Tag: Sacred in the Ordinary

Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead. So why are we so worried about plastic skeletons?

Editor’s note | October 2026

I originally published this article in October 2025. Returning to it a year later, I’ve revisited the historical research, particularly my earlier assumptions about Samhain and Celtic spirituality. I’ve also developed the theological argument a little further. My position hasn’t changed much, although my understanding of the subject has.

When I was younger, my mum bought me a leather ankle bracelet from a market. I liked it, so I wore it. At the time, I belonged to a Christian community with a rather intense understanding of spiritual warfare. There seemed to be demons lurking behind almost everything. Certain books, music and even clothing were considered spiritually dangerous. Eventually, someone informed me that my ankle bracelet had a curse attached to it, something apparently discernible only to particular people within the group. I was told to cut it off, so I did.

I’ve written more about that experience in What Is Religious Trauma?, but I mention it because every October I’m reminded of that same way of thinking. Halloween arrives, and suddenly Christians are warning one another about pumpkins, costumes, ghosts and whatever else might invite demonic influence into our homes. Having spent part of my early Christian life worrying that ordinary objects could be spiritually dangerous, I find these conversations rather familiar. I understand that not everyone who avoids Halloween comes from that sort of background. Some have thoughtful theological objections, while others simply don’t enjoy it. Fair enough. But I can’t help finding it strange that Christians, who profess belief in the resurrection of Jesus and the ultimate defeat of death, can become so anxious about plastic skeletons hanging from someone’s veranda.

Halloween’s Complicated History

When I originally wrote this article, I was fascinated by Halloween’s connection to Samhain, the ancient Gaelic festival associated with the transition from summer into winter. You’ve probably heard the familiar story. Ancient Celts supposedly believed that the boundary between the living and the dead became thin at Samhain, allowing spirits to cross into our world. Eventually, the Church arrived, appropriated the festival and transformed it into All Hallows’ Eve. It’s a fascinating account, and I certainly found it appealing, particularly the idea of ancient communities gathering around fires, remembering their dead and reflecting on the changing seasons. Unfortunately, the historical evidence is considerably less straightforward.

Historian Ronald Hutton examines these claims in his 2024 article, The Celtic New Year and Feast of the Dead. Hutton traces much of our popular understanding of Samhain to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship, particularly the work of John Rhys and James Frazer. While Samhain was certainly an important seasonal festival, the evidence that ancient Celts regarded it as their New Year is inconclusive. The claim that it was primarily a festival dedicated to the dead is even less well supported. This doesn’t mean there were no supernatural traditions associated with Samhain. Medieval Irish literature certainly contains them, and some customs may preserve much older practices. But reconstructing what pre-Christian communities believed from material written down centuries later is notoriously difficult.

Nicholas Rogers offers a broader account in Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, tracing Halloween’s development through Gaelic traditions, Christian observances, European folklore and eventually North American popular culture. The Christian history is worth exploring in its own right. Halloween takes its name from All Hallows’ Eve, the evening preceding All Saints’ Day on 1 November. All Souls’ Day follows on 2 November. These observances developed within Western Christianity as occasions for remembering the saints and the departed, although their particular histories and theological meanings differ.

I find this interesting because Christians can be remarkably selective about which cultural influences concern us. We participate in customs with complicated religious and secular histories all the time, regularly adopting and reinterpreting traditions without assuming their earliest associations determine their meaning forever. Yet when Halloween comes around, some Christians speak as though dressing up as a ghost is participating in an ancient spiritual practice. I’m not persuaded the connection is nearly that simple. Even if we could trace every Halloween custom back to its earliest beginnings, we’d still need to ask what people actually mean by participating in it today.

Death, Resurrection and Those Awful Skeletons

Paul describes death as the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). I’ve always found that description striking, particularly because Christians sometimes speak about death as though it isn’t really an enemy at all. When somebody dies, we often reach for familiar words of comfort. They’re in a better place. We’ll see them again. God has a plan. I understand the desire to reassure people, but I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the way resurrection hope can sometimes be used to hurry people through grief.

