Posted on 12/22/2010 9:01:56 PM PST by narses
Few people engaged in the "War on Christmas" are aware that at one time it was a crime in Massachusetts to celebrate Christmas. Oh sure, some will say, count on liberal Massachusetts to pass a law against Christmas. But it was Calvinist Massachusetts, in the days of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, the Pilgrims and Puritans, that established penalties for the observance of Christmas Day "by abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way."
The noisiest opposition to public celebration of Christmas today comes from professed agnostics and atheists, particularly those seeking "freedom from religion." But there are still devout Christians who proclaim that "The Christ of the Bible does not represent a perpetuating of idolatrous customs of any kind, like that of Christmas, Halloween, or Easter, nor will He live in any confessed believer, or save, or protect any person who has any association with these idolatrous days," citing among other scriptures, II Corinthians 6:14-17.
There is a reason this holy war against Christmas does not receive the same media attention as the secular war against Christmas: Those who consider Christmas "the deception of Satan the Devil" are not going to court or seeking to use the machinery of government to sway people one way or the other. They are simply preaching, to anyone who will listen.
Some denominations, such as the Seventh Day Adventist Church, maintain that "When the world at large celebrate the day, they show no honor to Christ," but rather than denounce all celebration, recognize that parents "will find it a difficult matter to pass over this period without giving it some attention." Accordingly, Adventist theologians advise "let not the parents take the position that an evergreen placed in the church for the amusement of the Sabbath-school scholars is a sin; for it may be made a great blessing."
Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Lutherans, celebrated Christmas from their earliest arrival in North America, as had always been their custom. (Some stories attribute to Martin Luther the first Christmas Tree dragged inside a house a decorated.) However, Presbyterians and Baptists did not, nor did many Methodists, particularly those converted by revival during the Great Awakening of the 1740s and 1750s. So the holiday did not have a prominent role in the community at the birth of the new United States of America.
No state legally recognized a Christmas holiday until 1836, and the federal congress did not acknowledge such a holiday in legislation until 1870, just six years before the nation's centennial. Santa Claus was invented in the 1840s by a committee of New York businessmen who wanted to promote sales. They borrowed the tradition of "Sinter Klaas" brought to New York by Dutch immigrants - originally a variation on St. Nicholas.
The first White House Christmas Tree was decorated by President Franklin Pierce in 1856. Bringing a tree into the White House only became a regular annual event in 1889, when President Benjamin Harrison celebrated Christmas with his children and grandchildren.
In 2010, Colorado atheists have splurged on billboards to protest nativity scenes at Denver city hall, scenes that have already been thoroughly litigated. In New Jersey, the Catholic League indulges in dueling billboards with American atheists. It is certainly not an old American tradition. Everyone seems to forget that, at the time the Constitution was written, nobody thought much about Christmas at all, not even Christians. Before the separation of church and state, it used to be against the law to celebrate Christmas.
well, you can decide not to bring a Christmas tree and not to have a fake Saint Nicholas. You can celebrate the birth of Christ without all those accoutrements.
Narses — I think ak-ak is referring to the North American/English/German celebration of Christmas. Ak —> in other parts of the world there is not the materialistic fest, there is not red fat-guy, no tree. These are new innovations. the focus of real Christmas is the Christ child
Some years ago I began reading the stories written by and about the experiences of the former Prisoners of War.I had heard the stories told by the combat soldier and I wanted to
understand what key -if any there was to understand the ultimate in personal deprivation. Common to every story told that I have read— was the belief in God. The experience of God even when the outward appearance /recognition of such was denied by the ones holding the power in those prison camps.
when a man has NOTHING left to sustain him -IF he has belief in God-he will survive. Even those who profess atheism under such extremes often turn to the God they had denied when fat and free. Behold the Judge is standing at the door! James 5:9b c.f. Revelation 3:20
Wasn’t Franklin Pierce the last President who openly supported slavery?
I don't mean that those who govern shouldn't be religious, they should. It is just when the government starts to tell us how we may or may not worship that problems begin. And yes, I think Atheists are as bad or worse than other religions in that respect.
“Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Lutherans, celebrated Christmas from their earliest arrival in North America, as had always been their custom.”
My family have always been Anglican/Episcopalians except for my grandmother’s family who arrived in SC as Huguenots. Her family later became Episcopalian. We CELEBRATE!
“Where ever Calvinists have had a monopoly on power they have established a society void of color, joy and hope.”
A gross generalization. Specifically, where?
"What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: you shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it" (Deut. 12:32).
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the TRADITIONS OF MEN, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ" (Col 2:8)
Scriptures vs. Mans traditions: The word "traditions" is found 13 times in the New Testament, but only in three cases does it carry a favorable connotation. In the other 10 passages, it incurs the disfavor of Christ and His Apostles.
