Halloween is celebrated by millions of people each year with costumes and candy, and is the
second highest-grossing commercial holiday after Christmas. This festive day also carries a lot of baggage, however. Scholars Ralph and Adelin Linton
write:
Among all the festivals
which we celebrate today, few have histories stranger than that of
Halloween. It is the eve of All Hallows—or Hallowmas or All Saints’
Day—and as such it is one of the most solemn festivals of the church. At
the same time, it commemorates beings and rites with which the church
has always been at war. It is the night when ghosts walk and fairies and
goblins are abroad... We cannot understand this curious mixture unless
we go back into history and unravel the threads from which the present
holiday pattern has been woven.
The Origins of Halloween
Generally, it is agreed upon that Halloween has its origins in the
Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer. Typical
popular folklore suggests that Samhain was a festival based on human
sacrifice. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that this is a
caricature, based on Roman writers who had little evidence of actual
Celtic practices and were more interested in decrying them as
“barbarians” who needed to be “civilized” by the Romans.
According to historian
Nicholas Rogers,
“the pagan origins of Halloween” arise not from rumors of human
sacrifice but from “the notion of Samhain as a festival of the dead and
as a time of supernatural intensity heralding the onset of winter.”
“
Halloween has been rejected as demonic and pagan, subsumed into
(medieval) Christian ritual, and accepted unthinkingly as harmless fun.
”
He continues, “In marking the onset of winter, Samhain was closely
associated with darkness and the supernatural. In Celtic lore, winter
was the dark time of the year when ‘nature is asleep, summer has
returned to the underworld, and the earth is desolate and
inhospitable.’”
In addition,
What was especially
noteworthy about Samhain was its status as a borderline festival. It
took place between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. In Celtic
lore, it marked the boundary between summer and winter, light and
darkness. In this respect, Samhain can be seen as a threshold, or what
anthropologists would call a liminal festival. It was a moment of ritual
transition and altered states. It represented a time out of time, a
brief interval ‘when the normal order of the universe is suspended’ and
‘charged with a peculiar preternatural energy.’ These qualities would
continue to resonate through the celebration of Halloween.
Halloween in the British Isles
According to Rogers,
while Halloween derives its original “supernatural intensity” and
“spookiness” from Samhain, most of the actual traditions and practices
of the holiday developed out of the medieval Christian holy days of All
Souls’ and All Saints’ Day. Early Christians in the 4th century began
the practice of celebrating the martyrs of the early Roman persecutions.
By the 9th century, these festivals were beginning to shift focus to
celebrating the lives of saints instead. This festival was held on
November 1 in England, but on April 20 in Ireland (disproving the
popular view that a November date was picked to “Christianize” the pagan
festival of Samhain).
By the end of the
twelfth century, the linked festivals of All Saints’ and All Souls’,
Todos Santos or Tots Sants in Spanish, or Hallowtide in English, were
well-established liturgical moments in the Christian year. At the end of
the Middle Ages they were among the most important. The feast of All
Saints’ and All Souls’ was one of the six days of obligation, marked by
high masses and prayers. It was a holiday that affirmed the collective
claims that the dead had on the living. Its requiem masses also served
as insurance against hauntings, for ghosts were generally ‘understood to
be dead relatives who visited their kin to rectify wrongs committed
against them while alive and to enforce the obligations of kinship.’ As
night fell and All Souls’ Day arrived, bells were also rung for the
souls in purgatory. These were people who were in a spiritual
suspension, in an intermediary space between heaven and hell, for whom
prayers and penance could be made for their sins before the day of
judgment. In preparation for Hallowtide, churches made sure that their
bells were in good shape, for in some places they were rung all night to
ward off demonic spirits. (
Rogers)
Over time, other rituals were added to the celebration of the Mass.
For instance,
“In England, many churches purchased extra candles or torches for the
ecclesiastical processions of Hallowtide. Bonfires were also built in
graveyards to ward off malevolent spirits.”
After the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the rituals of
Hallowtide in England came under attack from Protestants because of its
association with the doctrines of purgatory, saints, and prayers for the
dead. Reformers “denounced purgatory as a popish doctrine” and
“deplored the idea that the living could influence the condition of the
dead through their prayers and rejected the belief that the saints could
function as intermediaries between humans and Christ.” A back-and-forth
ensued for decades as Protestant leaders such as
Thomas Cranmer tried to abolish Hallowtide rituals and Catholic leaders attempted to revive them.
By the end of
Elizabeth's reign, the official practices surrounding Hallowmass had
been eliminated. Yet the more popular customs associated with the
holiday did survive in some areas. . . [Around] 1783, Catholics
continued to light fires on hilltops on All Saints' Night. In the more
remote areas of the Pennines there were torchlight ceremonies to
commemorate the dead. At Whalley, in Lancashire, near the forest of
Pendle, families formed a circle and prayed for the souls of the
departed until the flames burned out...
