An estimated 41 million U.S. kids will take to the streets tonight for Halloween.
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“There’s a lot going on…besides just a bunch of kids trick-or-treating,” notes Vander Mey.

“We help people out of the occult, and they say this is a sacred night for them. There is a lot going on in the woods that is not make-believe.”

Blogs like this one and this one acknowledge the spirituality surrounding witchcraft and October 31st. Instead of Halloween, self-labeled pagans refer to the holiday as Samhain, a festival of the dead.

“Why would we participate in that?” asks Vander Mey, referring to the collective Church.

“Would Christ, if He were here, participate in this event?”

The spirituality of Halloween

Whether it’s called “Halloween” or “Samhain,” the annual holiday has spiritual roots. According to History.com, ancient Celtic people observed their new year on November 1, which made October 31 an important evening.

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Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

Selena Fox is a well-known Wiccan priestess and psychotherapist. In this article about Samhain, she encourages communication with the spirit world:

…at Samhain, the veil is thin between the world of the living and the realm of the Dead and this facilitates contact and communication. For those who have lost loved ones in the past year, Samhain rituals can be an opportunity to bring closure to grieving and to further adjust to their being in the Otherworld by spiritually communing with them.

As described here by Infowars.com, very real acts of violence occur every year on Halloween. These offenses are often offered in allegiance to Satan or other forces of darkness.

Should Christians celebrate Halloween?

Numerous sites categorize Halloween as a non-Christian holiday. The sources noted above are but a sampling. At the same time, scores of believers firmly claim the occasion has Christian roots.

Articles like this one and this one point to All Saints’ Day as the original source of Halloween. CBN News also has several articles about the origin of Halloween here.

In her article, writer Holly Scheer encourages Christians to participate in Halloween festivities:

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The claims of pagan roots have led many Christians to completely reject any celebration of Halloween and its traditions the night before All Saint’s Day, but it doesn’t need to be this way. Halloween is a Judeo-Christian holiday with celebrations that mock the devil and his forces of evil in the world.

So go check out that “haunted” house, if spooky frights are your thing, and carve that pumpkin. Let your kids dress up in something adorable (or freaky, whatever) and have fun. Happy Halloween!

Today, on Halloween 2018, Vander Mey encourages Christ-followers to examine Halloween from a scriptural and biblical point-of-view. As you do, pray for the protection of innocent lives.

“We play around with this stuff and we think it’s benign, but I can assure you it’s not because Scripture says it’s not,” says Vander Mey, referring to Ephesians 6.

“The Scriptures say, ‘Our battle’s not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers’.”

Vander Mey shares the account of a girl he knew several years ago. This young woman was anorexic, weighing less than 100 pounds but standing at a height of 5’10”.  He says he’ll never forget what she told the church leaders who gathered to pray for her one night.

“Every time she tried to comb her hair in the mirror, three demons would manifest and tell her what she could and could not eat.”

Further conversation with the young woman revealed what Vander Mey calls the “core” of the issue.

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“When she was 12 years old, she went to a woman’s house who was a practicing sorceress. Her daughter was trained in sorcery, and [the girls] played ‘Light as a Feather’, just playing around with it. That’s where those three entities were assigned to her,” he recounts.

“That woman suffered and nearly died because of that ‘playing around’…I’ll never forget that night because it gave me a paradigm shift.”

Children are especially vulnerable to experimenting with the occult, he continues, because of their God-given curiosity. Look at the Harry Potter books, he says. “It’s just fantasy literature, it’s just pretend, right? But, 10% of children who read Harry Potter will experiment with the occult. They will try to do magic and they will try to do spells.

“Because of our fallen human nature, we’re going to have a curiosity about evil. We kind of ‘play around’ with this stuff, and I just don’t think it’s very healthy spiritually.”

Pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev is one of the persecuted believers in Central Asia who needs your prayers. (Image courtesy Russian Ministries.)

“There’s a date on November third, and then there’s an optional alternate date of November tenth,” he states.

According to IDOP.org, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day (November 1 and 2, respectively) were set apart in the traditional Church calendar to remember the saints of the Church and souls of those who went before us.

The modern-day global Church sets two dates aside during the month of November to remember and pray for the Persecuted Church. This year, those dates fall on Nov. 3 and Nov. 10.

However, “we would urge ongoing prayer, 365 days a [year] for our persecuted brothers and sisters,” Griffith notes.

SGA serves Bible-preaching churches in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States by helping national pastors and churches reach their own people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“There definitely has been an uptick in the level and intensity of persecution in these countries,” says Griffith.

“The worst persecution believers get would be in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but it certainly has been stepping up in Kazakhstan.”

Persecution Personified

Earlier this year, Pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev was imprisoned as part of a nationwide crack-down. He’s been arrested on trumped-up charges, denied medical attention, and imprisoned in a psychiatric asylum.

Now, according to International Christian Concern (ICC), Kazakh officials are harassing members of Kashkumbaev’s Grace Protestant Church.

“You are worse than spies. You bring Kazakhs to Christ,” an officer reportedly told one of ICC’s sources.

In Eastern Kazakhstan, Baptist Pastor Pavel Leonov is facing up to a year’s imprisonment for refusing to pay a fine equal to two months’ income, according to Forum 18 News. Leonov is a Council of Churches Baptist; a group which refuses to register their fellowships with the government.

SGA works with churches of the Union of Evangelical Christians Baptist (UECB), a group registered with Kazakhstan’s government. But, that doesn’t mean they don’t run into problems, Griffith notes.

“They try to comply with registration laws,” he says. “They try to follow the law as closely as they can, and they still end up getting persecuted anyway.”

The Silver Lining

Though persecution is on the rise, it isn’t stopping believers in Central Asia from sharing their faith.

“The churches remember what life was like under Communism,” Griffith states.

“They know what it is to live and serve under persecution, and they’re certainly not going to stop proclaiming the Gospel because this seems to be stepping up again.”

Keep praying for persecuted Christians around the world. Pray specifically for believers in Central Asia.

“Pray for these pastors who are encountering difficulty right now,” adds Griffith.

You could also ‘Share’ this story on Facebook to get more people praying for the Persecuted Church. Just look for the Share bar at the top of this article.

“For some reason, it just doesn’t seem to grab the attention of the news media, and it needs to,” says Griffith. “I mean, these are people that are actually being killed for their faith.”