Why Christians should Hate Halloween

Is Halloween all fun and games?

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Millions of people, who would be offended if you accused them of approving of Satanism, are nevertheless fine with celebrating Halloween.

Halloween is all about witches, ghosts, and goblins. Check any dictionary. A ghost is “the soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined usually as wandering among or haunting living persons.” A goblin is “A grotesque elfin creature of folklore, thought to work mischief or evil.”

Many who call themselves Christians justify celebrating Halloween by passing off the witches, ghosts and goblins as simply cardboard cutouts of those creatures. They figure it’s okay to pretend to be scared by such stuff one day a year as long as they don’t actually believe in it. It’s just some harmless fun for the kids, right?

Satanists have a different view. I’m sure it surprises no one to see “Halloween” and “Satanism” in the same discussion. Is there really a connection between the two?

 

Several years back, a USA Today article on Halloween quoted a witch, Bryan Jordan, as saying, 

“Christians don’t realize it, but they’re celebrating our holiday with us...We like it!”

Another website offers these quotes:

• Witch Doreen Valiente: “To witches, Halloween is a serious occasion, however merrily celebrated.”
• Witch - Sharon Graham: "Salem (Massachusetts) is a mecca, especially around Samhain (Halloween). It is our holiday, our new year, and a lot of witches come here from all over the world."
•  Satanist - Anton Szandor LaVey (now deceased): "Two major holidays, Halloween and Walpurgisnacht are celebrated by the Church of Satan." He also said: “Satanists consider Halloween the most important day of the year. Satanic, occult and witchcraft powers are at their highest potency level… Satan and his powers are at their best that night.” 

If Satanists love Halloween, does that make it wrong for Christians? Not automatically… I’m sure some Satanists love chocolate cake, too. That’s not a good enough reason for a Christian to stop eating it. 

However, if you make the wrong decision about chocolate cake the results are pretty much all physical. If you make the wrong decision about Halloween, there could be, pardon the pun, grave consequences. A Christian must consider God’s view:

•  “What agreement is there between Christ and the Evil One? Or what part has one who has faith with one who has not?” (2 Corinthians 6:15)
•  “Keep testing by experience what is well-pleasing to the Lord. And have no company with the works of the darkness.” (Ephesians 5:10, 11)
•  “What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” (1 Corinthians 10:19-21)
•  “They feared Jehovah, yet served their own gods – according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they had been brought.” (2 Kings 17:33)

Incidentally, verse 31 of 2 Kings 17 says that one of the false gods these supposedly God-fearing people were worshiping on the side was called “Nibhaz.” Nibhaz is believed by some Bible scholars to have been represented by a dog-headed man howling at the moon, possibly derived from the Egyptian god Anubis. 

 

Is it just me, or does that sound a lot like a werewolf?

 

Christians are commanded in the Bible to have nothing to do with demons, and that would surely include being entertained by demonic fantasies. The Bible uses “demons” and false “gods” almost interchangeably. It further tells us that Almighty God wants his people to worship him exclusively.

Early Christians viewed their worship that way. Says the famous historical work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

“Every Christian rejected with contempt the superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The whole body of Christians unanimously refused to hold any communion with the gods of Rome, of the empire, and of mankind.”

Early Christians would have had nothing to do with demons, witches, ghosts and goblins. Modern Christians would do well to follow their example.

Is this all just superstitious nonsense? We know there are really people today who call themselves witches, just as there are people who call themselves Satanists. Are they just fantasizing, play-acting, seeking shock value or attention? Many of them, very likely. Yet most Christians would agree that witches and Satanists are engaging in behavior God does not approve of. 

 

Most ‘Christians’ hold this thinking even as they festoon their porches with images of witches, ghosts, and goblins.

If there is no Satan, and there are no demons, then witches and Satanists are no farther from God than Christians. If, however, Satan and the demons do exist, ‘Christians’ who celebrate Halloween are putting themselves in the same category as Satanists and witches.

Do Satan and the demons really exist? That will be the subject of the next article in this series.

Feel free to leave a respectful comment. For another of my columns on this subject, click here.

 

 Bill K. Underwood is the author of several novels and one non-fiction self-help book, all available at Amazon.com.