“Ain’t no ghost like the Holy Ghost!”
“Are you fall-o-ween Jesus?”
“Pumpkin spice and Jesus Christ!”
If you come over to our house, you’ll see these three quotes on my door along with some bats and pumpkins.
Should Christians decorate for Halloween? A year ago, I wasn’t sure.
We actually decorated for Halloween this year, and I’m at peace about it.
A year later, the theology is the same, but our porch looks different.
So, what changed?
What Changed in a Year
Last year, I wrote, “I don’t feel the Holy Spirit telling me not to participate. What I feel is anxiety from other people’s warnings.”
My social media feed was flooded with Christian content creators warning others not to celebrate Halloween. I had struggled with wanting to celebrate Halloween in a fun, holy way despite people telling me I shouldn’t.
This year, there’s still no conviction, and now the anxiety is gone too.
The “Halloween is demonic” posts didn’t stop this year. But my fear did.
Psalm 27:1 says, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
David wrote this psalm while enemies surrounded him. His confidence didn’t wait for the threat to leave.
The same is true for me. The fear stopped even though the posts kept coming.
A few weeks ago, I asked my husband to get out the fall decorations. When I saw that I hadn’t thrown out our old skeleton hands or spooky bats, I knew I wanted to put them outside. I saw them as little decorations to join in on the holiday fun, and I was excited to put them out.
And it wasn’t only the porch that changed.
The Victory Is Already Won
The other night, my husband and I were in a scary movie mood. We were watching, and suddenly, it hit me that no matter how dark the story got, the ending is already written. The darkness on that screen had no claim on our home.
Because our house belongs to Jesus.
Our God is bigger.
Paul writes in Colossians 2:15, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him.”
Paul uses the picture of a Roman triumph, where the winning general parades defeated captives through the streets. The powers of darkness are the disarmed captives in that parade.
Whatever darkness shows up on a movie screen or a porch is already in the losing parade.
Jesus’s blood doesn’t shield us from every hardship in a fallen world. Hard things can still come, but they don’t get the final word. Jesus does.
How Our Christian Family Decorates for Halloween
I’m careful about which decorations go out for Halloween. Our principle is to skip anything that celebrates what God opposes or exists to horrify. Everything else is just seasonal fun.
So, we don’t put up anything with witches or devils. Pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns are fine for us. They’re carved pumpkins, and my kids think the faces are silly.
We embrace cute, little cartoon ghosts and pretend they’re all “Holy Ghosts”, which is why we have the door sign. Bats and spiders are okay, and as a healthcare worker, I think skeletons and anatomical hearts are great (I have a sculpted anatomical heart on our wall as it is).
Last year, I said no skeletons. This year one skeleton hand is giving a thumbs-up from the yard, and another is throwing a peace sign. I pretend in my mind that they’re getting raised from the dead to meet Jesus!
When my kids came downstairs to see the decor I put up, they were so excited about the “spooky decorations”.
In 1 Corinthians 10:23, Paul quotes a popular saying, “‘All things are lawful’, but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful’, but not all things build up.” The Corinthians liked to say, “All things are lawful”, as in we’re allowed to do anything really. But Paul’s answer raises a second question: even if we can, should we?
Severed limbs and bloody zombies might be “lawful”, but they exist to horrify, and they don’t build anything up in our home. They’d only scare my kids.
We decorate from security, so we skip anything made to scare.
Of course, this is our own family’s view, not a rule for everyone.
A Pumpkin Has No Power Over You
Last year, I kept hearing that carved pumpkins are a pagan offering and that trick-or-treating invites evil spirits into your home.
It really rattled me then. This year, it sounds silly.
I’ve seen a lot of posts saying that carving a pumpkin quietly signs you into a witchcraft contract. But you can’t sign something you never agreed to, especially when we already belong to Someone.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 8:4, “Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real existence’, and that ‘there is no God but one’.”
In Corinth, meat that had been offered in pagan temples was sold in the public market. Christians were worried that eating it tied them to those gods. But Paul’s answer was: the idol is nothing.
We already belong to the one true God. Carving a pumpkin without the intent of offering it to a pagan god isn’t going to change that.
The pumpkin doesn’t decide. Your heart does.
Room for Families Who Stay Home
“But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 8:9, the very same chapter. Freedom is real, and love limits how we use it around other people.
If you can’t participate in certain Halloween traditions without stepping into dangerous territory, you’re allowed to abstain. That’s what we did with decorations last year. This year I feel secure enough to put them up. That doesn’t make me more faithful than the family who stays home.
Abstaining from Halloween is still wisdom for some. Former witches, people with an occult past, or anyone with a real conviction from the Holy Spirit may find that participating could reopen doors they’ve worked hard to close.
For me, maturity shows up as losing the fear of doing Halloween. Another mature believer might stay home at complete peace.
Security makes room for other people’s convictions. It doesn’t need everyone to do the same exact thing.
Peace can look like a pumpkin on the porch or a dark porch light.
No More Alarm Bells
Now, when I scroll past someone saying they’re not doing Halloween because of the thin veil or cursed candy, I don’t feel an alarm bell going off in my brain saying: Oh no! Should I not do Halloween too?
I look at the dorky Jesus signs on my door, the bowl of candy and tiny Jesus figures in the entryway. I know that God is bigger than any decoration on my porch and anything I hear about Halloween.
