Why Evangelicals Are So Weird About Halloween

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Flytrap Fridays will run here on the blog, free for everyone to read, until Election Day. Think of it as a little ~ amuse bouche ~ for the Flytrap-curious. In our first edition, Flytrap co-founder s.e. smith brought us spooky-season goodness with “The Pumpkins of Fir Street.” Then, Tina Vásquez penned a moving reconsideration of “Roseanne,” and Nicole Froio gave us an essay on female villains — real, imagined, and purported. In this special Halloween double feature, Andrea Grimes grapples with the freaky feminism of CBS’ “Evil,” and Chrissy Stroop unpacks why evangelicals love to hate the holiday.

Every year around this time, the ol’ ‘JesusWeen.com’ bumper sticker pops up on social media, giving us a chance to laugh at the absurdity of evangelicals. Did whoever came up with that not consider how this would make every person with an even slightly naughty mind think about Jesus’ penis? Let’s all have a mildly blasphemous chuckle about that.

As Snopes documents, the JesusWeen campaign, which called for the distribution of Bibles rather than candy to trick-or-treating children, was the project of a single pastor at a single church in Alberta—the Texas of Canada—and fizzled soon after launching in 2011. But as anyone who has lived either as them or among them can tell you, North American evangelicals truly are downright weird about Halloween. Hashtag not all, natch. But it’s a pervasive subcultural pattern shaped by harmful beliefs.

Just as JesusWeen makes the social media rounds this time each year, there’s another meme of sorts that gets passed around conservative Christians’ social media circles. That meme is the following apocryphal quote, attributed without evidence to Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan: “I am glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year.” Now, LaVey was a hedonist, an atheist, and an Ayn Rand adoring asshole. He didn’t worship Satan, in whom he didn’t believe. He just liked the symbolism of the devil and some associated pageantry to go along with his “enlightened” selfishness. 

But as an evangelical kid, adults told me in an ominous tone that the “founder of Satanism” was glad Christians let their kids celebrate the Satanists’ holiday with them. In other words: good, properly “spiritual” Christians obviously shouldn’t celebrate Halloween.

America’s conservative, mostly white evangelicals never let facts get in the way of a good morality tale, so many of them invoke the above quotation as “proof” that Halloween is “satanic.” If you want to see this dynamic in action, you can always dredge up Geraldo Rivera’s 1988, two-hour special, “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground,” which features LaVeyan Satanists and conservative Christians as guests, the latter of whom refuse to believe the former when they explain they don’t even believe in the devil, let alone worship him.

The 1970s and ’80s were a strange time, full of “repressed memory” recovery and panic over a supposed wave of “satanic ritual abuse” crimes in daycares (for which no physical evidence ever emerged and for which queer people were disproportionately falsely imprisoned). There were also wacky and disturbing evangelical manuals for casting out demons and sensational books by charlatans claiming to have been high priests of Satan and who made a killing on the evangelical speaker circuit. Evangelicals have become more politically organized and powerful since then (they brought us the right-wing Catholic Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade when the conventional pundit wisdom said it would never happen). But they have neither improved their epistemology nor gotten any less weird about Halloween.

Of Dorks and Demons

Long before JesusWeen was a thing, on Halloween some evangelicals handed out fire and brimstone gospel tracts with (or in lieu of) candy. Meanwhile, evangelical churches produced “hell houses,” a Christian alternative to haunted houses meant to scare people into salvation. (Many feature a bloody woman who dies because of a botched abortion.) I mean, what’s the point of putting the fear of God in people if you don’t also scare them away from reproductive justice and into the embrace of white supremacist patriarchal heteronormativity? And then there are the church-hosted “harvest festivals” or “fall festivals” where kids can play (banal at best) Bible-themed games, get some candy, and dress up in non-scary, often Bible-themed costumes.

These Halloween alternatives are just one way in which evangelicals separate themselves from the broader world. I know this all too well because I grew up in a fairly isolationist evangelical environment, singing creepily militant songs in Sunday school like “I’m in the Lord’s Army” and going to Christian schools where every day we pledged allegiance to the American flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible, in that order.

