The conflict.
This topic, Halloween and whether Christians should participate in it is a proverbial hot potato. Pastors and leaders seem to be equally divided as are the members of the body of Christ on this topic.
1. Some say it is totally permissible to participate in the Halloween festivities. Just this last year I heard a well followed prominent evangelical Pastor encourage his church that they should feel free to celebrate Halloween so long as doing so was not “too sensual or to evil in nature”.
2. Some say that it is totally unacceptable for a Christian to engage in Halloween activities.
3. Still a third group seeks to Christianize the holiday through harvest parties and trunk or treat activities where Gospel tracts re distributed much like Pope Boniface IV did the Roman Pantheon in 609 AD. For over 500 years since its construction in 100 AD it was used in the druidic festival of the dead. Boniface consecrated it to the Virgin Mary and kept using the temple to pray for the dead, only now it was “Christianized,” and became another brick that the Catholic church added for unscriptural teaching of purgatory.
In 834, Pope Gregory IV extended the festival for all the church and it became known as All Saint’s Day, still remembering the dead.
Since 100 AD Samhain (Sow-win), a Druid god of the dead, was honored at Hallowe’en (“All Hallows Eve”) Even after it became the eve of Pope Gregory IV’s proclaimed All Saints Day this festival worship continued, in Britain, Germany, France, and the Celtic countries. Samhain called together all wicked souls who died within the past year and who were destined to inhabit animals. The Druids believed that souls of the dead came back to their homes to be entertained by those still living. Suitable food and shelter were provided for these spirits or else they would cast spells, steal infants, destroy crops, kill farm animals, and create terror as they haunted the living. This is the action that “Trick-or-Treat” copies today. The Samhain celebration used nuts, apples (today we use candy), skeletons, witches, and black cats. Divination and incantations were practiced as well as magic to seek answers for the future.
From the time the 1st century to even today witchcraft practitioners declare October 31 as the most favorable time to practice their arts. The druids and those participating in the occult believe the veil between the spiritual and the natural is thin and able to be crossed more easily on this eve than any other.
Despite attempts to Christianize Halloween and even claim it has its roots in Christianity its roots in fact are pagan.
One of the things that so greatly troubles me is the proliferation of differing narratives of false History is available on the internet. For years I have counseled well meaning Christians that Google and the perpetual blogosphere of self proclaimed Christian leaders and influencer’s is not a good place to find the information they base their life and faith on.
In truth you will find someone out there in a podcast, a YouTube video, a blog or even in a pulpit that will support just about any position you desire to support regardless of its scriptural validity.
Rather than provide an answer to the question of whether a Christian can or even should celebrate Halloween in this video I would rather pose the question: what if Halloween is merely a symptom to a greater more systemic concern: The overarching embracing of all things pagan by those who claim Christianity and even more so the blending of paganism into the practice of Christianity.
God is Omniscient That is the quality of being all-knowing. This is one of the traditional attributes of God. God is all knowing. God knows His people, and God also Knows their propensity to be drawn away, to be enticed. Out of Egypt they had pooled their resources while Moses was on the mountain and they cast a calf made entirely of gold. God knew they would be enticed as they entered into the promised land, a land full of idol worship, sorcery and witchcraft. In Deuteronomy God had this to say to His people as they prepared to come into their promised land:
Deuteronomy 18:9 “When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. 10 For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, 11 or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD. It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the LORD your God will drive them out ahead of you. 13 But you must be blameless before the LORD your God. 14 The nations you are about to displace consult sorcerers and fortune-tellers, but the LORD your God forbids you to do such things.”
God in His Omniscience and even knowing His people in the New Testament and beyond said in James 1:13 And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. 14 Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.
In the Boston Globe last year in an article about witchcraft and paganism was this quote: “Disillusioned by organized religion, Millennials and Gen Zers are more likely than any other age group to eschew traditional worship in favor of amorphous spirituality, or nothing at all. For 
these generations, raised on a steady diet of “Harry Potter” and a stable Internet connection, witchcraft and New Age practices are a source of comfort and spiritual fulfillment…”
Before you become offended with me about mentioning Harry potter remember it was a secular publication that made the correlation between Harry Potter and those who are embracing witchcraft and new age spirituality. Our children. For those of you wondering what are Millennial’s and Gen Zer’s, or more appropriately, who are Millennial’s and Gen Zer’s? According to Barna research they have defined those two generational definitions as Millennials are those born from 1984 to 1998. and Gen Z. Barna defines this new generation as those born between 1999 to 2015. These are our young adults and our children.
