Should Christians Celebrate Halloween?
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As we near the Halloween season, many questions are raised about whether one ought to celebrate it or not.
For some these questions extend even beyond Halloween, encompassing Christmas and Easter, in an effort to distance themselves from all things pagan.
If we were to distance ourselves from all things pagan we’d barely be able to exist in this present culture at all.
To be sure, Halloween’s origins are dark, pagan, and demonic. I could go into a huge history lesson here – but it really would not serve the purpose for what I want to share.
I think the majority of us know Halloween’s Celtic origins, how Jack-o-lanterns came to be, why they dressed up, etc.
Additionally, I think we could all agree that the way Halloween is currently celebrated hardly at all resembles the way it was originally celebrated.
It is commercialized and I’d argue that most parents are not focused on the pagan aspects of the holiday – they simply want their children to have a good time.
When the topic comes up among Christians the opinions are varied and deeply rooted. Some are so steadfastly convinced that all Christians should completely ignore the day along with any kids who come calling.
Should Christians Celebrate Halloween?
The Bible does command us to reject – indeed flee from – evil, specifically demons, witches, and witchcraft in all its forms.
And to a degree Halloween falls into that category.
Check out these amazing tools to spread the gospel this Halloween!
Yet, it begs the question that if we as believers so reject Halloween as a day, refuse to open our door to trick-or-treating kids, or allow our churches to be a safe haven for those who would otherwise be on the streets, are we missing out on an opportunity to share Christ’s love?
Did Jesus turn away sinners in an effort to broadcast a message about sin?
Did Jesus isolate Himself from unbelievers in an effort to protect Himself from pagan customs?
And let us not forget that in His day paganism abounded – as did every other form of wicked behavior.
Turning our lights out and pretending that Halloween doesn’t exist doesn’t mean that it ceases to exist. Our refusal to acknowledge the day doesn’t make it go away.
People still celebrate Halloween – people who need the love of Jesus.
Read this post: October 31 – A Day of Restoration, Not a Day of Evil
If our quest is to be like Him, let us look to His behavior as an example of how we ought to respond when faced with paganism, evil, and even wickedness in our culture.
The church can and should capitalize upon every opportunity presented to bring the gospel to the lost.
So I challenge my readers this year to consider how you might use Halloween to reach out to your neighbors and those you usually do not get a chance to talk with.
4 Ways Christians Can Use Halloween to Spread God’s Love
1. Hand out tracts with candy
When kids come to your home, have a tract ready to hand out with candy. Use this as an opportunity to spread the the good news of the gospel.
You can download my tract below and print as many copies of it as you need to spread the gospel to your friends and neighbors this year!
2. Trunk or Treat
Find a church or organization hosting a trunk or treat and get involved with them, or organize one yourself and get your friends and church family involved!
3. Throw a neighborhood party
Get your neighbors together and organize a huge neighborhood block party. You can do a tour of homes or if the weather is warm, host a block party. Give children a safe place to go, and begin building a bridge to your neighbors as an opportunity to share the gospel.
4. Join a church harvest party
Join your church or a neighboring church in hosting a harvest party. This gives children and their families a safe place to go and gets the off of the streets. It also opens the door for you to spread the gospel.
Don’t just ignore Halloween – turn into an opportunity. Be proactive!
Download my Simple Gospel tract today, print it out and hand it out this year when people come trick-or-treating at your house.
Get the This is The Story Christian Tract printable today when you type your email in the form below:
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OH my goodness I LOVE this post!! I agree with you completely! Thanks for sharing Love it!!
I like how objective you are on this….great perspectives!
I agree! We have an outreach at our church on Halloween. It’s fun for the kids and allows us to minister to the community. 🙂
I kindly disagree = ) I’m dealing with anxiety and bouts of “the blues” right now and I have very small children who are prone to nightmares. I’m staying away from anything remotely smelling of Halloween. For our house it’s better for us to dwell on the things that are “good and perfect” as much as possible, at least for my sanity’ sake. I can’t even watch dramas, watch crime shows, read mysteries etc. I definitely don’t come from a place of judgement but this is the choice that’s right for our family. And as much as I would love to evangelize to kids coming to our door, I know how seeing ghosts and goblins will affect me even if they are just polyester.
Hopping over from the better mom
KM from Lessonsfromivy.com
I’ve been rethinking Halloween this year after I did some research last year. When I was growing up, we considered Halloween “evil” and we completely ignored it. Now, I have a four-year-old daughter who is aware of what her friends are doing (or aware that they are dressing up, as she hasn’t mentioned candy yet) and she wants to do that too. Last year, I looked into what the Catholic Church teaches about Halloween, as I converted to Catholicism during university. I was quite surprised that many roots of Halloween are actually Catholic – and therefore Christian – rather than pagan. Halloween is All Hallow’s Eve, which comes before All Saint’s Day (November 1) and has NOTHING to do with the Celtic festivals (the popes who instituted the feast day likely knew nothing about Celtic customs). In light of that, we will be dressing up this year and joining some friends to celebrate both Halloween and All Saint’s Day.
