This week, Pastor Jonny spoke to us about Halloween and the Christian approach to it.
There are many different opinions in the global church today about how Christians should approach Halloween. Some believe it’s best to stay away from anything resembling darkness, while others believe it’s a bit of fun where children can get sweets.
Amongst the diversity of opinion, it’s helpful to remember that Halloween is not a staple element of Christian doctrine, such as the Trinity or salvation. Unity in the church is more important than bickering about Halloween.
The first thing to bear in mind is that as Christians, we are people of the Light. If ever we are presented with a choice between a dark/sinful path and a light/righteous path, we should choose the light.
We don’t participate in witchcraft, horoscopes, tarot cards or anything else from the occult. Instead, we choose to walk in the light of the Word, Jesus.
1In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2He existed in the beginning with God.
3God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4The Word gave life to everything that was created,a
and his life brought light to everyone.
5The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.b
(John 1:1-5 )
In verse 1, “Word” has a capital “W” and is referring to the name of Jesus. Jesus was with God and Jesus was God. The Trinity was there at the beginning. John starts his book in parallel with the start of Genesis 1, where the Trinity alone existed and created everything from nothing. Jesus is the Light and Jesus is the Life, and when we’re in dark places, we need a light, we need Jesus.
Fear is often nothing more than fear of the unknown. You might be scared of public speaking or teaching, but soon it becomes completely normal to stand in front of people. Some people are scared of Halloween, because they don’t fully know what its about or how it came to be.
2000 years ago, a Celtic festival began called Samhain, which ran (and still runs today) from 31st October to 1st November. Today, Halloween is what it is because of this festival.
Also around 2000 years ago, Jesus stepped into this world and introduced Christianity “at the fullness of time”. The Romans weren’t too selective about religion. They had their own gods, but as they conquered places, they absorbed their gods into the Roman god collection. They weren’t happy with the Christians, however, because Christians preached that Jesus alone is God, He is exclusive and no other god must be worshiped.
The early Christians got martyred for their faith in awful ways, from being burned in oil, being fed to lions, or being crucified like Jesus.
But the persecution couldn’t stop God building His church and the Romans had to buckle and accept that if they wanted to retain political power, they needed to abandon their religion and switch to Christianity, so that’s exactly what they did.
Fast-forward to May 13th 609AD. Rome was now a Christian empire and they had a Pope. Pope Boniface 4th dedicated the Pantheon (their temple to all the old gods) as a Christian church to the martyrs of old. The 13th May became All Martyrs Day.
Pope Gregory 3rd then changed this festival to All Saints Day and moved the date to 1st November.
In the mid-1800s, Americans took hold of All Saints Day and introduced sweets, darkness (due to the date also being the date of Samhain, a dark Pagan Celtic festival) and commercialism, then in the mid-1900s it became about dressing up. The name Halloween comes from All Hallow’s Eve, the day before All Holy Day, hence “Halloween”. It’s a festival that was already taken from darkness to light.
If you’re a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit and can never be given over to darkness because you have God living within you.
There’s no need to hide on Halloween, no need to be scared. As Christians we don’t celebrate darkness. Instead, we’re called to be in the world but not of it.
If you need to make a decision about Halloween, do it because it’s the right thing to do between you and Jesus. Read the Bible and pray about it.
Here is a biblical framework for dealing with darkness and light:
4So, what about eating meat that has been offered to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a god and that there is only one God. 5There may be so-called gods both in heaven and on earth, and some people actually worship many gods and many lords. 6But for us,
There is one God, the Father,
by whom all things were created,
and for whom we live.
And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom all things were created,
and through whom we live.
(1 Cor 8:4-6)
This uses similar terminology to John 1. Paul here is writing to explain the problem to the Corinthian Christians. The issue was all about whether to eat food that had been dedicated to other gods. Here’s the key: as a Christian, there is nothing dark where Jesus is, and if you believe something is clean, then it’s clean.
Jesus redeems the darkest places for light, and we should have that aim. So maybe instead of a Halloween party, celebrate with a light party!
We live in a world stained by sin, and Jesus came to save and redeem sinners. We as Christians are being redeemed, and we should seek to redeem environments around us, whether it be our household, our workplace, our local area (via litter picks etc).
Christians have been known as culture-creators for hundreds of years. We took over the Pagan winter festival and declared it as Christmas. We took over the Pagan spring festival and declared it as Easter.
Every day we can make small decisions for darkness or for light. It’s worth assessing yourself for darkness and taking that part of you back for the Light. Repent of what needs to be repented of and give it over to Jesus. We as Christians are here for a dark and dying world!