We called ourselves “Christians” rather than “evangelicals” (although that term was okay) or “fundamentalists” because we didn’t want the baggage that term carried and figured we were too nice to count anyway. But mainly we simply called ourselves Christians because we knew we were real Christians, not like those liberal Protestants who would definitely be left behind when Jesus appeared in the sky to rapture us up to heaven. And not like those Catholics, or at least most of them, with their weird Mary worship and saint stuff—although anti-Equal Rights Amendment crusader Phyllis Schlafly was okay and probably had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which meant she was saved.

We were surrounded by enemies—you know, those types from the American Civil Liberties Union who forced the Bible and prayer out of our public schools and insisted on teaching kids that they evolved from monkeys! Them and the queers and the feminists and the evolutionists and the abortionists. (Any group God didn't like, you could probably add an “ist” suffix on to the name to make them sound more nefarious.) 

In some respects, my own evangelical parents were a bit liberal, given what my sister and I were allowed to do growing up. To be sure, we were not permitted to say the word “butt,” but— see what I did there?—we did have permission to watch “The Smurfs!” On Halloween, we could dress up—but only in non-scary, non-satanic costumes with no witchy or occult associations like clowns, ballerinas, or bunnies—and do some limited trick-or-treating. We weren’t allowed to actually say “trick or treat” because the implied threat of trickery was clearly sinful. So we went up to people’s doors, rang their bells, and like total effing dorks, said, “Happy Halloween!” 

It could have been worse. We could have spent the whole evening praying against demons, like the family of the senior pastor of the church we went to when I was in high school in the ’90s. That pastor liked to reassure people he did not in fact see demons “behind every bush and tree.” That being said, he sure did see a lot of them. And he claimed they were very active on Halloween, luring kids into occult practices so that Satan could get a foothold in their souls and ultimately claim them for hell. 

The Weaponization of Fear and “Spiritual Warfare” 

Like many Americans, I now enjoy spooky season, which I take to mean the beginning of fall through Halloween. Although a strong case exists for defining the season as encompassing the entire part of the year when the daylight wanes and the veil between the world of mortals and the realm of spirits, for those who believe in such things, grows increasingly thin. Christmas used to be associated with scary ghost stories, after all, some of which persist in Europe—and even in quirky enclaves of the U.S., like Portland, Oregon, with its annual Krampus Lauf.

However, when spooky season arrives, I can’t help but recall, with a certain seasonally appropriate melancholy, all the self-conscious weirdness about Halloween and other potential satanic influences that was burned into my childhood psyche. With my adult apostate perspective, I can now see how evangelicals’ authoritarian politics of fear, which I internalized in childhood and began questioning as a teenager, has  brought us to this shitty American present. Evangelicals’ fear of Halloween—almost a fear of fear itself, if you will—is a perfect illustration of the workings of this social dynamic.

Evangelicals are taught from their earliest years that they are surrounded by invisible evil forces arrayed against them, and that only Jesus (whose holy dick you’re definitely not still thinking about, right?) protects them. This might seem very abstract—and it is, but what is not abstract is being told that if you do not accept Jesus into your heart, you will literally burn forever in hell. Or that as a 3 or 4-year-old child, you are so wicked and evil and broken that eternal excruciating pain is the punishment you deserve. 

I’m not the only person I’m aware of who, as a highly sensitive child,  cried on many nights and recited “the prayer of salvation” over and over again, just in case it didn’t stick. That’s the context for the idea that you need Jesus not only to save you from hell, but also to protect you from the demonic forces around you and prepare you to do battle against them in spiritual warfare.