Currently there are 1.5 million Wiccan practitioners in the United states. That number has grown from about 8000 in the 1990’s to about 350,000 in 2009, to just one decade later now numbers 1.5 million. To put that number is perspective the Presbyterian denomination of Christianity numbers about 1.4 million people. Witchcraft and paganism has now surpassed the number of Presbyterians in the country.
Wicca is a faith system that has no central organization or theological belief system defined for all of its adherents. It may be best understood through its typical practices, which include performing magic and sorcery, casting spells and engaging in witchcraft. It is a ritualistic faith based on a loose set of pagan beliefs that are generally pantheistic in nature. Those who are involved commonly go through initiation rites for membership, teaching and leadership. Wiccans most frequently worship gods and goddesses that are found in nature. Wicca generally embraces the notions of karma and reincarnation, and promotes a laissez faire form of morality.
Now we can sit here and debate whether a Christian should participate in Halloween and let our children go trick or treating meanwhile 60% of professing Christians participate in some form of new age practices:
Horoscopes and astrology
Crystals and Chakra’s
Psychics and Tarot readings or Palm reading
Mediums, Seances and Channelers of the dead.
Yoga and Eastern Mysticism
& Even Reincarnation
6 out of 10 find themselves engaging in one of these differing new age practices while attending the local church down the street and claiming to be a follower of Christ. According to the financial marketing research the psychic services industry is a 2 plus billion dollar industry funded by people seeking the supernatural in their lives and being deceived.
Here is the amazing thing about this topic: Your children are extremely sensitive to spiritual things, this should come as no surprise, God made them to have a sensitivity and a yearning to encounter Him. The Enemy has a counterfeit Spirituality that he has marketed in this world and it it the realm of Paganism.
King David in Psalm 8 said “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.”
Paul described the enemy King David spoke of in Psalm 8 when he wrote to the church at Ephesus Saying: “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”
Jesus knew what Father God had put into Children as a strength that He knew would bring forth the God’s praise and He quoted this passage from Psalm 8 as He came into Jerusalem.
The Enemy knows it too and he wages warfare against the children.
Liela and I once had a 14 year old teenage girl in our ministry, well actually her whole family was a part of our church family. She was drug to church virtually kicking and screaming. She wanted nothing to do with this church thing and the God of her parents. Through some relational equity, love and deliverance Amanda was able to become free. It was only after her deliverance from the demonic stronghold in her life that she told her story. Painful broken marriage of her parents, father who abandoned her mother and siblings. Mom got remarried and she never could get over the abandonment of her father to form any relationship with her new step dad. In her depression she had attempted suicide. Through that a student in her school befriended her and presented her with an answer to what she was longing for. Belonging, acceptance and yes power over the emotional rollercoaster life she had known. But this story is not about someone sharing the Gospel with her and welcoming her into a Christian community, rather it is a story of a witch’s coven operating in her school.
They befriended her, gave her this book: which she gave to me and I have kept it as a reminder of what one tool the enemy is using to bait our
children with. They brought her to harmless seances and incantation parties until she was initiated into the coven fully and then the real stuff, conjuring, sacrifices, channeling and casting spells on people.
In wiccan circles this book is considered fluff. Kind of like the soft porn snuff film that sets the hook and then once your hooked the hard stuff comes.
Amanda got free through Christ and when people ask me why we don’t participate in Halloween, why our children’s ministry does not do harvest parties and trunk or treat activities I pull out this book and remember Pope Boniface and the Roman pantheon and they festival of the dead and I am reminded that this is not a harmless Holiday but rather it is a small symptom of a systemic evil that we wage war against.
Paul wrote of our responsibility in regards to this evil in Ephesians 5 “Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.”
Who is watching what you participate in and condone? Whom do you model life in front of? There is a Generation of young people that sees our actions and what we will accept and embrace and they will follow.
Matthew 18 Jesus said “And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. 6 But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea. “What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting.”