Come Out of Darkness: Why Christians Must Reject Halloween

Every October the world puts on its costumes, hangs its skeletons, carves its grinning faces and fills the streets with witches, ghouls and devils. And every October too many churches go right along with it. “It’s just candy.” “It’s just for the kids.” “It’s harmless fun.”

Beloved, it is not harmless. Halloween is a celebration of darkness, and the child of God has no business keeping it.

Where Halloween comes from

Halloween did not begin in the church, and it did not begin with candy. Its roots go back more than two thousand years to Samhain, the festival the ancient Celts kept around November 1st to mark the end of the harvest and the start of the dark half of the year.

The Celts believed that on that night the wall between the living and the dead grew thin, and the spirits of the dead walked the earth again. The Druid priests lit great bonfires, offered sacrifices, and practiced divination to foretell the coming year. People wore disguises so the roaming spirits would not know them, and they set out food to appease them.

Look at what that night was about: communing with the dead, appeasing spirits, fortune-telling, and fear. These are the very things God’s Word forbids:

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD.

Deuteronomy 18:10–12 (KJV)

Centuries later the church set its feast of All Saints on November 1st, and the night before became “All Hallows’ Eve,” which gave us the word Halloween. But changing the name did not change the nature. The bonfires, the masks, the spirits of the dead, the jack-o’-lantern from the Irish legend of a man who tricked the devil — all of it was carried forward. A pagan night with a Christian label on it is still a pagan night.

The occult still keeps it

If you want to know whether Halloween belongs to God or to the devil, ask the people who serve the devil.

Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, named Halloween in The Satanic Bible as one of the two great satanic holidays, second only to the satanist’s own birthday. Witches across the world still hold Samhain as one of their high sabbats. The kingdom of darkness has never stopped claiming this night as its own. Why would the children of light try to share it?

John Ramirez spent years as a high-ranking satanist before Jesus Christ set him free. He says he held a “demonic wedding” on Halloween and dedicated his own daughter to the dark side on that night. Today he warns the church plainly:

“I don’t see how you can cheat on God… on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And to parents he asks:

“Why would you put your kids, your family… your whole eternity on a demonic altar?”

Ramirez even rejects the “Christian” versions — trunk-or-treats and Bible-character costumes — warning that changing who your children are for a night to fit the devil’s holiday is itself “the trick of the devil.” When the people who came out of darkness are begging us not to walk into it, we should listen.

Come out and be separate

God does not ask His people to tame darkness, baptize it, or put a smiley face on it. He tells us to come out of it.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

2 Corinthians 6:14–17 (KJV)

Read those questions again. What communion hath light with darkness? None. What concord hath Christ with Belial? None. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? None. You are the temple of the living God. You cannot dress that temple up as a demon, fill it with the trappings of death, and call it innocent.

“Come out from among them” is not a suggestion. It is a command, and it comes with a promise: “I will receive you.” Separation is not loss. It is the doorway into God’s presence.

Have no fellowship with darkness

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Ephesians 5:8–11 (KJV)

Paul says we were darkness. That was our old life. Now we are light in the Lord, and children of light do not go back to play in the dark for one night a year.

Notice the command has two parts. First, have no fellowship with the works of darkness — do not join in, do not decorate for it, do not celebrate it. Second, reprove them — expose them, speak the truth about them. The church is not called to make peace with Halloween. It is called to shine light on it.

And ask the question Paul tells us to ask: Is this acceptable unto the Lord? Would Jesus put on a mask of death and go door to door on the devil’s high night? Would the Holy Spirit within you be at home among the skulls, the witches and the graveyards? You already know the answer.

What to do instead

Turn off the porch light on Halloween, and turn on the light of the Gospel. Spend the evening in prayer and worship as a family. Read the Word together. Tell your children why your family does not keep this night, so they grow up knowing the difference between light and darkness. And pray for the lost who are trapped in the very things this night celebrates — because Jesus came to set the captives free.

“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Let His people be the same.