Today is All Saints’ Day in the Catholic religion. A day of remembrance and veneration of all dead saints (i.e., hallows) and asking for their prayers from heaven.
To encourage this remembrance centuries ago, Catholic churches would display relics said to be associated with past saints. (Some of the more outrageous included a feather from the angel Gabriel, a blood-stained thorn from the crown of Jesus, a flame from the burning bush of Moses, and even body parts from dead saints like John the Baptist.)
Prayers for dead saints would begin the evening before when the poor would go door to door asking for treats in exchange for making prayers for loved ones who had died. All ‘Hallows Eve’ turned into ‘Halloween’.
Hallowtide ends tomorrow (November 2nd) on All Souls Day when prayers are made for the dead baptized Catholics suffering in Catholic purgatory. The prayers are supposed to expedite their suffering and get them to Heaven faster.
Neither relics, purgatory, nor praying to saints are Biblically true, but the masses in Catholic Europe participated in them anyway.
This is why Martin Luther chose this day to post his 95 objections against relics, the Pope, purgatory, and paying for penance. On November 1st, his grievances were on full display during the Day of Hallows for all the gathering celebrants to see. Making posts objecting to Halloween was controversial then and now.
These objections went viral in the 16th century and sparked the Reformation, political change, and treasonous plots (remember, remember, the 5th of November). The celebration of Halloween declined.
Over the next centuries, freedom was forged to possess, read, and believe the Bible in your own language without threat of persecution by the political powers that be.
Eventually, dispensational Bible understanding would blossom in an era of Biblical fervor and individual freedom to believe it.
Today, as interest and knowledge of the Bible has dwindled, the mass celebration of Halloween has returned, and with it a culture of spiritual ignorance, evil superstition, and fear. Halloween is objectionable because its observance always shows disregard for the Bible.
If history teaches us anything, it is God’s words in our hands that can deliver us from evil, ignorance, and fear: when the Bible is believed, Halloween is disregarded.
For truth to all saints,
Justin “hammer and nail” Johnson