The Ol' Origins of Christmas Debate
Steve Camp has a pretty fair summary of the annual debate about how or whether we ought to celebrate Christmas in the following post:
CAMPONTHIS: Is Christ Jesus the Reason for the Season?
Read The History of Christmas to find out
On the "no" side we have James McCutchan, a retired Baptist Pastor/Teacher who gives the typical "Christmas-is-of-pagan-and-Roman-Catholic-origins-and-we-are-nowhere-commanded-in-Scripture-to-celebrate-Christ's-birth-so-we ought-not-to-celebrate-it," arguments. McCutchan concludes:
Should Christians celebrate 'Christmas' or the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want to obey our Lord Jesus or pagan tradition via Romanism? The Scriptural answer is obvious: Christ Jesus is not the reason for the season!
For balance Steve quotes Al Mohler quoting Gene Veith:
"According to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival, which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth--like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that medieval folks believed the earth is flat--often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true."
And further,
It is true that the first evidence of Christians celebrating December 25th as the date of the Lord's nativity comes from Rome some years after Aurelian, in A.D. 336, but there is evidence from both the Greek East and the Latin West that Christians attempted to figure out the date of Christ's birth long before they began to celebrate it liturgically, even in the second and third centuries. The evidence indicates, in fact, that the attribution of the date of December 25th was a by-product of attempts to determine when to celebrate his death and resurrection."
Mollie at Get Religion has a little more on this last part about evidence from the Greek East and Latin West in relation to the pagan-Catholic origin theory:
I realize this is a popular notion. I realize this is a widely held belief. But it should not be inserted into stories on blind faith. The theory is only a few centuries old and widely trumpeted by those who thought the liturgical calendar was a bad thing. But the important thing is that there is another, older theory. And one that explains, unlike the Saturnalia theory, why the Eastern and Western church have similar but different dates for Christmas. Here’s the Associated Press’ Richard Ostling from last year, thankfully still online:
The New Testament Gospels say the Crucifixion happened at the Jewish Passover season. The “integral age” concept, taught by ancient Judaism though not in the Bible, held that Israel’s great prophets died the same day as their birth or conception.
Quite early on, [William] Tighe [, a church history specialist at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College] said, Christians applied this idea to Jesus and set the Passover period’s March 25 for the Feast of the Annunciation, marking the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would give birth. Add nine months to the conception date and we get Dec. 25.
I know that i personally have heard the Saturnalia theory many times offered as a warning against celebrating Christmas, or at least as a "buyer beware" type of warning to those who do celebrate Christmas. If what Mollie says here is true we may be getting all worked up about nothing.
For me, I don't see the point of getting all worked up about this for three reasons. Reason number one is that the pagan/Catholic origins argument comes perilously close to committing the genetic fallacy. Secondly, George Grant says that G. K. Chesterton says we shouldn't get worked up about it. And if George says we shouldn't get worked up about something that's good enough for me. But if George says that G. K. says we shouldn't get worked up about something by golly we doubly better not get worked up about it. The third reason is that I think the Bible offers principles which allow us to celebrate Christmas.
The genetic fallacy is:
a logical fallacy in which the origin of a belief, claim, or theory is confused with its justification. This fallacy is more often used to discredit a belief, though it may also be used to support one.
That's a good and necessary point - none of us who celebrate Christmas justify it on the basis of it's origin, whether that origin be pagan or Christian. It is justified as a time to celebrate the birth of Christ, not participate in pagan rituals.
Next, here's George Grant channeling G. K. Chesterton about this in his book The Christmas Spirit:
For Chesterton, the momentous medieval conversion of the old Pagan Eureopean tribes - the Lombards, Celts, Burgundians, Goths, Saxons, Franks, Huns, Normans, Jutes, and Teutons - meant not only the conversion of individuals and families but of whole cultures. As a result, the long-held traditions and rituals of their calendars wre ultimately transformed by the Gospel as were the long-held habits and inclinations of their hearts. Their ancient pagan witner festivals were thus subsumed into the new celebrations of the Christian year. The understanding made Chesterton impatient with those - either from within or from without the church - who criticized Christmas for being somehow less than Christian.
This is another good point. I still do a lot of the same things today that I did before I was a Christian, but for different reasons. Should I stop doing those things now because I did them for wrong reasons in the past? Similarly, even if our modern Christmas celebrations had pagan origins, which is doubtful in light of the above, so what? Can God not change these the way He changes the rest of our lives.
Finally, I Corinthians 10:23-30 offers some helpful principles:
23 “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. 24 Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.
25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
27 If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if anyone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience’ sake— 29 the other man’s conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience? 30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
It is permissible, though certainly not required, that we celebrate Christmas, even if it could be proven it has pagan origins. In this case we might need to refrain from observing Christmas for the sake of someone else's conscience. But I would be careful about that. The principles spoken of here are elaborated in I Corinthians 8 and Romans 14 under the teachings about "weaker brothers." A weaker brother is someone who may sin as a result of watching me practice my liberty. In this case, if someone were in danger of returning to some kind of pagan, Saturnalia, worship because they saw me celebrating Christmas, then I should refrain. But I have never met a critic of Christmas who seems to be in any danger of that.
So, as far as I am concerned we may all enjoy a very Merry Christmas.
Update: I just found out that Fred the Fundamentalist got all wrapped up in this whole thing too!
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