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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Should Churches Have Alternatives to Halloween?

halloween

The Bible says to give no place to the devil. And I think when we look at Halloween, what we have to look at is how many doors can we close so that we give no place to the devil? The adversary goes around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And we need to make sure we are living a righteous, pure, clean, holy life so that we are not someone that he can come and devour or that he’s even seeking.

There will be people who will find different churches to go trunk-or-treating, but let’s not have our church be that place, because when we allow our church to be that place, we’re setting ourselves up—our church, our ministry—for spiritual warfare attack. Anton LaVey, the founder of Satanism, says he loves it when Christian parents dress their kids up for Halloween, because in the spiritual realm, there’s just no differentiating between dressing them up as a spider or a goblin or dressing them up as an angel or a biblical character to the demonic realm that has made it [its] mission to curse us and wreak havoc on us.

We are opening a door; we are opening a gateway when we allow that participation. That’s why I really believe, that if you want to do something for Hallowen, the best thing we should do is spend that time in prayer, and do evangelistic outreach 10 days later.

[Do you struggle with discouragement or depression more often around the end of the year? If so, DeGraw says the reason may at least be partially spiritual.]

Some of these are natural happenings—grief, depression, financial. But this is also these demonic spirits that are coming out for the month of October and Halloween. They’re cursing us in advance. … A lot of Christians go into the spiritual warfare zone in November and December, and it’s because of the spirits that have these underlying curses that they’re throwing in October, and it puts us in turmoil for the rest of the year.

— Prophetic deliverance minister Kathy DeGraw, Charisma, How ‘Christian Alternatives’ to Halloween Can Still Open Portals to Demonic Attack, October 18, 2022

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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7 Comments

  1. Avatar
    AlphaJet

    I’d really like one church to show me with physical evidence something satan did. They whip up hysteria but can not back it up with facts. Much like studies of prayer have shown no statistical benefit to the prayee can they point me to a study that shows event A caused satanic result B?

  2. Avatar
    ObstacleChick

    🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

    Anton LaVey is the founder of Satanism 🤣🤣🤣 No, he founded the Church of Satan and is quite silly.

    People can get depressed this time of year – seasonal affective disorder often starts as days ager shorter.

    These fundy Christians are scared of EVERYTHING! How sad.

  3. Avatar
    Emersonian

    Anton LaVey died 25 years ago. Pretty sure he’s not “loving” much of anything right now. I swear, the belief in Satan and demons is one of the things I find hardest to get my head around; as a UU I want to respect sincerely held beliefs, but as a reasonable human I find this utterly ludicrous.

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