Christian, are you celebrating Halloween?

(Hey, don't forget to check out the Monday memory Verse below so Mike doesn't think I bumped him! :) )

With Halloween just around the corner the question comes up again like clockwork: is it acceptable for Christians to celebrate Halloween? I really don't get why this keeps coming up. Considering the fact that Halloween is a time when the whole theme is death, terror, gore and violence, why would we even want to lend credence to such a thing by taking God into that?

Harvest party at your church? Are you sure it isn't just a substitute for Halloween because you kids feel left out? I'm thinking that we leave the dead to the dead and stand apart from Halloween for the glory of our holy God and for the sake of our neighbors.

They might think it's just a fun day to wear costumes and gorge on candy, but no one has forgotten the heart of Halloween. How do I know that? Because the heart of the celebration is still fear and blood!

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

Here is the history and heart of Halloween. If you can read this and still feel good about participating in it, do a Bible study on the word "holy", and check the post below about being a "new creation".