In the three verses, where the term "tradition" is used favorably, it is evident that the Apostle Paul was talking about something which he and other inspired individuals had taught. Let's look at 1 Cor. 11:2, where we see Paul first using the term tradition in a positive light. "Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances [traditions, principles; and instructions], as I delivered them to you." Here, the word traditions literally means, principles and instructions given to you from God's written word. The idea of being handed down orally from one generation to another, is not in this meaning.
The other two positive examples are found in 2 Thessalonians. "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions [things already delivered] which you have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle" (2 Thess. 2: 15). That is the boundary we are to stay within. The third example says, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us" (2 Thess. 3:6).
Paul and the other apostles did not involve themselves in syncretism. These scriptures are clear that Paul is not talking about keeping mans oral traditions handed down over the years, by word of mouth, but the literal, written word of God.
So we simply need to ask. Is what we do something that was established by the original Apostles or something that was added after what was taught and written by them? Anything added after the original 12 Apostles is to be taken as “added by mans tradition” and “after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ"
Those darn Calvinists didn’t stop me...I got my pagan tree up in the living room...
I heard that he was going home to his sick family from Christmas eve services.
You are correct that I had my Cromwell dates wrong.
This was back in the time when Massachusetts was a covenanted community. Remember the Mayflower Compact? There was nary a Romanist to be found in the entire commonwealth. A much more civilized time and setting.
Before you ask that question, you'd better first ask how you know whether any book in your New Testament is really canonical Scripture. There's no inspired, apostolically-endorsed table of contents. If your only authority is what's written in the Scriptures, your authority for knowing that 2 Thess or 1 Cor is scripture at all rests on ... nothing.
Christ didn't give teaching authority to a book, and never commanded the writing of a single verse of the NT. He gave teaching authority to his disciples in the Great Commission, and 2 Tim 2:2 tells you that they passed that teaching authority on to those who came after them.
By the way ... what does the Bible call "the pillar and ground of the truth"?
It is clear that Christ and the Apostles treated Scripture as authoritative and as constituting truth. The question that now needs answering is, "Are the Scriptures we possess today worthy to be treated as Christ treated them?" We know that through the historical redemptive events Scripture was "breathed of God." This applies to the originals and not to copies of them. The original was made by men moved by the Holy Spirit. The copies were made by ordinary men. But does this fact mean a great loss to us? Are our present-day copies so poor that they are not trustworthy? When one realizes that God revealed His plan of redemption to men through historical events, and that we know about these events only through Scripture, one will also realize that these Scriptures must be trustworthy. Otherwise we would not know of His plan of redemption. It is beyond one's imagination that an infallible and loving God would let His plan of redemption be lost through untrustworthy copies of the Scriptures. Also, when one realizes that God prevented errors from entering the originals by guiding the writers by the Holy Spirit, one will realize that God would also have prevented significant errors from entering through copying.
One's confidence in our Scriptures is also supported by the attitude of Christ and the Apostles toward them. They did not hesitate to trust the Old Testament Scriptures. These too were not originals. If they had faith in the adequacy of their copies and never questioned them, we should have even more faith in our New Testament copies as being trustworthy.
Many of the copies we possess are bound to contain errors due to the numerous copyings and recopyings they have gone through. Although the copying process did introduce a few errors, it also increased the means for finding errors. By careful study and comparison of the many old manuscripts, it is possible to obtain a sound proximity of the originals. The errors that were introduced here and there in some of the copies are found by comparing the many manuscripts, making it possible to approximate the original. This approximation of the original can be considered as inerrant and infallible; that is, it can be held as a reliable authority (never deceiving or misleading) and is free from error (always giving the thought of the original). This does not necessarily mean that we have a slavish verbatim copy of the original down to every small word. There might be trifling variations in wording. But these are so minor that there is no doubt about the authors' thoughts not being known to us, and in most cases there is little doubt about now knowing the words they used to communicate the thoughts.
>> “the pillar and ground of the truth”?<<
What was the Church to teach? Something other then what is found in Scripture?
17th Century Holland, dominated by Calvinists, was the home of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and the other greatest Masters of painting, and led the world in tolerance, prosperity and trade—with its tulips, and wonderful attitude, it can hardly be characterized as “a society void of color, joy, and hope.”
Even 17th Century New England, in spite of the Puritans’ weird views on holidays, was not the horrible joyless place you portray—and it was very much a key place in forging the future American character—that led to the War of Independence—and the tolerance and freedom we now enjoy.
Communist East Germany, or North Korea...were/are never ruled by Calvinists—and are what you are describing, not Holland, Switzerland, and New England of 350 years ago.
I know a lot of conservative Presbyterians today too...who really know how to party!
Actually if you would like to truth, google the ORIGIN OF CHRISTMAS...or perhaps check out http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2011/12/origin-christmas-december/ you know, the Encyclopedia Britannica. Or if you have access to a library or anything like that, check out that Encyclopedia Britannica and you’ll see the truth. Also, for those who think Easter’s so great too...check that out in the Encyclopedia too. And what I can’t stand is when people are like, yeah i know the truth but i still keep it for the kids...so basically you are lying to your kids too. Gothca. Also, if you’re interested, http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm
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