Every year at around this time one hears of churches sponsoring “Halloween alternatives”. I’ve had the pleasure of both attending these events as a patron in my childhood and of sponsoring them later on as a youth pastor. Generally the events take the form of a small carnival with games and snacks and they often center on a harvest theme. In keeping with the expectations of children candy is everywhere, pumpkins are plentiful and costumes may even be worn. But even so, regardless of all these tell-tale signs, the actual word “Halloween” is rarely spoken. In fact, in some contexts it’s avoided like the plague.
The thinking behind this behavior is rather straight-forward: Halloween has pagan roots and so it would be inappropriate for a believer to participate in it… well, at least to name it.
In many ways, modern Christians who avoid Halloween are much like ancient Christians who avoided meat that had been sacrificed to idols. In both instances the thing in view has been associated at some time with dark spiritual forces and the believer is all too aware of its dubious history.
Halloween does indeed have pagan background, developing out of Celtic festivals such as Samhain in the British Isles in which the spirits of the dead figured prominently. But while October 31st may have a rather dubious lineage, like other formerly pagan holidays(including Christmas and Easter) this day has undergone a process of Christianization. As the gospel moved into the British Isles the Church recognized both the danger and the opportunity that Samhain and its equivalents presented. As such, the early Christians took the day and reinterpreted it, instituting the feast of All Saints on November 1st: a day on which believers looked back to the heroes of the faith whom had left a good example for us to follow. All Saints, sometimes called “All Hallows” (as in “hallowed ground”, meaning holy) was preceded by a vigil of prayer and sometimes fasting which began on the evening before All Hallows—All Hallows Eve (as in “Christmas Eve”), the day from which we get our Halloween.
As such, Halloween is an excellent example of what Jesus spoke of when commenting on the kingdom of Satan in Luke 11. After parrying criticism that He was merely casting out devils by the authority of the prince of devils (the Devil) Jesus said, “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.” In the parable Satan is the strong man, the “God of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) guarding his own territory, who is overpowered by the Spirit of God, the “someone stronger” (1 John 4:4). Christ tells us that not only are the strong man’s possessions (lost souls) taken from him, but that he is stripped of even the armor he trusted in, even those things which he had hoped would allow him to retain control over his domain.
The church has seen the power of God accomplish this impressive feat over and over again, taking the very institutions that perpetuated the spiritual darkness of the world and redeeming them to aid in its salvation. The pagan festivals of Yule and Saturnalia with their feasting and evergreen trees were transformed into Christmas; the springtime worship of the pagan goddess Eostre with its colored eggs and so on was transformed into Easter; and Samhain was transformed into Halloween.
Of course, Halloween has lost most of its religious significance and I don’t imagine that many at First Baptist would jump at the chance to pray and fast for days, but that doesn’t mean that it is any more immoral to gather candy from the neighbors on October 31st than it is to give them gifts on December 25th.
Wow, in depth.
Yet, are we to worry when our “celebrating” the holiday makes others stumble?
This is a very good question, Gianne. When the Bible speaks of causing our fellow believers to stumble as regards matters of conscience it does so in the following way: “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, won’t he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.” (1 Corinthians 8:9-11) In the above passage, causing a person to “stumble” isn’t merely irritating him or even offending him, it is emboldening that person to act contrary to his conscience, to act contrary to what he thinks is right, that is, to become a hypocrite who believes one things and does another.
The best way to prevent this shipwreck of conscience among new and sensitive Christians with regard to Halloween is not, I think, to pretend that the last 1000 years of Christianization of October 31st hasn’t happened. (There are limits to the extent which “weak consciences” ought to be indulged, as Paul’s refusal to accommodate the scruples of the men from James in Galatians 2:11-14 indicates.) Instead, those Christians who do celebrate the day would do well to avoid the lunatic fringe of the holiday: morbid and dubious emphasis on death and the occult. A celebration of Halloween in which children go door-to-door for candy dressed as ballerinas and super-heroes is a much different and much more palatable things than a “celebration” in which adults dress as axe-murderers and witches and participate in a seance.