Wednesday, October 26, 2011

HALLOWEEN VS. CHRISTIANITY


By Molly Noble Bull 


Halloween was first practiced as the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) and pagan to the core. According to an article by David L Brown, Ph.D., for wiccans, pagans and Satanists, Halloween is one of their most important holidays. He quoted Margot Adler, a witch, with the following information.
"All the Great Festivals of Paganism, wherever they may be found, correspond in common with Solstices, Equinoxes, and other natural annual cycles of life. Most of these ramain with us today in more of less disguised form as the so-called Christian holidays of Christmas (Yule) Easter (Ostara) May Day (Beltane) Thanksgiving (Harverst Home) Halloween (Samhain) and even Groundhogs Day (Oimelc.)"
He also quoted the late Anton Szandor LaVey, a Satnist, as saying, "Halloween and Walpurgisnacht are celebrated by the Church of Satan." 
The Celts of Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France celebrated their new year on November 1st, the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the cold and dark of winter. It was also associated with human death.

As I child I went to a Christian denominational church every Sunday with my parents, and I loved everything about Halloween. I will always remember my first Halloween costume. I was in the second grade, and there was to be a Halloween carnival at my elementary school.
I wanted to be a witch, and my mother made the costume from black material, complete with a black witch’s hat. I can’t remember if it had a point at the very top of it or not, but I remember the black hat. I think I recall wearing a black mask that only covered my eyes. 
At the time, nobody connected anything really bad with Halloween. It was thought of as merely a kid’s deal where children dressed up in costumes, ate orange colored candy and went around saying, “boo,” a lot. 
What could be more innocent?
Little did I know.
Years later, I starting reading the Bible, and I learned God’s opinion of pagan holidays and witches in particular. The Lord’s thoughts on this topic are pretty clear in the Book of Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verses 10-15. 

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 who do these things are an abomination to the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.
Thou shall be perfect with the Lord thy God. 
For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken;      

As soon as I discovered those scriptures, I got my dictionary and looked up all the words I didn’t know, starting with necromancer. If you will do the same, you might come to the same conclusions I did.
Halloween is about as innocent as a rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike.

6 comments:

Teresa Slack said...

Like you I always loved Halloween as a kid. Running around the neighborhood in a home made costume with my sisters is one of my favorite memories. But Satan is best as subtly. He never comes screaming in our faces...unless you watch reality TV. I still love everything about Fall. I don't think most kids or parents think they are courting the devil by dressing up or handing out candy to the neighborhood kids. But God is displeased with anything that doesn't honor Him. Nothing about Halloween brings honor to the King. There are so many other activities we can enjoy as families that do. Get creative and skip the trick or treating.

Molly Noble Bull said...

Thanks for writing, Teresa. Most know Halloween is at the least, strange. But maybe they didn't know the connection to Satan-worship. Now they know.
Love,
Molly

Anonymous said...

Good work Molly. The word needs to get out that halloween is not just an innocent holiday. The roots are pagan and demonic. It is the strongest demonic holiday of the year in which chants and other activity takes place.

It would be great if the churches would turn halloween into a day of prayer, ours is. Praise the Lord.

Elizabeth Byler Younts said...

Our philosophy in our home is to hand out halloweeen tracts with our candy. My thot on this is that if Jesus knew a hundred innocent unsaved kids were coming to His doorstep...would he turn His porch light out and hide in the house? Or evangelize? I do think that Halloween is an awful trick...just as you said. Praise God that as Christians we can learn what God has for us to do in the midst of this day. My husband and I have strong convictions with doing our part to help evangelize as much as possible and to get our girls involved as they get older...we pray that if even 1 child or parent realizes the message of the tract that it will lead them to a good church and salvation. We all need to be praying for the practices of this day. Thank you for posting. Great job.

Molly Noble Bull said...

Dear Anonymous and Elizabeth,
Thanks for writing. I think Halloween is the time to really pray. Hard. And praise the Lord.
The Satanist will be praying on behalf of their god. The Wiccans will be praying to theirs.
But our God is real and more powerful than theirs. Our God Reigns.
Love,
Molly

Cynthia A. Lovely said...

Very interesting post. Thanks for sharing the info. I know churches that have tried to focus on the harvest aspect of it. No costumes, just pumpkins, hot mulled cider and donuts, fresh apples, etc. with some candy for the kids and innocent games like apple bobbing. It allows the children to still have fun without being involved in the weird stuff.