If many of the religious
customs associated with All Hallows and All Souls had died out by the
middle of the seventeenth century, it is nonetheless clear the days were
still regarded as a time of supernatural intensity. On Halloween, as it
came to be known in the eighteenth century, ghosts, spirits, and
witches were likely to be abroad. (
Rogers)
Over time, Halloween traditions developed apart from any religious
connotation, though the initial religious celebration influenced the
developments. Rogers explains, “The diversity of names associated with
Halloween did not connote the declining fortunes of the holiday. In
Scotland, Ireland, and even in some of the remoter areas of England and
Wales, Halloween was robustly observed throughout the nineteenth century
and into the twentieth. At the time of substantial Irish and Scottish
immigration to North America, Halloween had a strong tradition of
guising and pranks, a fundamental aura of supernatural intensity, and a
set of games and rituals that often addressed the fortunes of love
rather than the prospect of death, or life beyond death.”
“
There is a big difference between kids dressing up in cute
costumes for candy and Mardi-Gras-like Halloween parties,
offensive costumes, and uninhibited excess.
”
It is important to note that this secular account of the history of
Halloween seeks to vindicate the holiday from its Satanic and barbaric
origins. While it may be the case that the dark side of Halloween has
been overemphasized, Christians will still want to affirm that the
holiday originated (at least) in pagan and mythical practices. The
extent to which such practices can be categories as “Satanic” is a
debate of semantics. Is Roman mythology “Satanic”? Perhaps, or perhaps
not. Regardless, the origin of Halloween is certainly in the realm of
non-Christian spiritualism. As such, Christians should be thoughtful in
their approach to Halloween.
Halloween has an uneasy history with the church; Christians have not
always been sure what to do with a holiday of apparently pagan origins.
Is Halloween unredeemable, such that any Christian participating in the
holiday will necessarily compromise their faith? Is it something
Christians can participate in as a cultural celebration with no
religious ramifications? Or is there the opportunity for Christians to
emphasize certain aspects of our own faith within the holiday?
1. Halloween as “Devil’s Day” (Reject)
One of the most famous recent examples of Christian interaction with Halloween comes from Pat Robertson, who
called
Halloween the “festival of the Devil.” As such, he claimed that
participating in Halloween was a mistake for Christians and therefore
wrong.
In rejecting this holiday outright, Robertson fails to ask the
following question: To what extent does something’s evolution from pagan
roots entail that its present practice is tainted? As Albert Mohler
notes,
there has been a shift in Halloween from pagan ritual to merely
commercial fascination with the dark side. What Pat Robertson misses is
that for most people in America, Halloween is about
candy. A quarter of all candy sold annually in the US is for Halloween night!
Granted, dressing up as witches and goblins is a tricky issue, but to
think that putting on a scary mask or makeup opens you up to the dark
side is a bit naïve.
In addition, there are two built-in problems with a blanket rejection
position. One is that those who insist on rejecting certain holidays
are not being consistent. Should we reject other holidays because there
is a propensity toward excess? In other words, if people are inclined
toward gluttony on Thanksgiving or Christmas, shouldn’t those holidays
be rejected as well? After all, gluttony is a sin. Second, many times
the reject position assumes that the evil of the extrinsic world will
taint the faith of a Christian. The idea is, “garbage in, garbage out.”
But Jesus says the exact opposite is true (
Mark 7:21-23).
The fruit of our lives (whether in holiness or sin) is always
inextricably tied to the root of our hearts. If our hearts are prone
toward sin in certain ways, we will find a way to sin. Sin indeed
corrupts but the sin is not so much “out there in the world” as much as
it is in the heart of every person. The reject position falsely assumes
sin is mostly what we do rather than who we are.
2. Can Halloween Be Received and/or Redeemed?
The Christian church has tried to deal with Halloween in many ways
throughout the centuries. It has been rejected as demonic and pagan,
subsumed into (medieval) Christian ritual, and accepted unthinkingly as
harmless fun.
An informed understanding of the history of Halloween and the biblical freedom Christians have to redeem cultural practices (
1 Cor. 10:23-33) leads to the conclusion that Christians can follow their conscience in choosing how to approach this holiday.
Just how Christians ought to go about redeeming or receiving
Halloween is still a tricky subject. In order to navigate the waters
successfully, one must always distinguish between the merely cultural
aspects of Halloween and the religious aspects of the holiday. In the
past the church has tried to redeem the religious aspects of Halloween
by adding a church holiday. But again, this is a questionable area. It
seems that Christians can easily receive (with wisdom) some cultural
aspects of the holiday, and there is some potential for the pagan
cultural practices to be redeemed—but care must be taken. There is a big
difference between kids dressing up in cute costumes for candy and
Mardi-Gras-like Halloween parties, offensive costumes, and uninhibited
excess. Therefore it’s naïve to make a blanket judgment to reject or
receive Halloween as a whole. There should be no pressure to
participate, but for those Christians whose conscience permits we should
view it as an opportunity to engage wisely with our culture.
For those who are still bothered by Halloween’s historical association with evil spirits,
Martin Luther
has some advice on how to respond to the devil: “The best way to drive
out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer
and flout him for he cannot bear scorn.” Perhaps instead of fleeing the
darkness in fear, we should view Halloween as an opportunity to mock the
enemy whose power over us has been broken.
First Posted: 10/31/11 03:09 PM ET Updated: 10/31/11 03:09 PM ET