I have often wondered if Halloween is something that ought to be celebrated by Christians. I will be interested to hear what others think about it. After all, the holiday is a lot of fun. Every year on October 31st kids and adults from all over the place dress in various costumes and attend special events or parties to celebrate a holiday called Halloween. The kids go from door to door asking for candy, smiling in their costumes, with their parents right beside them. The evening of the holiday is filled with fun, excitement, parties for some, Trick-or-Treat rounds for others, and lots of sugar. Seems innocent, right? Not so much.
Halloween is specifically a holiday to commemorate Satanism. This tradition goes all the way back to about 200 B.C. Be prepared, this post is not for the squeamish and requires discretion on the part of the reader. If you do not want the details, you may want to skip the next paragraph entirely. The original name of this holiday is actually "The Feast of Samhain" and celebrates hatred of God in an extremely vile form. Samhain (pronounced sah-WEEN), or the "Lord of Darkness", is the whole reason this so-called holiday was celebrated in the first place. This pagan god was of the most disgusting evil, requiring his followers to participate in some pretty gory traditions. The people who participated in this original Halloween believed that the veil between the living and dead opened and allowed for interaction. This night was a celebration of the removal of that veil. Does that remind you of anything?
Samhain-worshipers would do what most people in their right minds would consider unthinkable on the night of what we now know to be Halloween. "Trick-or-Treating" was actually something that was quite serious. People would dress up as evil beings and demons, performing different antics in exchange for food and drink. That is not even the beginning of the evil performed on the original Halloween. Child-sacrifice was required. The priests, or "Druids", would eat the flesh and drink the blood of their victims. On top of this wickedness, sexual perversion was rampant during this celebration. Orgies included incest and homosexuality. It is a chance to celebrate sin and "dance with the Devil", so says Satanic High Priestess Blanche Barton (on The Church of Satan website). It is, in fact, a time for homosexuals in particular to live in "a moment of utopian wishfulness" (Santino, Jack. Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, p. 211).
When I hear about Samhain and the rituals required on his night, the first thing that comes to my mind is the god Molech. In the Old Testament, God condemns Molech-worship because of the things it celebrated - namely, pure evil. It is also reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah. You all remember that place, right? Those were the cities so evil that God destroyed them with fire from Heaven.
Now, I understand that the celebration of Halloween today is done in some innocence, but I have a huge problem with it. Paul says that we ought to reject any form of evil (1 Thess. 5:22). We are to set our minds on things above, not on the things that are on earth (Col. 3:1-2). I am not going to flat-out say that I think everyone who celebrates Halloween is in sin. That is not my say. In fact, I do not think that. Everyone is responsible for their own convictions and I do not in any way think someone is in sin if they participate in this holiday. If you invite me to go Trick-or-Treating or to a Harvest Party with you and your kids for fun and fellowship, I will probably do it. Here is what I will say: when I compile the information about this holiday and compare it to what is said in Scripture about the Lord's hatred for this kind of evil, it leaves me with a very strong inclination to be completely opposed to celebrating Halloween or having anything to do with it. That is my stance on Halloween. I would much rather celebrate Reformation Day.
If you want to know more about Halloween and its origins (from the same sites I found some of my information), check out these sites:
Halloween: A Covenant with Death and Hell
Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows
Samhain, Lord of Darkness
Ancient Origins of Trick-or-Treating
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