Halloween falls on October 31 every year. Over the centuries, Christians have had a wide range of attitudes to it. This is the story …
All Hallows’ Day
All Hallow’s Day was the normal time within the Church calendar. All Hallow’s Day goes back to the eighth century. In AD 835, Pope Gregory IV made All Hallows’ Day an authorised holiday. Today it’s more often called All Saints’ Day, for remembering departed “saints” – utilized in the best way the word is utilized in the New Testament to mean any Christian, living or dead (Ephesians 4:12).
All Saints Day continues to be marked in lots of strongly Catholic and Lutheran countries. In some countries All Saints’ Day is a public holiday, when many individuals visit family graves to scrub and decorate them with flowers or candles. Additionally, November 2 is marked as All Souls’ Day mainly to honour the lives of the recently departed.
The modern evangelical equivalent is to mark the primary Sunday in November as ‘International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church’.
All Hallow’s Eve
Like the evening before New Year’s Day is New Year’s Eve, and the evening before Christmas Day is Christmas Eve, so the evening before All Hallows’ Day is All Hallows’ Eve. In Scotland this phrase was contracted to Hallow E’en, written without the space as Hallowe’en. Historically, and still in some churches today, there was a special service held that evening called the Vigil of All Hallows. The idea of a vigil comes from the Jewish reckoning of starting days at sunset, not at midnight, so the evening before was actually the beginning of the All Hallows’ Day.
Hallowe’en Traditions
Different superstitions and folk traditions grew up across the All Hallows’ Eve. Hallowed means made holy, but there was nothing holy about a lot of these traditions. All Hallow’s Eve developed in another way in Britain and Ireland in comparison with mainland Europe. Some of the historic traditions are attributed to the pagan celebration of Samhain, which implies “summer’s end” in Gaelic. In some places people wore scary masks and played pranks. Another tradition was to carve scary faces into turnips to create lanterns lit by candles, called jack o’lanterns. Bobbing for apples was one of the popular games. Apples were floated in a bowl of water, or hung from strings, and guests were invited to catch and eat an apple with their hands behind their back. The evening would end with an enormous bonfire.
Reformation Day
Meanwhile in 1517, All Hallows’ Eve was the day when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of his church in Wittenberg, in Germany. Ever since its bicentenary in 1717, this has been popularly marked in lots of churches of Calvinist and Lutheran heritage. For them October 31 is Reformation Day, or The Festival of the Reformation. For some churches the Sunday nearest Reformation Day is Reformation Sunday.
Halloween in England
Meanwhile in Puritan times, Hallowe’en traditions died out in most of England and Wales, but survived and even thrived in Ireland and Scotland. From 1605, in England and Wales, a number of the former Hallowe’en traditions equivalent to bonfires and apple-bobbing were transferred to Guy Fawkes’s Night, held each November 5.
Scottish Hallowe’en
In Scotland, and in Scottish communities all over the world, Hallowe’en was marked by parties. In 1785, Robert Burns wrote a 252-line poem about Scottish Hallowe’en. These evenings typically included “tattie-bogles” (scarecrows), a elaborate dress competition and lanterns carved from “neeps” (turnips). A woman dressed as a witch would tell children spooky stories, and the kids (and infrequently adults too) partook in apple-bobbing or eating treacle-laden pancakes hanging from string. Later there can be a dinner with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes) followed by singing, and reels of Highland dancing led by a bagpiper.
Queen Victoria
Scottish Hallowe’en began to be known in England when it was reported that Queen Victoria marked Hallowe’en at Balmoral. In 1866, while in Scotland, the Queen saw locals constructing fires, carrying torches, and having music and dancing. She asked about it they usually told her it was their Hallowe’en tradition. From then until 1883, Queen Victoria and the royal family had an annual Hallowe’en party at Balmoral Castle.
In its heyday, as much as 100 staff would carry lit torches to a big bonfire in front of the castle. They paraded an effigy of a “shandry dann” (witch), which they then tossed onto the hearth. This was then followed by dancing to music from the Queen’s pipers. As this was reported in newspapers south of the border, Hallowe’en began to be known about in England. At the time the Queen faced criticism from some Christians, that as Head of the Church of England, it was not appropriate for her to entertain such irreligious superstitions.
Halloween in America
Meanwhile over the centuries, Hallowe’en was taken to North America by thousands and thousands of Irish and Scottish emigrants, where it began to develop into a part of American culture. Instead of turnips, they used the more plentiful American pumpkin, which was larger, and easier to carve.
