This controversial “holiday” does have an inglorious history, which may help explain why it’s a “hot button” among Christians. My source is Halloween Through The Twenty Centuries by Ralph Linton, Stirling professor (ret) of Anthropology at Yale. The name originated because that is the eve of All Hallows (All Saints) Day created by the Catholic Church to honor all martyred saints.
The earliest Halloween celebrations were held by the Druids, a cultish religious order in ancient Britain, Ireland and France. These celebrations, starting in the 2nd century BC, honored Samhain, lord of the dead. Human victims were sacrificed at this festival held on Nov. 1, the Celtic New Year’s Day. Black cats were put in wicker cages and burned alive on Halloween because they believed black cats could be witches who had changed into cats.
Samhain was supposed to gather all the spirits of the dead on Halloween night. Gradually fairies, goblins and witches were added to this assembly. People practicing witchcraft, being opposed to all the church stood for, would gather on Halloween to mock the All-Saints services and engage in their own occultic rituals. Eventually the church charged them with heresy.
These rites migrated to this country over the past three centuries. The addition of American traditions have become embedded into this day. The jack-o-lantern represents a dead man, “Jack,” sentenced to roam the earth with a lantern, a pumpkin lit with a coal given to him by Satan. He was to continue till judgment day, because neither Heaven nor Hell wanted him. This evolved into carrying jack-o-lanterns to ward off evil spirits.
Few people would oppose the fun of children dressing up, eating candy and having parties, but when the fun becomes entangled with death and destruction, what are we to do? Aren’t there plenty of ways we can celebrate the glories and goodness of God, expressed in the fall colors and harvest without celebrating the scary, superstitious and satanic?
On the one hand the apostle Paul encouraged us to follow his example to “…become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might save some” ( I Corinthians 9:22). He learned the cultures of the people he was trying to reach with the Good News of Jesus Christ so he could better tell them about Christ’s love and life-giving ways. He also adopted some of the customs and cultural practices of those people as long as it didn’t require him to compromise Christ and His life-giving ways and words.
On the other hand there are those who would have us run as far away as possible from anything questionable, even quoting the same apostle to justify their separatism: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).
It’s our challenge to study Jesus’ and Paul’s words and follow their examples today, having their same passion for God and for people. This requires a large measure of wisdom that only comes from drawing closer to the Lord, Himself, the Giver of all good gifts: “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of…lights…” (James 1:16-17).