Jesus doesn’t seem to do that. When he encounters Mary and Martha following the death of Lazarus, he weeps (John 11:35). He knows he’s about to raise Lazarus, yet he still enters the grief of those around him. Jesus knows death will not have the final word, but that knowledge doesn’t make their suffering insignificant. The Christian hope of resurrection has never required us to pretend death is anything other than terrible. It tears through relationships, families and communities, leaving absences that don’t simply disappear because somebody believes in eternal life.

In Easter Sunday: The Defeat of Death and the Birth of New Creation, I explored the Christian understanding of salvation as Christ’s victory over sin, death and the powers that hold creation captive. This understanding, often called Christus Victor, has become increasingly important to my theology. Hebrews 2:14–15 speaks of Christ liberating those who were enslaved by the fear of death. Through the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, God enters the reality of human mortality and confronts death from within. The God who created all things has entered the grave, and the grave could not hold him.

Now, I’m not suggesting that a cheap skeleton from Kmart should become a profound theological symbol. Sometimes a plastic skeleton is just a plastic skeleton. But Halloween does offer an opportunity to think about mortality in ways we otherwise tend to avoid. Ghost stories, graveyards and the various frightening things associated with the festival all draw, in different ways, on our fascination with death and the unknown. Modern Western culture can be strangely uncomfortable with death. We often keep it out of sight until it intrudes into our lives, then struggle to find language for what we’re experiencing. Christianity has spent centuries wrestling with mortality, suffering and resurrection. It seems rather unfortunate that our contribution to the conversation occasionally amounts to telling people not to put skeletons in their front gardens.

God Is Not Afraid of the Dark

Another part of my original article explored the Celtic Christian idea of thin places, those moments or locations where heaven and earth seem particularly close. I still like the expression, although its widespread use in contemporary Celtic spirituality shouldn’t be projected uncritically onto ancient Celtic Christianity. It captures something of my understanding of God’s relationship with creation. I don’t imagine God as distant from the physical world, occasionally reaching into it from somewhere else. Creation exists through God’s sustaining presence, and the ordinary material world can become a place where we encounter divine beauty and grace.

Psalm 139 speaks of a God for whom even darkness is not dark. Of course, darkness is also used metaphorically throughout Scripture to describe evil, ignorance and alienation from God. John’s Gospel makes considerable use of that imagery, but darkness itself isn’t evil. Night is part of the world God created. There’s also something amusing about Australians borrowing so much northern hemisphere autumn imagery for Halloween. While people in Britain are preparing for winter, we’re heading towards summer. Our own seasonal experience doesn’t quite match the symbolism, which is another reminder that cultural images can acquire different meanings as they travel.

The Christian story itself takes us into places far more unsettling than anything we’re likely to find in the Halloween aisle. Jesus is betrayed, arrested, tortured and crucified. His disciples are left with the apparent collapse of everything they had believed about him. I’ve become particularly interested in Holy Saturday, that uncomfortable period between crucifixion and resurrection when the disciples don’t yet know what Sunday will bring. I suspect Christians sometimes need to recover the ability to sit in that uncertainty. We can be so eager to announce the victory of resurrection that we forget how to accompany people who are still grieving on Saturday.

What Are We Actually Afraid Of?

I don’t think Christians should participate indiscriminately in everything associated with Halloween. Scripture takes idolatry and divination seriously. Attempting to summon spirits or seek supernatural power apart from God raises genuine theological concerns, and Christians have good reasons to approach such practices cautiously. But surely we can distinguish between participating in a religious ritual and dressing up as a fictional character. A child wearing a vampire costume isn’t necessarily engaging in the occult, watching a horror film isn’t the same activity as attempting to communicate with the dead, and handing out lollies doesn’t constitute an act of pagan worship.

Paul’s discussion of food associated with idols in 1 Corinthians 8–10 provides an interesting comparison. The early Christians lived in a world where pagan worship was thoroughly woven into ordinary social life. Meat might have been associated with temple sacrifice, and believers disagreed about whether eating it was acceptable. Paul’s response is more nuanced than simply declaring everything permissible or forbidden. He distinguishes between food that can be eaten without religious significance and participation in actual idolatrous worship. He also reminds believers that their freedom should be exercised with consideration for other people’s consciences. Romans 14 offers similar guidance concerning disputed practices and the observance of particular days. Neither passage is directly about Halloween, of course, but the principles seem relevant.

