This year, Halloween has unleashed its demons early! The pictures accompanying this blog were taken in a big-box home supply store – on Labor Day weekend! Why these ghoulish decorations where there is beyond me? It’s more puzzling why anyone would want a 15-foot skeleton in their front yard. Or a life-sized demon of death arising from a crypt. Good thing I was wearing my politically correct, mandated mask to ward off the demons of Halloween-virus. (Just kidding, we know that only the blood of Jesus can keep evil spirits away.)
I’ve written many blogs about Halloween and thoroughly analyzed the demonic history of this unholy holiday. But the question still remains: Why should Christians be concerned about Halloween’s intrusion into our culture? Answer: By creating easy familiarity with things that are diabolic, the profane is demystified and made to seem benign. The preoccupation that Halloween has with death and darkness, ghosts and goblins, trivializes the macabre. Ironically, haunted houses won’t be shuttered this year because of Christians waging spiritual warfare. Rather, such denizens of fear are incubators for the COVID virus. Imagine that, Christian witness being outdone by a microscopic killer.
The reason retailers want an early jump on Halloween is because it’s a $9 billion holiday. But it is more than that. Even leaving out Halloween’s shady past in the distant realms of witchcraft and human sacrifice to Lord Samhain (Lucifer), it’s the devil’s day of institutionalized fear and the celebration of all things evil. God is omnipotent. His power is the same every instant, every day. But the devil’s power is limited so he must ration it for expression at certain times and places. The day since antiquity that Satan has labeled as his day is October 31. Instead of joining the crowd to raise a toast to vampires and zombies, Christians need to remember the mission of every believer. As expressed by the Apostle Paul in Acts 26:18, our calling is to turn lost souls “from the power of Satan unto God.” And cast out their demons.