You bring up a good point about the fact, if we were to ignore everything that has pagan beginnings, we could hardly survive. Even Christmas and Easter is not Christian, and I say this fully understanding that Catholicism does not have Christian roots. We don’t celebrate the Devil’s holiday. I like to think we sabotage it. I hand out candy to the kids along with comic books that share the love of Christ. 🙂
I like your objective way of putting things, speaking the truth in humility.
Yes – it’s a great opportunity – laying right in our laps!
Thank you! Have a great weekend!!
I completely understand where you are coming from. You know, evangelism is so diverse – and I think that this leaves us room to choose a method that fits us, where we are in life, and our personality. Not everyone can preach on the streets or knock on a stranger’s door…do surveys – take your pick. And it’s the same way here. For you, this is clearly not a method that is right for you right now – maybe never. And that’s okay. I hope my objective view on this came out in the post. There are those that have no qualms about celebrating Halloween, I don’t judge. That’s something between them and God. There are others that pretend it doesn’t even exist – and like you don’t even open their door to trick-or-treaters…and that’s okay, too. I am of the opinion that if you cannot find chapter-and-verse for something, you need to listen to the Holy Spirit, let Him guide your standard, and then be secure in that and not swayed by what others do. 🙂
Thank you for stopping by and posting. Actually, the history goes back farther than Catholicism…before Catholicism was a faith. Catholicism borrowed the custom and tried to Christianize it – as was common in that era with a lot of pagan customs, and that is how All Hallow’s Eve and All Saints Day came to be. But the customary practices of Halloween and it’s roots go father back in history and are very pagan.
People are very open around Halloween to receive candy or tracts from others more than other times of the year. Each of must consider how we will approach this day. You tackled a controversial topic with grace causing others to think it over.
Thank you for linking up over at WholeHearted Home this week. I love reading your posts and hope to see you next week.
Thank you! I totally agree! I love reading your blog, too!!!
I enjoyed reading your post on this subject (I shared a similarly themed post this morning too.) We can be so emotionally attached to our position on various issues that we foget that there are very real people in the mix who should be out first concern.
Blessings!
Yes! I wrote a post earlier this week on Halloween Redemption. It’s good to know we’re not alone in our take on this holiday. We spend it serving at our church outreach event, spreading love and the gospel. 🙂
I struggle with this one. To be honest, I see nothing about Halloween that should cause a Christian to celebrate. Regardless of both the pagan and Christian roots, what has survived in our culture is spookiness, fear, ghosts, goblins, skeletons…death.
And what has death and fear to do with eternal life in Christ?
Yet…when our pastor initiated a trunk-or-treat as an opportunity to witness to the kids and parents in our church neighborhood, I volunteered to help.
As far as I’m concerned, Halloween has nothing to do with Christ. BUT looking for opportunities to bear witness of Christ to others is worth doing.
Wonderful, Marty. Would you mind coming back and leaving a link to your post so I may read it?
I will stop by and read your post this weekend. I get your posts in my email, I can’t imagine how I managed to miss this one!
Yes, I agree – this is not a holiday to celebrate at all. But as you said, “looking for opportunities to bear witness of Christ to others is worth doing.” – so well stated!!!
I “discovered” you via the Missional Women site and appreciate your heart for being a light in a dark world. Our family has been active in international missions since 1987. For years, I’ve desired to help families with this whole “halloween-harvest” issue, from a mission-minded family perspective, to penetrate through all the division, debate, and yucky-evil-stuff, without falling into the ditch of either legalism or lawlessness. We have ideas to share the Gospel using a pumpkin, how to guard your family against evil, a testimony from a big family who have been boldly sharing Jesus in a public park on October 31st for 20 years, and much more… Bless you!
I am so blessed and honored that you stopped by to read and comment. I have been following DD for several months now and have a great amount of respect for what you do! Thank you so much for linking your articles here on how to use Halloween for God’s kingdom. I look forward to reading them! May the Lord continue to bless you and use you for His glory!
It’s ironic that when I was young we used to dress up and go out on Halloween when nobody did it here in the Philippines. Then my sister married someone who told us about how unChristian it was and we stopped. Now it is so popular here in the Philippines, I had to write the leaders of our subdivision to stop putting evil looking decor in our subdivision entrance! We have trick or treating in our malls and all over the place now! As we have stores in the mall, this is a good idea to give God’s word with the candy given away. Thanks for the idea!!!!
Although we celebrated Halloween when my children were young – I was not a true Believer – never understood the undertones of the day. I loved how one church was able to celebrate, have fun but stay “pure”. They had a big party called Hallowed Be Thy Name. The kids dressed in animal costumes from the Bible. They had food, games, songs and crafts. It is very well attended each year.
We don’t have to be the same – but we do have to have fun together.
