It’s a million-dollar question in conservative Christian circles:
Should Christians celebrate Halloween?
And her sister queries:
As a Christian, should I let my kids go trick-or-treating?
Can a Christian dress up for Halloween?
Or you may be wondering, Why are Christians against Halloween anyway?
I hate to disappoint, but I’m not actually going to answer any of those questions—for one reason:
That’s your decision. It’s personal, and it’s none of my business.
But I will tell you a bit about my background, why I stopped asking myself if Christians should celebrate Halloween or not, and the one question I started asking myself instead.
My Background with Christian Legalism
My only memory of going trick-or-treating as a kid was when I was in Kindergarten. I remember holding my mom’s hand and walking up and down the streets of our neighborhood in the Midwest. I was dressed up like a Cabbage Patch Kid—what can I say, it was the mid-1980s. 😅
Within a year, my family moved to Texas and got involved with mission work in Central America—and an ultra conservative faith community.
That was the end of trick-or-treating and all things Halloween. It was also the end of wearing my snow pants, cutting my bangs, and a bunch of other stuff.
I wish I could say that I questioned the system early on, but I didn’t. I wish I could say that I questioned it once I became a mom, but I didn’t.
By the time I married and started a family, my husband and I were pastoring a church. And we were involved in an ultra conservative faith community ourselves—one that took years for us to outgrow.
Why I Stopped Asking If Christians Should Celebrate Halloween or Not
At some point along my journey in healing from legalism, I stopped asking what was wrong with October 31… and I just started living the day with all the joy and intention I had learned to embrace on every other day of the year.
Doesn’t Scripture say that every day is a day the Lord has made?
And aren’t we to rejoice and be glad about it?
In answer to the darkness people like to bring up around the holiday, I couldn’t get this quote out of my head:
“It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
Also read: “It’s better to smile and give out candy to happy kids than to sit in your house with the porch light off.” 🙄
Didn’t Jesus tell us to let our lights shine? And not to hide our light?
Eventually, I stopped looking for a monster behind the Halloween bush. I started just living and enjoying the day… and I started asking another question altogether.
The One Question I Started Asking Myself Instead
A conversation with a friend became a turning point for me. She had young kids like I did. She homeschooled like I did. She was involved in an ultra conservative church like I was.
But she didn’t just stop with Halloween. There was no Easter egg hunting—for the same reasons she didn’t let her kids go trick-or-treating (the holiday’s pagan roots).
For some reason, this dumbfounded me. Our church’s Easter event was one of our biggest community outreaches of the year—and yes, there was an Easter egg hunt. On church property. 😱
I began to notice a pattern among some of the Christians I’d known over the years: there always seemed to be another rule to follow. Something else to be against.
More often than not, Halloween was just one item on a very long list.
And the question forming in my mind was: WHAT ELSE are you against?
What had I learned to fear without ever asking why? What rules was I still carrying, simply because someone handed them to me? And how much of my faith had become about avoiding the wrong things instead of embracing grace and truth?
In my mid-thirties, I was so tired of this kind of Christianity. Not because I wanted to abandon my faith.
But I desperately wanted to live it out with a full heart. I wanted to enjoy life. I wanted to embrace the freedom of following Jesus, rather than spending my life tangled up in fear, guilt, and people-pleasing.
And somewhere in that process, the question of whether or not I should celebrate Halloween as a Christian fell as silent as a grave.
Should You Celebrate Halloween as a Christian?
Like I said, that’s not a question I’ll ever try to answer for you. I will not project my beliefs on you the way I had rules and guilt projected on me for decades.
But I’m happy to share my story. Happy to honestly share why and how I answered that question for myself.
The one thing I encourage you to do, if you find yourself wrangling with this question in this season, is to ask yourself: WHAT ELSE am I against?
Not because every boundary is wrong, or every conviction needs to be reconsidered. But sometimes it’s worth asking whether our decisions are rooted in grace and truth, or in fear and guilt—and rules we’ve never thought to question.
If you discover that you’ve spent more time looking for things to avoid than things to embrace, be brave enough to explore that.
And I’ll warn you: there might be more of a monster than you thought hiding in the bushes.
Veritas et Gratia,
Kristy💐