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Why Some Christians Oppose Halloween—and Why They’re Wrong

Why Some Christians Oppose Halloween—and Why They’re Wrong

Last updated on: November 1, 2024 at 11:40 am by James F. McGrath

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Why Some Christians Oppose Halloween—and Why They’re Wrong 2024-11-01T11:40:49-04:00 James F. McGrath

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Happy Halloween!

This article offers an explanation for why modern conservative Christians oppose the celebration of Halloween, a historic Christian holiday, and why Christians should celebrate Halloween, as we have historically. It is for much the same reason that the Puritans opposed the celebration of Christmas. Both are relatively recent phenomena, historically speaking. The short answer is this: opposing societal celebrations and people having fun is a way to make oneself feel righteous, as though one is taking a stand for God and going against the flow of the evil world. Halloween has served particularly well because the fact that some costumes and decorations are morbid has made it possible for modern fundamentalists to claim that it is a pagan holiday and that refusing to dress up and to give candy to children is engaging in spiritual warfare.

The Irony Behind Halloween Opposition

All such views serve to replace the things that Jesus and the Bible as a whole emphasizes: working for justice, loving our enemies, etc. It allows the Christian to delude themselves into imagining that they are crusaders for God while not doing the things their religion historically and biblically says they should.

Let me sum up the irony so that you don’t miss it. Fundamentalist Christians claim that celebrating Halloween is Satanic. What is in fact Satanic, a diabolical deception, is their fixation on things like opposing Halloween.

Opposition to mainstream science (in particular evolution, but for some also the sphericity of the Earth) functions in a similar way. You can persuade yourself that you are doing God’s work by rejecting science, doing something that is less costly and demanding that loving neighbors, feeding the poor, and visiting prisoners.

It seems that a good sign that fundamentalist Christians have gone off the rails about something is when atheist fundamentalists agree with them wholeheartedly. Christianity is opposed to mainstream science. Check. Christian holidays were originally pagan? Check. Here’s what atheist blogger Tim O’Neill wrote about Halloween:

The idea that all the traditional holidays and festivals of the year are “pagan” in origin and were simply “stolen by the Church” is one that has permeated popular culture and is repeated without question in newspaper, magazine and online articles. It is perhaps not surprising that harried journalists and underpaid online content writers are uncritical about these claims, but it is more strange that prominent atheists are as well, given they are meant to be sceptics who check their facts and “question everything”. Unfortunately, many anti-theistic polemicists cannot resist a chance to get in a jab at any aspect of Christianity being “really pagan”, so every October we see supposed rationalists parroting pseudo history about the “pagan origins of Halloween”, with no sign of any fact-checking, let alone engagement with scholarship. In fact, the claim that Halloween is “pagan” is largely a nineteenth century myth.

In contrast with fundamentalist opposition, I’m more inclined to think of Halloween in the same manner as this quote shared on Facebook by a former student who is a Methodist minister:

“Halloween: a day when we get it right.

Strangers come to us,

beautiful, ugly, odd or scary,

and we accept them all without question,

Compliment them, treat them kindly,

and give them good things.

 Why don’t we live like that?

– Steve Garnaas-Holmes

And so I am wishing all my blog readers a Happy Halloween. I’m in costume at work today. Here I am with another Christian colleague, my dean Jay Howard.

May be an image of 2 people

For those who want more on this topic, here is a link to something I wrote previously, with a brief excerpt:

Halloween today is a holiday when children and sometimes adults have fun dressing up as their favorite fictional characters and asking for candy. There are certainly health reasons to get away from the focus on candy. But that isn’t the Evangelical objection. They claim that it is demonic in its roots and a time when something not merely evil but Satanic is happening. Again, that might not be an altogether inappropriate way to characterize the conjoining of capitalism and the promotion of unhealthy eating. But there is no evidence that Satanists or witches do something special on October 31st, much less that Evangelical families not participating in giving and receiving candy hinders those imagined diabolical plans.

The reason this bothers me is because conservative Evangelicals do this persuading themselves that they are taking a stand on and for the Bible, and yet they clearly haven’t read Ephesians 5. It talks about sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, obscenity, and foolish talk, among other things. Many of their leaders, and the president they support, are characterized by these very things. When it comes to the president, they will say that they aren’t electing a “pastor in chief.” They will quote 1 Timothy to say people must pray for and support the president, but ignore the characteristics of a leader outlined in that same epistle, all the while claiming that Trump really is a Christian and on their side. But the truth is they are on his side, and if something good has emerged from recent political realities it is that a genuine demonic danger is being exposed, one that lies at the very heart of contemporary Evangelicalism, with its blatant hypocrisy and willingness to adopt a double standard in the pursuit of worldly power and influence. As Matt Johnson points out, Evangelicals have boycotted all kinds of individuals, shows, and franchises because they don’t adhere to their moral standards. Shows with gay characters were the targets of conservative Evangelical “cancel culture” long before Evangelicals started using that phrase to complain when others did the same to them. Jesus’ teaching has been summed up as the Golden Rule, and yet conservative Christians have cancelled others in a way they themselves don’t want to be cancelled. And they have opposed other politicians for not living up to the standards of a pastor-in-chief in a way that they now insist would be inappropriate in Trump’s case.

What would Jesus say about this? Surely the words “woe” and “hypocrites” would be addressed to them…The combination of conservative Evangelical rhetoric about Halloween and their political stances exposes that they talk about Satan and yet don’t see when the truly demonic has taken root in their own hearts and communities. The weapons they choose to use in their fight, when compared with those listed in Ephesians as those appropriate to Christians’ spiritual warfare, show which side they are really on. Once again those who are more likely to spout their views at great length in terms of spiritual warfare show themselves to not have grasped what makes warfare spiritual, what contrasts it with worldly conflict, and this make clear to the discerning that they know not what manner of spirit they are of. There is no possibility of waging warfare in and of the Spirit of God without the characteristics of the warrior being the fruit of the Spirit. The political aims and methods of the so-called “Christian Right” are characterized by the works of the flesh, not spiritual fruit.

If you’d like the Steve Garnaas-Holmes quote in meme form, here it is:

To sum up, conservative Christians oppose the celebration of Halloween. They shouldn’t. It is their opposition to it that is part of a diabolical deception. Hopefully, this article made this clear. Please share your thoughts in a comment below, and please share this article with those who need to hear it!

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