For a person (like yours truly) with a highly scrupulous personality, this mentality imbues every little mundane decision and pedestrian interaction with potential eternal significance, which are some very scary stakes. But take a step back to look at the system that propagates this thinking and you can see that it functions as powerful social disciplinary mechanism to enforce conformity (LGBTQIA+ Christians are often subjected to conversion therapy or even exorcism) and promote distrust toward anything not already approved by your parents, your Christian school, your Sunday school teachers, the pastor, or your larger evangelical community. To maintain this level of paranoia also demands conspiratorial thinking and a downright neurotic approach to movies, TV, music, and holidays. 

For example, in my family, we had to change the lyrics of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from “if the fates allow” to “if the Lord allows” because “luck” and “fate” are Pagan concepts and it was therefore wrong for Christians to accept them. And being wrong, for our kind of Christian, was downright dangerous, because it could open you up to literal demonic influences. Halloween was especially treacherous because it was chock full of demonic perils, offering all kinds of temptations meant to entice children to damnation—and conservative Christians are obsessed with children.

The Unbearable Weirdness of Evangelical Subculture

Since secular media was ipso facto dangerous, evangelicals came up with their own: Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (and others) for “news”; contemporary Christian music; Christian movies (before the Left Behind phenomenon there was the extremely low-budget ‘70s Jesus freak horror flick, A Thief in the Night); Christian publishing houses, bookstores, and books.

As scholars of evangelical literature like Christopher Douglas have observed, alongside the Bible (colored through their particular interpretation of it), evangelicals often view the fictional works of trusted Christian authors as expressing important truths about the way things work. And perhaps the single most influential author with respect to the understanding of  the spiritual warfare behind the Jericho Marches and the Jan. 6 insurrection was Frank Peretti, a novelist from a prominent family in the Assemblies of God denomination who wrote books for both adults and children (some of which I checked out from my church library as a kid).

Peretti’s adult novels, This Present Darkness (1986) and Piercing the Darkness (1989) were staples in evangelical households in the ’80s. I remember seeing the books on my parents’ bookshelves and bedside table. I didn’t read them then, but I’ve examined Peretti in recent years as I’ve worked to unpack the authoritarian Christianity that raised me. As Douglas sums it up, Piercing the Darkness features “a quintessentially American town… beset by New Age spirituality, foreign religious influences and a shadowy corporation seeking control over the town’s institutions…. Secularists, college professors, feminists and liberals are supported by demonic networks, and Christians combat them by praying in strategic places—as did Paula White in Trump’s White House.”

That’s an accurate summary and an insightful connection to the present moment, but Douglas’s description doesn’t do justice to the book’s incredible weirdness. This Present Darkness demonizes yoga and the discipline of psychology; references the “New World Order”; conjures up a highly detailed hierarchy of demonic leaders and forces who are opposed by a group of extremely muscular angels who are nevertheless powerless against the demons unless Christians provide “prayer cover”; features a cameo by an imprisoned mugger who “turned out to be a very vociferous, opinionated Marxist”; uses false child sex abuse allegations and a wayward temptress throwing herself at a pastor as key points in the devil’s schemes to bring down those who could thwart his evil plans; and makes a racist jab at the “little guru from some dark and pagan land” behind the demonic takeover of the town. (Weirdly, an authoritarian New Religious Movement under Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh actually did briefly take over a very small town in Oregon in the ’80s, which I assume inspired the general idea of Peretti’s book—a town which, I also assume, was devoid of Marxist muggers.)

Basically, when I read This Present Darkness a couple years ago, I found myself saying “what the fuck” under my breath at least once per page. Check out the passage below for an example of how Peretti conjures fear of demonic influence arising from the mundane pursuit of modern entertainment in that ‘80s icon, the video arcade:

That doesn’t remind me of any arcade I ever went to back in the day, but it does sound pretty metal. Peretti describes his heroic pastor, Hank, going in, accompanied by angels that he cannot see but that can influence him. Meanwhile, the angels can see “hundreds of narrowing yellow eyes peering at them from the corners and dark hiding places of the room.” The pastor is led to address a particular boy named Ron, bring him outside, and exorcise him of the group of demons that cling to him. These demons included Sorcery and Divination, which Ron obviously picked up from playing video games, as one does.

