should be doing, but rather what they can get away with.

Furthermore, it is our Christian duty to avoid “the unfruitful works of darkness” and testify against them.  So what if we have the Hollywood version of Halloween nowadays?  Does that make it less evil?  If a woman dresses as a ladybug instead of a witch, does that change the fact that the practice was born of spiritual darkness?  No.  We can ask ourselves this:  “How does participating in any of these activities honor the Lord?”  That’s a hard question.  That’s the real show stopper for most questionable things.  The Bible doesn’t cover every situation that we find ourselves in, but if we ask ourselves that question honestly, it can usually resolve the issue for us.  “Does doing this honor the Lord?”

“Have no fellowship” with these things.  That is repeated throughout the Bible.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18   Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? 15   And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16   And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17   Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18   And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

There are several principles here:

a)      Participating in the traditions of unbelievers makes you unequally yoked together with them.

b)      There is to be no compromise between Christ and Satan (Belial).  So there should be no compromise in conduct between those who identify with Christ and those who do not.

c)      The temple of God had no agreement with idols.  You, if you are saved, are the temple of the Living God.  Your body should not be involved in idolatrous practices, no matter how benign they might seem.

d)     God is with you wherever you go.  Are you actually going to take God trick-or-treating?  Will you dress him up as Batman?  Take Him to a haunted house?

e)      Come out from among them.  We are to separate from nonbelievers, in speech and dress and conversation, and in the things we choose to participate in.

Nonetheless, many Christians resist these warnings.  They say, “It’s just for fun.  I don’t mean any harm by it.  Halloween today is nothing like it was 500 years ago; it’s completely harmless.  As a Christian, I can choose to have fun and not compromise my spiritual faithfulness to God.”

Let’s look at an example from the ancient days of Israel.  Read II Kings 17: 9-12

 2 Kings 17:9   And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.10   And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: 11   And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: 12   For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.

Why was the Lord angry over these practices?  What was so infuriating about these acts? When the Lord gave the land to Israel, He had specifically ordered for the high places to be destroyed.  The heathen altars and groves were to be wiped out.  Under no guise did the Lord want to be worshipped in the manner that the heathen peoples worshipped their gods.  God is not the author of confusion.  There was to be no mixing of  worldly methods or worldly imagery with true worship of God.  No graven images were to made.  None of the practices of the heathen were to be observed, for the Lord knew this would lead them to idolatry.

This still holds true today.  The Lord wants new vessels in His house, not something recycled from the world.  He wants a new song, not an imitation of what the world has to offer.  He wants the vestiges of our old life to be wiped away.  When you become saved, you not just changing the words to your songs and changing the name of your god; you are forsaking the old ways, turning from vessels of dishonor turning away from the world.

All Christians should heed the call for a prayerful consideration of this practice of Halloween.  Parents need to ask themselves the question, “Is this really harmless fun?”

The truth about Samhain, the old Celtic festival, is that they sacrificed to idols.  Paul, the apostle, in 1 Corinthians 10:20: “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.”  William Schnoebelen was a practicing witch for many years before he became a born-again Christian.  He states in his book that Halloween is the biggest celebration in witchcraft for the entire year, still to this day.  He has this to say about Halloween:

“If you are a Christian parent, God has given you a precious responsibility in your children. Remember, their ability to resist spiritual wickedness is much less than yours. If you allow your children to participate in Halloween (Trick or Treating, costume parties, etc.) you are allowing them to play on “the devil’s turf,” and Satan will definitely press his home court advantage. You are opening up doorways into their young lives for evil by bringing them into a kind of “fellowship” with these ancient “gods.”

“We are commanded not to become involved with the unfruitful works of darkness (Eph. 5:11). Both from my experience as a witch, and since getting saved, as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have seen far too many examples of how breaking this command works out in lives. Remember, while we have God’s promise of protection for ourselves and our children, that promise may not hold if we allow our children to celebrate this dark holiday. Case after case has come to us of children in rebellion. In many of these families, the problem can be traced back to the children being exposed to Halloween at a young age. It is hard enough to raise children these days in a Godly way without exposing them to Satan’s realm.”

Christians, for our children’s sake, we need to seriously consider abstaining from Halloween if we do not already.