Posted on 12/25/2006 6:31:44 AM PST by DouglasKC
It's called the spirit of Christmas—the ringing of sleigh bells on a snowy night, Tiny Tim turning the heart of Scrooge in Charles Dickens' famous novel A Christmas Carol, Santa Claus and flying reindeer.
For many, it seems, the birth of Jesus takes a backseat to mythology, packed shopping malls and greed. Every year, signs in front of neighborhood churches remind people to put Christ back into Christmas—or proclaim "Jesus is the reason for the season."
But is He?
In his book 4,000 Years of Christmas: A Gift From the Ages (1997), Episcopal priest Earl Count enthusiastically relates historical connections between the exchanging of gifts on the 12 days of Christmas and customs originating in ancient, pagan Babylon. He shows that mistletoe was adopted from Druid mystery rituals and that Dec. 25 has more to do with the ancient Roman Saturnalia celebration than with Jesus.
Nowhere in the New Testament do we see Jesus' disciples observing His birthday.
In fact, as late as the third century the early Catholic theologian Origen declared that it was a sin to celebrate Christmas, viewing it as pagan.
First-century Corinth was a Greek city filled with polytheistic religions. Its customs included temple prostitution and priests who performed sacrifices to the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods.
The apostle Paul writes to the Church members there in 1 Corinthians 10:19-21: "What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that 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 of the table of demons."
Paul clearly warns people to avoid having anything to do with pagan religious customs, labeling such actions "fellowship with demons"!
Familiar to early Christians was the Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival celebrated during the last days of December in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. Many ancient religions conducted festivals at that time of year, the time of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, when days are the shortest, to appease the various gods to restore the sun and bring an end to winter.
The Roman Saturnalia included drunkenness, debauchery and other practices diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ. Yet this holiday would eventually develop into Christmas. What happened to change many Christians from Paul's practice of abhorring and resisting pagan forms of worship to accepting and participating in such practices in the name of Jesus Christ?
Tremendous forces pressured early Christians away from the apostles' original instruction to avoid mixing idolatry with the worship of the true God. Thousands of pagans, while outwardly converting to Christianity, refused to give up the rituals and ceremonies of their former religious experiences.
Dr. Count sums up this historical struggle: "To the pagans, the Saturnalia were fun.
To the Christians, the Saturnalia were an abomination in homage to a disreputable god who had no existence anyway. The Christians, moreover, were dedicated to the slow, uphill task of converting these roistering pagan Romans.
"There were many immigrants into the ranks of the Christians by this time, but the Church Fathers discovered to their alarm that they were also facing an invasion of pagan customs. The habit of the Saturnalia was too strong to be left behind. At first the church forbade it, but in vain. When a river meets a boulder that will not be moved, the river flows around it. If the Saturnalia would not be forbidden, let it be tamed" (p. 36).
The church adopted Dec. 25—the date of the Roman Brumalia, immediately after Saturnalia—as the date of Christ's birth (even though biblical evidence shows this cannot be the right time of this event).
This date also marked a great festival in Mithraism, the Persian religion of the sun god. In A.D. 274 Emperor Aurelian of Rome declared Dec. 25 to be the "birthday of the invincible sun." In time the Son of God, Jesus Christ, became indistinguishable from the pagan sun god in the minds of hundreds of thousands of converts throughout the Roman Empire.
Instead of standing as Christ's force for change in the world, nominal Christianity was changed by the pagan world it was supposed to transform!
Dr. Count relates: "There exists a letter from the year 742 AD, in which Saint Boniface ... complains to Pope Zacharias that his labors to convert the heathen Franks and Alemans—Germanic tribes—were being handicapped by the escapades of the Christian Romans back home. The Franks and the Alemans were on the threshold of becoming Christians, but their conversion was retarded by their enjoyment of lurid carnivals.
"When Boniface tried to turn them away from such customs, they argued that they had seen them celebrated under the very shadow of Saint Peter's in Rome. Embarrassed and sorry, Pope Zacharias replied ... admitting that the people in the city of Rome behaved very badly at Christmas time" (p. 53).
Over the subsequent centuries, Christmas absorbed customs from German, Scandinavian and Celtic paganism—such as the yule log, the decorating of evergreen trees and the hanging of mistletoe.
