This is from 2006, which is a little dated, but Gallup polling disagrees with the assumption in your question.
A new Gallup Panel survey finds that roughly 1 in 10 Americans say they object to celebrating Halloween because of religious beliefs. More than 6 in 10 Americans tell Gallup they usually pass out treats to children on Halloween, and roughly the same percentage of parents usually dress their children in costumes.
So while 70% of Americans identify as Christian in 2014, polling from a few years prior (when the number of self-identified Christians was even higher) would indicate that only a small sub-set of Christians have objections to Halloween.
Let me explain why. Halloween, as another commentator noted, is a Christian Holiday, it is the Eve of the Feast of All Saints, sometimes called All Hallows Eve. It developed out of ancient practices of commemorating martyrs, but because the number of martyrs was so large, there were too many to commemorate individually and there was a fear that some would not be given the proper recognition, and so it became a common practice to have an annual Feast of All Saints, known and unknown. This was closely linked with the following "All Souls" day, which memorialized " all the faithful departed."
It should also be said that in a Christian context, the "saints" mean not just those who have been canonized, but all faithful Christians who have died "in the hope of the resurrection," to use one common phrase. It's worth noting here that "saints" is used some 67 times in the New Testament and always refers to the entirety of the Christian community, not a subset of it. For example, see 1 Corinthians 1:2 or Romans 1:7.
All Saints and All Souls are closely linked, both on the calendar and theologically, but All Saints is the most widely celebrated and in practice often subsumes All Souls entirely, at least in many Protestant Churches. In the medieval Roman Catholic church, there was (and is) a rich history of elaborate folk practices around the day, including visiting cemeteries, dressing in costumes, praying for the departed, holding processions, etc. In most places, All Saints is, and was, a time to remember the entire "Communion of Saints."
At the time of the Reformation, the entire idea of praying for the dead, venerating saints, and other "superstitious" practices that had become enormously popular in European cultures were re-examined and sometimes condemned, especially by the more radical Reformers who wanted to strip Christianity of anything that wasn't grounded in Biblical inerrency. (This is a hardline interpretation of the doctrine known as sola scriptura.)
Halloween, and All Saints, as well as many other practices thought of as "papist" were firmly in the crosshairs of these radical reformers. Many of the early settlers of the United States were drawn from this group, (it's no coincidence that 20,000 Puritans left England for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s, while they were being persecuted by Anglicans and the English Civil War was brewing) who were effectively banished (or self-exiled) from Europe and in search of religious freedom. The Puritans, the Huguenots and other radical groups would not have felt warmly about Halloween folk practices. In a sense, they were both "papist" AND "pagan," in the Puritan mind a kind of worst case example of the corruption of Roman Catholicism at the time.
As for Halloween in the New England Colonies, there was no mention of it whatsoever. There could be no greater anathema to the Puritans...Ritual celebration and Catholic theology were seen as manifestations of an unfathomable evil, and the Puritans could not reconcile these beliefs with their own God. (Halloween, p. 30)
So no, I think your teacher is wrong. The sentiment against Halloween isn't because it is not "Christian." It's because of the fundamentalist theological views of the radical reformers. To put it another way, it's not that it's "not christian," it's that it's the wrong kind of Christian.
Today, the successors of the radical Reformers, largely Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches, are still opposed to Halloween, but because of the "negative" imagery or the focus on "witchcraft" or other practices that they consider to be morally objectionable.
Sources: "Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History" by Lesley Bannatyne and extensive personal study of the Reformation, American Christianity.
Hello everyone,
Unfortunately, we have already had to remove a number of poor quality responses in this thread, including many asking about the deleted comments, which merely compound the issue. Please, before you attempt answer the question, keep in mind our rules concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed.
Keep in mind that our sub rules strictly prohibit personal anecdotes as answers. Your personal experience in celebrating (or not) Halloween is not an acceptable answer here.
Additionally, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Thank you!
It is a Christian holiday...but not originally from a Protestant fundamentalism sect. All Hallow's Eve is from Catholicism (there are many fine comments on the religious divide so I don't need to repeat any of that). The celebrations we associate with Halloween in the U.S. are from the Celtic festival Samhain, which was brought over by Irish immigrants in the 19th century. Samhain, the Gaelic New Year, was on October 31, and the ancient Gaels believed that on that night boundaries between the living and the dead overlapped and the dead might stop by and cause trouble because why not. Many Irish held onto some traditions from Samhain, combining them with their Catholic beliefs at Halloween in the U.S. Halloween as we know it with trick or treating is a product of those immigrants. Of course even then white Protestants got freaked out because they associated this mix of ancient Celtic culture and Catholicism with everything they considered wrong with Catholic foreigners and thus branded it Satanic (remember the Nativists from history class). My dad is from a very conservative Protestant background and thinks Halloween is the work of the devil and my mother from a large Irish-American family always argues with him. Anyways, that's a small piece. Have a tasty Halloween!