I’ve seen the CBN article about Halloween that’s been going around. I’m always grateful when people care deeply about helping Christians think clearly and faithfully in the face of cultural confusion. I also appreciate concerns regarding the demonic realities at work in our world. Those are not things to dismiss or make light of.

That said, I should admit that I’m not a fan of CBN. It often drifts into the same kind of inflated, speculative theology that actually sits at the heart of my original concerns about Halloween. The article making the rounds could be just such an example. Its subject, a self-described former Satanist, certainly speaks with zeal, but his theology relies on experience-based mysticism rather than Scripture. What results is a fear-driven portrait of the world that is far closer to occult thinking than to actual Christian doctrine.

The first thing that comes to mind is that the article promotes an inflated and speculative demonology. The individual interviewed, Riaan Swiegelaar, says that “blood has a currency in the spirit world” and that neighborhoods celebrating Halloween become “satanic rituals.” Scripture gives no such description. Blood in the Bible is never a kind of mystical tender or exchange rate. It is the sign and seal of God’s covenant of life. From the sacrifices of the Old Testament to the cross of Christ, the shedding of blood points not to a spiritual economy but to the truth that “the life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11) and that sin requires death, which only God Himself can overcome.

In the Old Testament, blood sacrifices did not purchase divine favor. They bore witness to God’s promise of redemption through the coming Christ. In Christ, that promise was fulfilled once for all (Hebrews 9:11–14). Scripture indeed speaks of redemption as “buying back” (1 Peter 1:18–19), but this is not a barter in the spiritual realm. It is God Himself, in Christ, reclaiming His creation by bearing its judgment and paying the price of our sin with His own blood. The ransom is not paid to Satan. It is the victory of God’s mercy over sin, death, and the devil. Christ’s blood is powerful not because it outbids demonic forces, but because it is the blood of God Himself (Acts 20:28), shed once for all to make us His own (Titus 2:14). In that sense, Christ’s death is both ransom and victory—a purchase that frees, not a transaction that trades. The devil is not paid. He is defeated. And the redeemed are not commodities. They are sons and daughters restored to their Father. Swiegelaar treats it like magic. The Gospel is far greater than his make-believe accounting. God freely redeems us so that we may belong to Him—pure gift, pure mercy.

He also claims Halloween is the one day of the year with the most human sacrifices globally. I looked that up. Interestingly, I discovered that the day with the most murders (human sacrifices in a broad sense) has been and continues to be July 4. If we mean human sacrifice in the narrow sense, it occurs in various cultures around the world throughout the whole year, typically increasing in the spring, not the autumn. I won’t even go into the abortion statistics, which I believe is the truest system of human sacrifice—and it happens daily. Beyond that, there’s simply no verifiable evidence for Swiegelaar’s claim. It seems more like fear-driven speculation rooted in personal experience. But no matter the concern, Christianity is not built on rumor or hidden knowledge. It’s built on truth (Luke 1:1–4; 2 Peter 1:16). And so, sensational statistics misrepresent the devil’s actual work, which Scripture identifies primarily as deception, sin, and unbelief (John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 11:14).

I was also taken aback by his “one-night stand with the devil” comment. I know he’s aiming for shock value. Still, contextually, he’s implying that any Christian who participates in Halloween—however modestly—is committing spiritual adultery. But Scripture nowhere teaches that participating in civic or cultural events automatically unites a person with Satan. Moral discernment depends on faith and intent (Romans 14:5–6; 1 Corinthians 8). This kind of rhetoric replaces discernment with legalism and fear, denying Christian liberty under the Gospel (Galatians 5:1).

His “infestation in November” comment was interesting, too. It seems he links post-Halloween hardships—relationship or financial troubles—to demonic backlash. The Bible explicitly rejects drawing such causal lines (Luke 13:1–5; John 9:1–3). Suffering in a fallen world has many causes. To declare every trial a direct result of demonic retaliation is presumption, not faith. It’s not to say it can’t or doesn’t happen. I know it does. But to insist that it can be the only cause for bad things in November is deceptive, and it strays from the wider truth.

Another concern is his claim that “80 percent of Christians lack discernment,” implying that only those with his insider knowledge see the truth. That’s Gnostic elitism, plain and simple. It’s the very heresy that the Apostle John and Saint Paul wrote against in their epistles. True discernment doesn’t come from special experiences but from the faithful handling of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

I get the sense Swiegelaar is also working with a form of Christianity that’s been sprinkled with Dualism. I could be mistaken. Still, he said, “In the spirit world there are only two things: the kingdom of God and everything else,” collapsing all creation into either divine or demonic categories. While there’s certainly no neutral spiritual allegiance (Matthew 12:30), creation itself, for example, while fallen (Romans 8:20-21), remains ontologically good (Genesis 1:31). God declared it so. Swiegelaar erases that distinction and turns the whole world into a haunted battleground—a worldview far more animistic than Christian. That’s Hinduism and Buddhism, not Christianity.

Perhaps most concerning (and also quite popular on CBN) is his advice for Christians to “pray and hear what God tells you about it,” suggesting that God speaks privately apart from His Word. That’s not how God operates. And that’s a hill I’m always willing to die on. God speaks definitively through His written Word. The Holy Spirit does not bypass Scripture with private revelations or inner voices. Once you start trusting “what God told me” apart from the Bible, you’ve opened the door to being fooled by voices other than God’s. If anything, the Reformation settled this long ago. If a person wants to hear God speak, all they have to do is open their Bible and read it out loud.

Now, to be fair—and because I know I’ve been quite critical—let me come back around and say that I think he has the right instincts in all of this, just the wrong framework. He gets a lot right: evil is real, the devil is active, and Christians should avoid glorifying darkness. But he expresses these truths through fear, folklore, and unverified “special revelations” instead of the calm certainty of Scripture. In my discussion of Halloween, I tried to draw Christians back to a more confident, historically grounded theology—one that remembers that Halloween was never pagan in origin. That’s pretty much it. It began as All Hallows’ Eve, the vigil before All Saints’ Day, when the Church gathered to thank God for the faithful departed and to proclaim Christ’s victory over death. The costumes and festivities began as joyful symbols of that triumph, not as flirtations with evil.

In the end, I get the point here. And I understand why people would push back on my tolerant concern for the holiday. Modern Halloween is a mess. Either way, I think CBN isn’t the best source for faithful biblical theology, and I think this article is an example. It invites Christians to live in fear. That’s often a telltale sign that false doctrine is in the room. Conversely, the Gospel brings calm. It invites us to stand firm. We are not under threat, not with Jesus. We are under grace, and there we can be sure of His care—the kind of care that fuels genuine discernment.

Again, I genuinely appreciate concern for spiritual clarity. I hope, between friends, folks can continue to tolerate mine. Whatever a person’s personal convictions about October 31, perhaps we can at least live with confidence that the victory has already been won. God’s Word rings true, now and always. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.