Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

Can Christians Celebrate Halloween? Part II

Table of Contents

Part Two

Argument #2: Christians should not celebrate Halloween because pagans and satanists still observe it today as an un-holy day.

There are two parts to this argument. The first part is the supposition that pagans and satanists observe Halloween as a festival. We need to examine whether this rests on fact or fiction. The second part is the thought that because this is so, Christian should have nothing to do with Halloween. So we need to ask, "If pagans and satanists use a holiday for their purposes, is that sufficient grounds for Christians not to celebrate it?"

First, a question. Are there really any people around today who call themselves "pagans"? Actually, yes, though they more often call themselves Neopagans. One estimate puts their numbers in the U.S. and Canada at 250,000. And it is well documented that such people do view Halloween as an important festival in their belief system.

A good example is of this is Isaac Bonewits, who describes himself as "North America's leading expert on Druidism, Witchcraft and the rapidly growing Earth Religions movement. A practicing Neopagan priest, scholar, teacher, bard and polytheologian for over twenty-five years" (for a good article written about Halloween from a Neopagan perspective, check out the web site: http://neopagan.net/Halloween.HTML). Of interest here is Bonewits' comments about what Neopagans do on Halloween.

Reporters are always asking us what we Pagans do for Halloween. Well, usually we take our kids around our neighborhoods trick or treating, as cautiously as any other parents do. Those who stay at home may hand out commercially packaged candy to those who visit our houses. Over the weekend, our circles of friends will have rituals that might include "dumb suppers" (silent, saltless meals) for the Ancestors, or separate "kid circles" and costume parties for the Pagan children in our community -- and we certainly expect to wind up with at least as many kids as we started out with! Most of us will do some divination, give honor to those who have died in the past year, play traditional games, and meditate on our own mortality.

Bonewits further reveals that Neopagans observe the greater and lesser festivals of the ancient Celts (including Samhain on Oct. 31 - Nov. 1), though he points out that the dates for these events are often calculated differently by different Neopagans, making uniformity difficult. Neopagans still believe that since Samhain is the "between the years" time, it is a "magical" time in which the spirits of the dead walk among the living and is a peak time for divination.1
 

Thus, it is well established by the pagans and neopagans themselves that they do celebrate Halloween in ways that Christians would find objectionable (e.g., divination, contacting the dead).

What of satanists? Quoting Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible, Mather and Nichols point out that Halloween is one of the satanism's two major holidays (George A. Mather and Larry A. Nichols, Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993), p. 244) However, satanism is often such a loose federation that it is difficult to determine exactly what they do on Halloween (other than worship satan, of course).

Here a warning is in order, however, about the sources Christians use to determine what satanists do or not do: Make sure your sources are reliable. For example, many Christians have formed their opinions of satanism on the basis of books like Mike Warnke's The Satan Sellers. Warnke, a popular Christian comedian and allegedly a former Satanic high priest, wrote the book to describe how he was delivered through Jesus Christ. However, Warnke's experiences do not square with any of the best Christian research on satanism. And recently Warnke has been accused of being a fraud by two journalists who have spent years investigating his claims by interviewing those who knew him best during the years he was supposed to be a satanist. You can read about it in Cornerstone magazine, vol. 21, nu. 98. Or click here for a summary.

Therefore, the foregoing has shown that the assertion that pagans and satanists observe Halloween today is based on fact. These groups indeed do observe Halloween and also indeed do things on his day that Christians regard as evil (e.g., divination, witchcraft, worshiping false gods, worship of satan).

But is this sufficient reason to avoid observing Halloween? Should Christians not celebrate Halloween merely because non-Christian, occultic groups also celebrate the same holiday, but in ways we consider evil? Non Christian groups have always and will always celebrate many of the same holidays we do but in amazingly contrary ways. Such is the case with Christmas and Easter, and our chief day of worship, Sunday. Should we no longer observe Christmas or Easter because some despoil these holidays from a non-Christian perspective? Hardly! Well then neither should the fact that some may be observing Halloween contrary to us be sufficient reason to avoid the holiday. Our Christian freedom is broader than this!

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1. Bonewits' explanation of what today's pagans do is instructive: "We're designing and performing powerful magical and religious ceremonies to change ourselves and the world we live in, including regular public worship of the Old Gods and Goddesses, as well as rites of passage (weddings, child blessings, etc.). We're adapting the polytheologies and customs of both the Indo-European (especially the Celtic) Paleopagans and the Neopagan traditions that have been created over the last fifty years. We're researching and expanding sound modern scholarship (instead of romantic fantasies) about the ancient Celts, as well as (in A.D.F.) the Norse, Slavs, Balts, Greeks, Romans, Vedics, and other Indo-European peoples, in order to reconstruct as much as possible of what the Old Religions of pre-Christian Europe really were. We're working on the development of genuine skills in composition and presentation in the musical, dramatic, graphic, textile, and other arts. We're creating non-sexist, non-racist, organic, flexible and publically-accessible religions to practice as ways of life and to hand on to our grandchildren. We're integrating ecological awareness, alternate healing arts, and psychic development into our daily activities. We're holding regional festivals to help ourselves meet, study, pray, and play together with other like-minded folks. We're actively preparing (in A.D.F.) for the day when Neopagan religions will be part of the mainstream global culture, with large congregations meeting at temples and sacred groves throughout the Western world. Together, we're sparking the next major phase in the evolution of Neopaganism and planting seeds for generations to come" Taken from a FAQ on www.neopagan.net.

Turn to Halloween Argument #1

Turn to Halloween Argument #2

Turn to Halloween Argument #3

Guidelines

© Dr. Richard P. Bucher 1998, 1999

? Dr. Richard P. Bucher 1998, 1999