Halloween?

Welcome to All Hallows' Eve. Tomorrow, on some church calendars, is All Saints' Day. This is the eve of that event.

Halloween has been a dispute among Christians for some time. "It's harmless fun." "It's Satan's night!" The distances can be great. But where did it come from?

Halloween's origins are in an ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (pronounced "SAH-win"). It was their time to celebrate the harvest and prepare for winter. They believed that on this particular night there was an overlap of the physical world and the spiritual world. So they would try to perform certain ceremonies and practices to keep the spirit world from interfering with their crops or their health or ... you get the idea. They had bonfires to attract insects to attract bats to eat the insects. They wore masks to deceive evil spirits. They put out lighted pumpkins to ward off evil spirits. In the 8th century, the church picked up on the Celtic festival and decided to "redeem it" (the "it" being the conjunction of the two worlds) with a festival of their own. "Let's use the time of remembering the dead to remember the saints who have gone before us."

So they did things that would make the Samhain ritual more conducive to Christian doctrines. Poor people would dress up in costumes and go door to door offering to pray for those in the home on the morrow (All Saints' Day) if they would give them food tonight. (Legend has it that one cook created a food to remind the beggars of eternity by creating a cake with a hole in it and now we have doughnuts with holes in them.) The Roman Catholic belief was that souls were released from Purgatory on All Saints' Day, so this was preparation for that event. They would perform dramas or pantomimes intended to remind people of mortality and the evils of the grave and the need to seek salvation.

Of course, Roman Catholicism was not the prime religious group in early America. At first such celebrations were limited. Eventually they would celebrate the harvest and share stories of those who had gone before with tales or plays or costumes. With the inrush of immigrants, of course -- especially Irish immigrants -- European traditions seeped in. "Trick or treat" wasn't really present until the mid-19th century. By the late 19th century there was a movement to make the holiday more about community and neighbors. This produced a sharp drop in the superstitious concepts of the event and offered a much more secularized version. Towns had harvest festivals. Families shared with families. While "tricks" were typically outlawed, it was considered neighborly to give out treats to kids in costume. While ancient traditions had jack o'lanterns to ward off spirits, masks to avoid being recognized by demons, and giving out of food to help the needy, the American traditions simply became a community fun time.

Today, the debates continue. "No, it's pointless fun." "No! It's Satanic evil!!" Fine. The truth is that a false religion pegged the day as a spirit transition day (which doesn't actually exist) and the ancient church took the false religion's event as a chance to do something more "Christian" with it ... much like they did with December 25th (the ancient pagan winter solstice festival). It once celebrated demons and witches and now makes fun of them. Today's "trick-or-treating" is, at once, both much safer and much more dangerous. It isn't about begging for food or hiding from demons, so that's safer. Today's society, on the other hand, has much less of a moral basis, so "trick" is a very real possibility and, as we all know, so is poisoning food, so that's not so safe. Decorations of ghosts and zombies are popular, but you do know that these aren't real, right? So I'm not going to take a stand here. Like Paul, I'm going to urge, "Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath" (Col 2:16). I will remind you that "whatever does not proceed from faith is sin" (Rom 14:23), but I'll let you decide whatever you think on this topic.

Let me just say this. The day belongs to the Lord (Deut 10:14). Whatever your view on enjoying the day or not, remember that. As always, then, "whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31).