In Australia where I live, we don’t celebrate Halloween. But, I think it’d be fun to do so, which is an opinion which isn’t particularly popular in the circles I’ve travelled in. So there are two questions here: Firstly, why is it that many Christian’s don’t want to celebrate Halloween and don’t want it celebrated? Secondly, why is it that I have absolutely no problem with it and, in fact, would enjoy introducing its celebration into my life?

There are a few reasons that I can understand might drive a Christian to dislike Halloween. The first, is it’s origins. It originates in the celtic festival Samhain, which was basically an autumn harvest festival. It was considered the point in the year where the barrier between the land of the dead and the land of the living was thinnest, and hence the evil dead might do harm to crops or livestock. So, they made big bonfires and wore masks to scare off the evil spirits. Jack o’ Lanterns, I believe, served a similar purpose.

Now I understand why a Christian might dislike that. It’s obviously not something that many Christians believe in. However, I don’t think that matters, and this is because of the time-honoured concept of sanctification. Christian’s sanctify things for Christ. Christmas was, too, a pagan celebration (this time, it was midwinter or Yule). Easter could be considered a Christian sanctification of Pesach. Genesis can be considered a sanctification of ancient near eastern creation myths. It’s a Christian tradition to take non-Christian festivals and sanctify them. Halloween is the celebration of the Vigil of All Saints Day, or “All Hallows’ Eve”. All Saints Day is a time to revere the saints, living and departed. Christians pray for the saints, and bring flowers to the graves of departed family. So, similar to the Samhain festival, it is a time where the dead and the living come into contact.

But that doesn’t mean that the masks are ok. Does it? Or the pumpkins? Well, maybe. But I don’t believe that, when the costumes are now worn for entirely different purposes, there is any need to oppose it. Whilst, hundreds of years ago, they were worn and made to scare off spirits, this doesn’t mean that they still are. In fact, most of the children who wear the costumes are just excited to play dress ups and eat candy.

I think a large problem is that death has become associated with evil and the occult in modern Christianity, largely because we are no longer exposed to death in our culture. Death doesn’t occur in the home anymore. When I first encountered cadavers at the beginning of my university degree, it was my first encounter with death. The first time had ever lost someone close to me was my grandmoth when I was twenty three. It was my father’s first time, too, at the age of fifty one. Death is hidden away in our culture, and this has fostered a fear of death that isn’t healthy.

This fear of death, I feel, is largely why many Christians are opposed to Halloween. But, this fear of death, to me, is one reason why we should not be. It is one night a year in which we can face this fear, albeit in a childish way. It gives us a way to face the scariness of the unseen, the uncanny and mysterious. Children can face the monsters under their beds. The night isn’t scary, it’s just unknown.

Death is something that needs to be faced, as it’s hidden away from us in hospitals, morgues and funeral homes or we’re hardened to it by action and horror movies. We need to face it as a real thing. In the past, churches were places for the dead and the living; the churchyard was full of graves. The Sunday School kids, after their lesson, played among them. Viewing the body occurred in the home. People died more regularly; death was closer to us all. And because of that, we were more aware of the gift that Christ gave us.

To me, in a way, the childish celebration of Halloween, a celebration of death and of the departed, is a celebration of what Christ has given us. In the same way as cheesy Christmas traditions celebrate Christ’s birth and cheesy Easter traditions celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection, Halloween too celebrates not Christ’s resurrection, but our own mortality and how Christ has delivered us from it.

It is the one place in these times where our mortality is front and centre.

I think we should celebrate it.