Description

The Scary Truth About Halloween, Christmas, and Easter: Their Christian Origins, the Samhain and Saturnalia Claims, and the Ishtar Myth

Let's get this over with a little early this holiday season.

Halloween is next week, and right on schedule, the warnings are starting: Halloween is pagan. Halloween is demonic. Halloween belongs to the devil, and no believer should touch it.

I have spent years researching that claim, holiday by holiday, source by source. And the scary truth about Halloween is the one nobody warns you about: Halloween began as a Christian holiday. It is All Hallows' Eve — the night before All Saints' Day, the church's feast for the saints and martyrs. The costumes, the candy, and the fear came later. The church calendar came first.

So I finally did what I should have done years ago. I took everything I have written on the Christian roots of Halloween, Christmas, and Easter — the articles many of you have read and shared here — checked every claim against the primary sources and against the people who argue the other side, and put it all in one book:

How the Pagans Stole the Holidays — The Scary Truth About Halloween, Christmas, and Easter: Their Christian Origins, the Samhain and Saturnalia Claims, and the Ishtar Myth.

Inside, you will find:

• Why All Hallows' Eve is a church feast, and what the evidence actually says about Samhain
• The Christmas chapter — the real story behind December 25 and the traditions you have been told to throw away
• The Easter chapter — why Easter is not now, nor has it ever been, a pagan holiday
• The opposing claims, quoted fairly — and answered from the sources

If you have ever been the person at church, at work, or at your own front door who didn't know what to say when someone called these holidays pagan — this book was written for you. Read it before next Saturday night, and you'll know exactly what to say.

And come talk about it with us in my LordsBook community, The Happy Theologist's Discussion, where we'll be working through the Halloween chapter all week: https://lordsbook.com/groups/HappyTheologist

This new volume recompiles and corrects my earlier holiday titles — and if you bought one of them, the corrected edition is yours free.