All Hallows’ Fairies?!

This will not be an academic post about Halloween, but the question must be asked:

When was the last time you took part in trying to seduce a fairy creature from the Celtic shores(Irish folklore and stories of the Aos Si)?

Oh, you haven’t ever done this? Neither have I!

Credit ‌goes to Michael from Inspiring Philosophy for that tidbit of research. I was unaware of that nugget of lore from ancient days of yore.

Halloween is the eve of All Saint’s Day, which is a Christian holiday celebrating the saints.

The Bible says we are all saints, and one day, according to Daniel 7, we will inherit the kingdom prepared for us from before the foundation of the world.

“You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:31 [ESV]).

This verse is often used by hopefully well-meaning Christians to say we shouldn’t partake in Halloween. The problem is, Halloween has nothing to do with worshiping Yahweh.

Are there witches on Halloween? Sure. But there are vampires, KPop Demon Hunter aspirants, and Elvis. It’s a day of dressing up and taking kids out to get candy from strangers, which could be evil sometimes, but as long as you’re careful, it’s all a bit of harmless fun.

Halloween is not some mystical day where the powers of the evil one are at their peak, fiction novels aside. I hate to break this to you, but witches are active all the time. Why is March 8th any different from October 31st on that front?

Yahweh doesn’t want us performing ACTUAL witchcraft, not fictional depictions or costumes, which are mimetic in their presentations.

Halloween just means All Hallows’ Eve. That’s it. The day/evening before All Saint’s Day.

You could make the Samhain (pronounced SAW-WHEN) argument, but even that is not quite what people do today. That was more like an end-of-summer party, but without occult undertones.

Again, the only pagan custom that can be verified about this day in the ancient past is trying to seduce fairies from the fairy world in places like the Isle of Man.

If you’re into that sort of thing I suppose someone might “hear you out” but 99.9999% of us aren’t doing such things on Halloween.

Halloween is not pagan in the same way that Christmas is not pagan. You could have Halloween on Christmas or Christmas on Halloween and it wouldn’t be a double-whammy of paganism (but it might get songs stuck in your yead).

Most of this comes from Hebrew Roots teachers who suspect anything traditionally Christian.

God isn’t out to kill our fun. As long as we aren’t worshiping demons in an actual sense or practicing the things he forbids in the Torah, we’re fine.

But lying isn’t a virtue of the faithful, so let’s not make things up.

If your conscience tells you not to celebrate Halloween, that’s OK.

Don’t celebrate it.

Just don’t lie about it being pagan, because modern Halloween is a novel idea, not one from ancient generations.

Walk humbly before God and man, and don’t esteem one day as more evil than another. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble, whether that’s July 4th or October 31st.

As Paul said, “Let each one be convinced in their own mind.”

Don’t eat too much candy or drink too much–and most of all–shalom.