Why bring these ridiculous demon conspiracies up now instead of leaving them in the ’80s, where they belong, with Crystal Lite, permanent waves, and ginormous shoulder pads? Well unfortunately, the satanic panic didn’t stay in the ’80s; it simply metastasized, lay more or less out of sight (from the mainstream press anyway) for a while, and then came surging to the fore. This time, QAnon conspiracists and the Hitler-quoting Moms for Liberty are taking the rights of queer and especially trans Americans away in every state and locale they can, claiming we queer folks are “groomers” and presumably part of the same cabal that traffics children in the basements of pizza joints that don’t have basements so that Democratic leaders and “Hollywood elites” can harvest their adrenochrome for nefarious purposes. Yikes!

This politics of fear and moral panic remains the evangelical go-to because it works—it keeps most followers in line, allowing them to feel like both the moral majority and beleaguered—or to put it in Trumpier terms, “treated very unfairly”—at the same time. This ethos encourages members of the in-group to see those who disagree with them or are different in ways that challenge patriarchy, not as opponents, but as enemies who are (consciously or unconsciously) under the control of demons. It both generates fear of the other and allows for the easy deployment of that fear as a political weapon for the forces of majoritarian grievance that have never wanted a U.S. in which “all people are created equal.” Othering and fear-mongering are the conditions required for delegitimation, domination, and even genocide.  

Those who work to pursue racial and gender justice tend to understand the white supremacist and patriarchal components of this cultural system quite well, but too often we forget that Christianity is also in the mix. Yes, of course, liberationist Christianity exists, and the Black church has been of inestimable importance to the pursuit of civil rights in America. That being said, throughout history, Christianity has typically gone hand-in-hand with oppressive imperial power, legitimating and cementing that power with authoritarian theology that breeds fear.

Fear of difference is a critical engine of authoritarian, black and white thinking. As I’ve said before: “Fundamentalism is authoritarianism in microcosm, or on the margins. Fascism is essentially fundamentalism in power.” And in this case we’re talking about the original fundamentalism, the kind of Christianity that gave rise to the term in early twentieth century socio-theological conflict between the self-identified fundamentalists and the more reasonable Christian “modernists.”

I grew up in a fundamentalist environment rife with paranoia. It was the ’80s, the era of the classic satanic panic, and by golly, nobody was going to out-panic us. We memorized Bible verses about not being afraid, because God was on our side. “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a strong mind”—II Timothy 1:7, for example. We repeated these verses to ourselves like the popular self-help mantras of the era, but we were fearful and neurotic to the core.

Fast forward about 40 years, and the takeover of the Republican Party by right-wing Christians with theocratic plans for the entire country is complete. Our rights to abortion and privacy are already gone, and the rights to same-sex marriage, contraception, and even interracial marriage could follow.

These days, America’s interminably long, stressful election seasons are far scarier to me, a transgender woman, than any spooky season or horror stories the human imagination could conjure. Yes, having the choice between a fascist and a war criminal is, to put it in my native Midwestern idiom, not great, but I am voting for Kamala Harris on the basis of harm reduction. She, at least, will try to shore up abortion rights and make sure that the federal government doesn’t outlaw being transgender (as the state of Florida essentially has), or declare the Fourteenth Amendment null and void and deport millions of immigrants.

I wish that spooky season didn’t coincide with the end of an election cycle. That would make it much easier to relax and enjoy a holiday that provides a lot of innocent fun while also encouraging us to reflect on the inevitability of death in a healthy way—to face our fears, perhaps even laugh at them. It’s exactly that kind of psychological release valve that fundamentalists and other authoritarians, who depend on keeping themselves and their fellow travelers worked up, tolerate only with extreme discomfort, or not at all. 

To my fellow Americans out there, I hope you’re able to enjoy Halloween despite these tense times. May your baskets always overflow with candy, with nary a gospel tract to be found.

This piece was edited by Evette Dionne and copy-edited by Tina Vásquez.

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