In the Middle Ages, Christmas observances in Europe continued the excesses of Saturnalia. Dr. Penne Restad, in Christmas in America: A History, writes of the moral debate that raged during that era:
"Some clergy stressed that fallen humankind needed a season of abandonment and excess, as long as it was carried on under the umbrella of Christian supervision. Others argued that all vestiges of paganism must be removed from the holiday. Less fervent Christians complained about the unreasonableness of Church law and its attempts to change custom. Yet the Church sustained the hope that sacred would eventually overtake profane as pagans gave up their revels and turned to Christianity" (1996, p. 6).
Sadly, it didn't happen. Following the Middle Ages, some Protestants tried reforming Christmas but created little real change. The English Puritans waged a war on Christmas observance as unchristian behavior. In 1659 the holiday was outlawed in Massachusetts, but proved so popular that it gained official approval again in 1681.
A U.S. News & World Report cover story, "In Search of Christmas," states: "When Christmas landed on American shores, it fared little better. In colonial times, Christ's birth was celebrated as a wildly social event—if it was celebrated at all . . . Puritans in New England flatly refused to observe the holiday" (Dec. 23, 1996, p. 60).
In more modern times many Christians have become concerned about the commercialization of the day that is supposed to celebrate the birth of the Son of God. With parades featuring Santa Claus sponsored by department stores, half-price sales, and incessant TV and radio commercials, Christmas obviously has become more about the accountant's bottom line than about worshipping God.
Many people approach the yuletide season with a vague longing for a Christmas that is more spiritual and less commercial. But is our fast-paced, greed-filled rendition of Christmas the real problem, or is there something wrong with Christmas itself?
Christmas has become such a central holiday of American culture that it's difficult to get anyone to step back and evaluate its Christian validity. You be the judge.
Here are the facts: Jesus wasn't born on Dec. 25. Christ's apostles rejected pagan ceremonies and rituals in their worship and told other Christians to likewise avoid them. The early Church didn't observe Jesus' birthday. The selection of Dec. 25 as Christ's supposed date of birth was based on the dates of the Roman Saturnalia and Brumalia—a time for worshiping the god Saturn.
Most Christmas customs—decorating the evergreen tree, use of mistletoe, exchanging of gifts, Santa Claus—come not from the Bible but from ancient pagan religions. For centuries Christianity tried unsuccessfully to rid itself of the paganism of Christmas. Throughout its history Christmas has inspired drunken parties, and the modern holiday is more about convincing children to harass their parents to buy toys than worshipping Christ.
What is your verdict? Some say, "But we can't take Christmas away from the children." Others: "As long as it brings people to Jesus, what does it matter?"
Earlier we saw Paul's instructions to Christians in pagan Corinth. He continues his instructions in his next letter to the Corinthians:
"For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? . . . Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? . . .
"Therefore 'Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you . . .' Therefore . . . let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 7:1).
Paul's point is very pertinent to Christmas. How can we claim to be honoring God with pagan customs and traditions that He forbids in His Word?
The crucial question is: How can we put Jesus back into the season when He was never part of it to begin with? It's a difficult question, isn't it? But it's one that's vitally important for you to answer. GN
The compromises reached with the Northmen (and those even further North) have not worn well.
I was never in the Worldwide Church of God, I happen to attend services with the United Church of God, which was started about 10 years after Armstrong died.
But I have done a lot of study about Herbert Armstrong and I agree with your statement. All of the doctrine that Armstrong espoused has been observed by various groups throughout history. Many of these beliefs are characterized as "Jewish" in practice, due mainly to anti-antisemitism in the early Roman church.
For those interested, the doctrine of United Church of God is at Fundmental Beliefs
Among these are:
We believe in one God, the Father, eternally existing, who is a Spirit, a personal Being of supreme intelligence, knowledge, love, justice, power and authority. He, through Jesus Christ, is the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. He is the Source of life and the One for whom human life exists. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is the Word and has eternally existed. We believe that He is the Messiah, the Christ, the divine Son of the living God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born in the human flesh of the virgin Mary. We believe that it is by Him that God created all things and that without Him was not anything made that was made. We believe in the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of God and of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the power of God and the Spirit of life eternal (2 Timothy 1:7; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 8:6; John 1:1-4; Colossians 1:16).
We believe that the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead after His body lay three days and three nights in the grave, thus making immortality possible for mortal man. He thereafter ascended into heaven, where He now sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate (1 Peter 1:17-21; 3:22; Matthew 12:40; 1 Corinthians 15:53; 2 Timothy 1:10; John 20:17; Hebrews 8:1; 12:2).
