Why You Should Absolutely Celebrate Halloween

So, given the time of year, it's no surprise that all the cautionary (or outright panicked) posts concerning Halloween start coming from Christian sources, anywhere from worry about witchcraft to warnings about drawing the attention of evil demons. Blog posts warn of parties that are secret dark rituals, there to grab the souls of the unwary, the unheeding, those poor people who didn't know better than to have fun.

Ugh.

Halloween is OLD, linked to All Saints Day, when Christians remember those who have died in the past year and celebrate their lives. Halloween (From "All Hallows Eve") was the celebration that came the night before, on a day superstition said that the barriers between the living and the dead were weaker.

That part of it MAY be from an older Pagan holiday. There is certainly no lack of harvest festival concerned with issues of death. But the Christian approach to it was absolutely fantastic. You wore funny costumes, shared treats, dressed as demons... to mock them.

Halloween was a celebration making fun of the evil spirits of dead. Most assumed that the spirits couldn't stand such mockery, and so would go elsewhere to spread their trouble, but I think the answer was much more simple: we didn't believe they had any power over us to begin with, and the mocking was not to weaken them, but rather to embolden us.

The Medieval Church was HORRIBLE at teaching its teachings. Understanding what was happening in your average mass was nearly impossible, with cavernous cathedrals swallowing sound and most (if not all) of the mass being performed in Latin, a language even the priests only barely understood. So we were left with superstition, uncertainty, and fear. For instance, the church had to institute a rule that Christians had to actually take mass once a year, because people were terrified that if they accidentally did it wrong, they would be doomed to hellfire. NOTHING in the theology suggested this, but the people assumed, and no effort was made to teach them otherwise.

Halloween was a rare instance when those ancient priests did it right, recognizing that fear of demons and devils was too prevalent to simply ignore. The theology said that the people had nothing to worry about... Christ Victorious, after all... but the people couldn't even understand the hymns, much less a homily on demons. But a party... a festival mocking evil spirits... THAT they understood, and it did a lot of good.

The roots have been lost. Not many people celebrate All Saints Day anymore, and so Halloween has become a secular event. But as I read those panicky posts, I begin to think that Christians need to be reminded of what it used to be. I think that because, yet again, our people are afraid, irrationally so. Theology hasn't changed, we are still supposed to preach Christ Victorious, but we largely aren't. Preaching Fear for the purpose of control has become vogue, and has been successful in many ways. People ARE afraid. Of demons, of movies, of culture, of LGBTQ people, of liberals, you name it.

We've become afraid of the demons again. But it's a problem the Medieval priests taught us how to solve...

Throw a party.

So THAT is why you should celebrate Halloween... especially if you are fearful of doing so.