There are many sorts of pumpkins in several colors and sizes. They take as much as five months to grow and are harvested within the autumn, or fall because it’s called within the US. By the top of the nineteenth century, the pumpkin became associated in America with harvest, Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving. In the US, Hallowe’en lost its apostrophe and have become Halloween. In the US, Halloween is now the second largest commercially celebrated holiday after Christmas.
Halloween within the UK after the war
Communities in England of Scottish and Irish heritage often marked Hallowe’en, and it was reported in English newspapers as a Scottish or an Irish tradition. American Halloween was first introduced to the UK by Americans stationed in Britain in the course of the Second World War. From the Nineteen Fifties, Halloween began to be used typically English society, as an excuse for dinner dances, sausage suppers and kids’s parties. These were more innocent affairs with apple-bobbing and fancy dress. By the Nineteen Sixties Hallowee’n had develop into more mainstream, in order that in 1969, Agatha Christie wrote a Poirot detective story called “Hallowe’en Party”, set in a kid’s Hallowe’en party, where a woman is drowned in an apple-bobbing bucket.
Halloween within the media
From about 1978, Halloween began to go in a more scary, macabre and sinister direction. This might be dated to the film “Halloween”, which got here out in 1978, and commenced a latest genre of Halloween being related to horror and the occult, and American television shows often had a Halloween special.
The Growth of Halloween
Through television and movies, non-Americans became more aware of Halloween as practised in North America. From the Nineteen Eighties, the American tradition of trick-or-treating began to be copied by young people in Britain. In the UK, pumpkin carving has also develop into increasingly popular. More farms have began to grow pumpkins, and sales peak at Halloween, some for making pumpkin pie, but mainly for adornment and carving.
Christian Attitudes
Halloween shouldn’t be mentioned within the Bible. The attitude of Christians to Halloween is varied, depending on their cultural background, their Christian tradition, or the style by which Halloween manifests where they live. Attitudes can even change when people have young children or grandchildren to contemplate.
There was a terrific difference in attitudes to Halloween in England and Wales, in comparison with Scotland and Ireland. In the past, many Irish and Scottish churches across the denominations, and Scottish and Irish communities all over the world, were used to holding fun Hallowe’en parties for kids.
Trans-Atlantic cultural attitudes
There are also different attitudes to Halloween across different sides of the Atlantic. Halloween is way more a part of mainstream culture in North America than it’s in Britain. Many American Christians, including evangelicals, are surprised at how opposed English Christians are to Halloween. Likewise, many British Christians are shocked at how relaxed many American evangelical Christians are to it.
Attitude of Churches
For most individuals in society Halloween is a non-religious secular festival. For Christians there may be a spectrum of responses from embracing it, accepting it, redeeming it, replacing it, opposing it, or simply ignoring it:
Embrace
Some churches, especially from Catholic, Lutheran or High Church Anglican traditions embrace Halloween. They see All Hallows’ Eve and All Hallows Day a part of Church tradition and hold special vigil services for it.
Accept
Some Christians just accept Halloween. For them Halloween is a fun, harmless opportunity for youths to decorate up, and rejoice, carve pumpkins and have parties.
Redeem
Other Christians may not embrace it, but attempt to redeem it as an alternative. They see Halloween as a chance to debate spiritual warfare and perhaps engage with the area people. They may give tracts to trick-or-treaters, and take it as a chance to satisfy the neighbours and explain spiritual matters.
Replace
Others Christians try to switch Halloween. For them Halloween is dark, in comparison with the sunshine of the gospel. They use the chance of Halloween, without participating, by putting on alternative events equivalent to Light Parties. In the UK, Scripture Union provide resources for churches to carry a Light Party for youth groups. Others may throw an Autumn Party (or Fall Festival) as an alternative, to offer a family-friendly, protected and fun alternative.
Oppose
There are also Christians who emphasise the pagan origins of Halloween and its associations with the Occult. They want nothing to do with it. Some Christians see Halloween as intrinsically evil and shield themselves and their children from it. They effectively boycott it, or may decide to hold a prayer evening as an alternative, or actively oppose it in other ways.
Ignore
Many Christians and churches just select to disregard Halloween, and a few churches, especially those of the Lutheran or Calvinist tradition, prefer to mark Reformation Day as an alternative.
Our Attitude
Whatever attitude you’re taking to Halloween, Christians must exercise discernment, which can result in different decisions by different churches somewhere else. St Paul says some Christians decide to mark special days and others don’t (Romans 5:14-15), but we must always make our decisions in good conscience (Romans 5:22-23), and never judge others who come to a unique opinion (Romans 5:13).