Unfortunately those who observe it do it at the expense of the very same holy days that Jesus Christ created, observed, and commanded his followers to observe:
Lev 23:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.
Lev 23:4 These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.
These feast days, God's feast days, Jesus's feast days, are listed in the rest of Leviticus 23.
Thank you for posting that scripture. It reminds me also of when Aaron created his own holy day:
Exo 32:4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Exo 32:5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.
In both cases, they thought, they believed, that they were creating holy days that were acceptable to the one true God. So what if they added a couple of pagan elements? After all, they were worshiping the LORD. But of course we know that both times it turned out pretty ugly.
No doubt about it.
Boy, oh boy! You got me there!
God ordained His Sabbaths and Holy days in Leviticus 23 to be observed forever "In all your generations". Our Saviour and the Apostles observed these same events as we are commanded to do also. You may search the scriptures from Leviticus to Revelation and will not find one reference by anyone telling us these Sabbaths and Holy Days have been done away with. These are the celebrations of The Lord.
However, from the middle of the first century we see both Luke and Paul discuss the significance of the birth of Jesus and that is in the New Testament and worthy of commemorating.
Sure...His birth was very significant....but the only Biblical examples of birthday celebrations are [Genesis 40:20]; [Matthew 14:6] and [Mark 6:21]. On both occasions it marked an execution for someone....a hanging in the Old and a beheading in the New! Nice examples!
If the Lord wanted the birth to be a remembrance, he and the Apostles would have lead by example. They didn't.
So, tell me......how do you feel about Christmas?
But Herb Armstrong was maybe not completely WRONG..
Anglo-Isrealism was Moonbatism of a high order..
But Christmas was pretty easy to research as wholly pagan..
Also Easter (Rabbit and Egg) is a strange development..
Obscene really.. Don't even talk about May Day..
But hey even the names of the days of the week are pagan Gods..
Even some of the names we name our children are pagan gods..
Where does it All stop and start?..
i.e. "the letter of the word kills, but the Spirit gives life"..
Even if December weren't the likely month of Jesus' conception, it wouldn't matter to me if someone walked into a pagan culture and took some of their concepts or traditions and used them to proclaim Christ.
Translators of the bible do it all the time.
"Putting eternal truths into the speech of everyday life reflects exactly the style of the Greek New Testament. The New Testament books were not written in the high-flown Asian style of the schoolmasters of the first and second centuries A.D. ; they were couched in the words of the common people, who were seeking the truth about the living, risen Christ. For those who sought life, the dead forms of outmoded grammatical styles were useless. So today, the missionary translator carries on that same tradition, giving people the Word of God in their own living language, though the idioms may seem strange to us. For example, the Uduks along the Ethiopian border speak of 'worry' and 'being troubled' as 'shivering in one's liver.' John 14:1 does not sound like English: 'Do not shiver in your livers; you believe in God, believe also in me.' But the Scriptures in Uduk are not being translated for us, but for Uduks who must understand the meaning of the gospel in terms of their lives, not ours." (Nida, op.cit., pp.23,24)
Patrick used the regard that the Irish pagans had for triads to his benefit in explaining the Trinity. Sounds like sound missionary outreach to me.
But some researcher hundreds of years later might say, "I've discovered that these triads were linked to pagan customs of the Irish. Therefore, you are following pagan customs when you utilize those same explanations."
Hogwash. They're participating in what was once a great AND SUCCESSFUL outreach in the name of Christ that turned people from those that were no gods at all unto the Living God.
ping
***I was never in the Worldwide Church of God, I happen to attend services with the United Church of God, which was started about 10 years after Armstrong died. ***
The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.
What was the sin that the Israelites kept repeating over and over, even in the Sinai?
Hint:
H _ _ L _ _ _ Y
HILLARY???
I can see voting for her being sin; but I didn't think the witch was that old.
:>)
***Yeah, I know. But I have to do it.**
A lump of coal to you. Anthracite or sub-bituminous.
After reading the article again, lignite.
Let's go with peat bog.
Hilarious!
It maybe wouldn't matter to you, but it matters to God. How is your significantly different than what Aaron did in Exodus 32 and what Jeroboam did in 1 Kings 12?
Do you think Christ was born?
Like I haven't heard that before...:-)
The incarnation of the messiah, his birth, is chronicled in Luke. Clearly he was born.
But Jesus also created and observed specific holy days and told his followers to observe them. He did not tell his followers to commemorate his birth...and especially not at the expense of observing the days he asked us to observe.
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