Halloween is the most popular holiday — second only to Christmas — with billions of dollars spent yearly on costumes, candy, and more.  

You can’t escape being confronted with it. Whether you’re shopping with your family, or driving past your neighbor’s lawn, you’ll find its ghoulish images on display. 

So how should believers respond? What should parents think about Halloween and tell their children? 

Is it possible to redeem this day of darkness and make it a celebration that honors God?  

In this short video, Scott Brown explains that, while having Reformation Day gatherings are a good idea, we should otherwise distance ourselves from this explicitly pagan holiday and walk as children of light.  

As families, we should shun the culture of death — which is at the very heart of Halloween — and celebrate things that are beautiful before the Lord.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is of good report, if there's anything worthy of praise, set your mind on these things. (Phil. 4:8).  

What to do with Halloween? Halloween is the most popular holiday, second only to Christmas. Six point nine billion dollars go into costumes and candy and parties and paraphernalia. Believers must always be aware of what they're connected with and identifying with. And when it comes to Halloween, it's hard to find a more explicitly demonic, pagan tradition than Halloween.

Well, what should parents think about and what should they tell their children about Halloween? They need to shoot straight with them about Halloween. They should tell them that Halloween is connected to paganism and occult practices. In fact, I mean, the origins of Halloween in some ways don't matter. What's happening today?

I think we know what's happening today on the Satanist website. Is Halloween important to Satanists? Here's their answer. We see this holiday as the night when the mundane folk try to reach down inside and touch the darkness, which for Satanists is a daily mode of existence. Particularly in the United States, Halloween is a time for celebrating monster films, wearing costumes of macabre culture, and evoking the thrill of fun fear.

Children of all ages can engage in their, can indulge their fantasies by donning costumes that allow for intense role playing and the release of their demonic cores. The parts of their personalities often hidden from their friends and their co-workers. On the website, they continue. It's to honor the dead, brew potions, increase divine energy, light fires, perform un-baptisms and black masses to free from religious oppression. So is it possible to redeem Halloween and make it a celebration that honors God?

Well, maybe if you celebrated the Reformation, the Reformation Day on October 31st, maybe that would be a great way to do something different than Halloween. But Halloween is so explicitly pagan, my belief is that Christians should completely distance themselves from it. As you're explaining why you're not participating in Halloween, make sure that you're not teaching your children to look down their nose on all the people who are celebrating it and however they're celebrating it. The most important thing is that you're helping them to be focused on what the apostle Paul talked about in Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is of good report, if there's anything worthy of praise, set your mind on these things.

That's the most important thing for your family. And to recognize that things like Halloween don't really fit in to that kind of scheme. But it's also important that they understand that this emphasis on death is really very harmful. In Proverbs 8.36, Solomon says, all those who hate me love death. In Colossians 3, 5, we're told that things that are connected with sexual immorality and impurity and idolatry are drawing the wrath of God.

So it's very, very serious. In 1 Corinthians 10, 20, and 21, the apostle says this to that church, The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons, or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

What Paul said to the Ephesian church is very similar in Ephesians 5.8. He said, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. That's the most important thing, to communicate that what a Christian family does is walk in the light, walk in the things that are beautiful before the Lord.