If you believe participating in Halloween would compromise your conscience, then don’t participate. I have no interest in pressuring people to celebrate something they believe they should avoid. What troubles me is when personal conviction becomes a declaration that everybody else is inviting demonic influence into their homes. I’ve lived with that sort of thinking. It gradually teaches you to become suspicious of the ordinary world, particularly of things you don’t understand. Eventually, almost anything can become a spiritual threat.

And while we’re discussing spiritual danger, I think the Church needs to be rather more discerning about where it directs its concern. I’ve encountered far more convincing evidence of spiritual harm in churches that manipulate, silence or abuse people than I ever have in children wearing Halloween costumes. Churches have sometimes been remarkably vocal about fictional witches while remaining disturbingly quiet about the misuse of spiritual authority within their own communities. That deserves considerably more attention than the decorations at Kmart.

Perhaps We Could Just Open the Door

One of the things I enjoy about Halloween is how ordinary it can be. Children wandering around in ridiculous costumes, families spending time together, and neighbours who might otherwise never speak having a conversation at the front door. I know some churches prefer to organise alternative events, and I’m not opposed to that. A well-organised community gathering can be a wonderful thing. I just wonder why our response to the wider culture so often involves creating somewhere separate for Christians to go.

We spend plenty of time talking about reaching our communities and building relationships with people outside the Church. Halloween brings those people to our doorsteps, and sometimes we seem determined to be somewhere else when they arrive. I don’t think we need a complicated strategy. Buy some chocolates, open the door, have a laugh with the kids about their costumes and get to know the neighbours. Perhaps resist the temptation to turn every interaction into an evangelistic opportunity. Jesus seemed quite comfortable spending time with people who didn’t share the religious convictions of those around him. His presence among them didn’t mean he approved of everything they believed or practised, but he wasn’t frightened of being around them. I’d like to think Christians could develop that same confidence.

There’s another dimension to Halloween worth considering. All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day provide Christians with opportunities to remember those who have died. Different traditions understand these occasions differently, particularly regarding prayer for the departed, but remembrance itself is an important part of Christian life. The Apostles’ Creed speaks of the communion of saints, a confession that reminds us the Church is much larger than the people gathered on any given Sunday. We belong to a history shaped by countless people whose lives, faith and love have influenced those who came after them. Some are people whose absence we still feel deeply.

Perhaps Halloween, considered alongside the Christian calendar, could become an occasion for remembering them. Lighting a candle, sharing a story, visiting a grave or simply allowing ourselves to miss someone without feeling that grief contradicts our faith. I wrote about something similar in Faith and Mental Health, Part Two: The Tenderness of Hope. Christian hope doesn’t require suffering to disappear before we can speak honestly about God’s goodness. I rather like the idea of Christians being able to enjoy the silliness of Halloween while also making room for the deeper questions about mortality sitting somewhere behind it.

Why I Still Think Christians Should Celebrate

Returning to this article a year later, I’m less interested in arguing that Halloween is an ancient Celtic Christian tradition. The evidence simply doesn’t warrant that conclusion. I’m also less concerned with making everything associated with Halloween secretly Christian. We don’t need to find theological meaning in every pumpkin or costume. What interests me is how we respond to a cultural celebration that brings death, fear, imagination and community into public view.

We believe that Christ has entered death and risen again. We believe the world belongs to God, that creation is being renewed and that death itself will eventually be destroyed. I struggle to understand why a faith with convictions like these should find Halloween so threatening. For some Christians, celebrating might mean remembering loved ones, attending an All Saints service or reflecting on the resurrection. For others, it might simply mean enjoying an evening with family and neighbours. I don’t see why those things need to compete, and if someone chooses not to participate, Christian freedom ought to make room for that too.

As for me, I think there’s something worth recovering in a Christianity that can take death seriously, live without being consumed by fear and still have enough room for a bit of fun. So if a child dressed as a skeleton comes knocking this Halloween, I’m rather inclined to give them some lollies. I don’t think there’s anything particularly demonic about that.

Further Reading

• Ronald Hutton, “The Celtic New Year and Feast of the Dead,” Folklore 135, no. 1 (2024): 69–86.
• Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Oxford University Press, 2002).
• Michael Carter, “A Brief History of Halloween, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day,” English Heritage.