Should Christians celebrate Halloween?

If we do not celebrate Halloween, the Devil wins.

Well, not really, since the Devil cannot win, but when Christians are afraid, use bad reasoning, or retreat from past victories, we give cause for evil to rejoice.

Good Christians are right to want to avoid evil, but Halloween is not evil, at least the way it is celebrated today. Some sincere people may worry about the origins of Halloween, but that is a mistake.

Let us assume that the origins of Halloween are not only pagan, but horrible. (I am not saying this true, just assuming a “worse case” scenario.) This would not be a good reason to reject Halloween, but a cause of the celebration of good men and women.

Christendom took something (allegedly) dark and brutal and made it an enjoyable evening for adults and children. Why let evil have it back?

Christians, of all people, should recall that all creation is God’s and that we are called to reconcile the world to God. Every inch of the cosmos should be made good, true, and beautiful.

It is true that there is a revival of non-Christians who celebrate their festival on October 31. They claim they are reclaiming their ancient feast day. Whatever the merits of their historic claims to continuity, and some are quite dubious, they have a right to understand their religion as they choose.

Christians have the right to reject their interpretation. My neighbor’s celebration of Halloween as a pagan festival does not require me to lose All Hallows Eve, because of course in the actual historical memory of the West that is what Halloween is.

The day after All Hallows, Christians celebrate the lives of the greatest of the faithful who have died and gone to God. On All Hallows the fact that we will all die is brought home to us. We do fear death, but rejoice in the victory of Christ over death. The costumes and the joy poke fun at the diabolic, they do not embrace it.

A wise man pointed out that the Devil, like any proud spirit, cannot stand to be mocked. On Halloween Christians mock death and the Devil with the joy of the Lord.

Christians do not deny evil and most believe in a personal devil. We do not take lightly the reality of supernatural evil, but see it most plainly in the murder of unborn children, human trafficking, political injustice, overcrowded prisons, and immorality. In a world with such barbarism, a child has less to fear from putting on pirate costume, than in bullying in school.

Any good thing can be corrupted, but any bad thing can also be redeemed. The Lord Christ is a joyful Lord keen on inviting all people to His feast. Halloween is a chance to rejoice in family. In our household, it is the first sign of the coming of the Christ Child at Christmas. We reflect over Advent, the time before Christmas, on the nature of sin, hell, judgment and death not out of gloom or a sense of doom, but to remember what Christ came to defeat.

All Hallows, and All Hallows Eve, is a down payment, on that greater celebration. When I think of this jolly little feats, my mind recalls that the freedom Christ has given us! To paraphrase Saint Augustine, if we love God, then we can feast to His glory when we will.

(This All Hallows our family is celebrating the “Newsies” revival in our attire and I will recollect a personal hero Theodore Roosevelt in my costume choice. )

John Mark Reynolds  | Oct 30, 2011 10:15 PM