Blessings,
Janis http://www.janiscox.com Author of Tadeo Turtle
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Always a hot topic this time of year. I think that what you have said here CAN be very true and very effective, if you do it in the right heart and in the right manner. I also have found, through experience, that it’s hard to find that line. We aren’t going to participate in ritualistic activities (even if they no longer have to do with the original ritual and are more “routine” in our culture), even to reach others. If there’s a way to put together an activity that doesn’t include the ritualistic things, I see that as a good option… but then you are likely limiting who you include. There are some things that we as Christians need to take a spiritual stand against. Dressing up as dead things and celebrating death in any form is one of those. Dressing my kids up as Raggedy Ann and Andy and going to the church festival doesn’t reach ANYONE for Christ, and just makes us look like we’re doing what everyone else does. Is there something to do in between those things? Probably. With small kids, as I said, it’s a very fine line to find and to walk. Our church does our outreach in other ways, and this time of year we take a purposeful stand in prayer. Because, whether we as Christians realize it or not, the witchcraft and pagan rituals behind this holiday very much DO still exist, ARE still practiced, and some of them are very purposefully against the body of Christ. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying here – I don’t! I also practiced what you are talking about for a number of years. I just found it hard to walk that line and also make any sort of impact; I can do more personally, in this season of life, by opting out of the festivities, starting a conversation with someone as to why, and standing in the gap in prayer for the body as a whole during this season of cursing and death. 🙂
This is such a good idea. It makes me wish that we got a few trick-or-treaters.
Sent my response privately. I use bold speech.
That is so interesting! We can always use every opportunity to spread the Good News!
So true, Janice – and share God’s Word. We should always take every opportunity!
Great points, DaLynn. Thank you so much for chiming in!
Ah – like you we don’t get them either. Too far out in the country!
Our church has done a Trunk of Treat on Halloween for somewhere around the last 10 years. It has gotten huge and a lot of families from the community come to the church instead of going around town. The kids get candy, play games, and free food for everyone. It’s a great way to get people to the church who might not come otherwise. Great post!
You offer a different view from what I’ve always heard and I have to think about that…about how it looks if we, as Christians “shut our doors from sinners.” When my children were young, I took them out of school and didn’t allow them to partake in the parades, etc. Looking back, I wonder if that was the right thing. It made them feel like the oddballs, and it’s hard enough being a kid! Kudos to you for your take on this.
yes, yes, yes!!!! i so agree!
I’m right there with you! When else do you have strangers coming to your door??? My husband and I can’t wait to have a home where people actually trick-or-treat (no one comes to our apartment) so we can invite people in, serve hot cocoa and apple cider, and get to know our neighbors. Only then do we have an opportunity to get into their lives and be Christ to them. Thanks for linking up with the Faith and Fellowship Blog hop!
Halloween can definitely be an opportunity! I’ve mostly lived in Asia, where Halloween isn’t celebrated, and I don’t celebrate it. Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here, either, but i use that holiday as an excuse to invite all of my neighbors in for a meal of thankfulness. Thanksgiving lends itself a little easier to talking about faith than Halloween does, but both are very foreign in this country.
We have a couple kids that just moved in on our dirt street, so I just might turn my light on this year 🙂
Oh that is wonderful!!
Like you, it isn’t really celebrated here. But I love your idea for Thanksgiving! I may need to steal that (because I, too, live outside the States).
That is so wonderful!! I love your idea to invite people in for cider or cocoa. Love That!
Thank you, Robyn!
I am so glad this gave you something to think about. I love it when someone shines light on a new angle. 🙂
That is so wonderful!!! I love to hear testimonies like that!
Now if we could only do it… Apartment living is a little rough sometimes. 😉
Thanks for sharing. My kids dress up and trick-or-treat, but I don’t allow anything resembling the occult or evil. We try to put a Christian-themed item in our treat bags, too!
I love your idea. I have a fun thing planned for next week that will help believers reach out this Halloween. I hope you’ll stop by to check that out.
Last year on Halloween , I gave out Bible tracts with candy and I received quite a few complaints from parents that were upset that I was pushing religion on their kids. They didn’t want their kids believing in ” fairy tales” . What a sad world we live in !
That is sad. I’m so sorry to hear that!
I don’t think Christians should celebrate Halloween,neither should they be encouraged.
.I think ”3 Ways Christians Can Use Halloween to Spread God’s Love” can be a better heading.
Thank you so much for weighing in on this, my friend. It is such a important discussion to have.
Thanks, Roz. I agree it is a great way to witness. Yes some will throw the tracts away but if even one reads it and it makes them open to hearing the Word, it is worth it. When we first moved to AZ we lived in a neighborhood that was made up of a lot of lower income families. Good people for the most part, but not a lot of money. I would put together bags of small toys, candy, and sometimes helium balloons along with Bible story coloring books. Most of the kids had very little. One year the day after Halloween, two ladies came by and asked if I was the one who gave out the bags of toys and candy and a balloon. I said I was. They gave m a thank you note from their kids thanking me for being so nice to them. Made me cry. We are told that the Word does not return void. Jesus talked to sinners. How else could I have been saved? I can show love for a child with a little treat and a tract. Love you, Roz.
I absolutely love your testimony here! Wow – it is so encouraging!! Would you mind going to my Facebook post here: https://www.facebook.com/zlatkoandrosilind.jukic/posts/873763632774116?pnref=story
and leaving this comment in the comment section? I would love for more people to read what you wrote.