Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 3:52 pm Post subject: Taking Christ out of Christmas
I know this is old stuff, but the big wigs of (English) Christendom have been making some tut-tut noises lately about government efforts to further secularise what was essentially a Christian festival honouring the birth of Jesus Christ. The Archbishop of York has criticised the Royal Mail for not featuring the Nativity in its latest batch of stamps this year. Since the Archbishop of York is a black, this makes him immune to charges of being a reactionary white supremacist.
What do you make of it? How secular are Christmas traditions in your country? Do people greet each other with a Merry Christmas or will they take umbrage at any religious connotations in that expression of goodwill? Personally, do you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or even Season's Greetings?
Also, I am interested in how the various denominations view Christmas. I read that the early Puritians in America even went as far as banning Christmas as they considered it a pagan activity. Well, there might be an iota of truth in that but the rituals and stories surrounding Christmas are essentially Christian and not pagan.
Personally, I prefer Christmas Eves to Christmas days. There is something so magical in the night air on the eve of the infant Jesus's birthday. Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm.... _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject: Re: Taking Christ out of Christmas
loic wrote:
I know this is old stuff, but the big wigs of (English) Christendom have been making some tut-tut noises lately about government efforts to further secularise what was essentially a Christian festival honouring the birth of Jesus Christ. The Archbishop of York has criticised the Royal Mail for not featuring the Nativity in its latest batch of stamps this year. Since the Archbishop of York is a black, this makes him immune to charges of being a reactionary white supremacist.
I like Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. I've actually met him one or twice as he used to be the Bishop of Birmingham. He's always so bright and colourful:
However, considering that a fairly considerable percentage of practising British Christians are black anyway, I'm not sure how calls for stamps depicting the Nativity could be considered white supremacy.
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What do you make of it? How secular are Christmas traditions in your country? Do people greet each other with a Merry Christmas or will they take umbrage at any religious connotations in that expression of goodwill? Personally, do you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or even Season's Greetings?
People here tend to say 'Merry Christmas', which is what I say as well. Many people who aren't necessarily religious here often still like to go to carol services on Christmas Eve, which often take place outside with lanterns. On the whole, it seems as though most people here celebrate Christmas, including those of religious backgrounds outside of Christianity.
I'm going to apply the same view of Christmas to what Elaine said about the festival of Thanksgiving in the United States — you can make it as religious as you want it to be.
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Also, I am interested in how the various denominations view Christmas.
Unitarians celebrate Christmas as the birth of a great man who has influenced the world immensely... and because it is a traditional (winter, in my case) festival where we live. We're usually happy to sing traditional Christmas carols because we like them, even if the words of some of them contradict our views of Jesus.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:18 am Post subject: Re: Taking Christ out of Christmas
There was never even a whiff of religious feeling about Christmas in my family, which isn't surprising since everyone was either agnostic or atheist. It has always been about getting together with the family, having a tree, exchanging presents and singing...Christmas carols, of course! I don't consider that to be a sign of religious feeling, but rather adhering to custom. My favorite Christmas carol happens to be "Deck the Halls", which isn't religious at all.
Once my grandparents were gone, I kinda lost interest in Christmas, and now that my mother is gone, there's really not much reason to keep any traditions going, since my brother and I don't care about it and neither of us ever reproduced.
Well, although changes concerning secularization are becoming more and more visible in my country, fortunately people still greet each other with "Merry Christmas" and nobody has come up with an idiotic idea to ban Christmas trees (or other Christmas symbols) in public places.
There are a lot of workplaces around here that are actively trying to de-Christ Christmas. Calling Christmas trees "non-denominational holiday trees" and Christmas parties "non-denominational holiday tree trimming parties", is becoming more common. And just in case you think only Christmas is getting this treatment, Hannukah menorahs get dumbed down to "non-denominational holiday candelabras." It's ridiculous PC run amok, really.
One day we're going to have to greet each other with a "Happy Hannuchristmakwanzakah." Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? _________________ "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx
Joanne: this is what I predicted long time ago. This policy is leading to ridiculous nonsense. Something that was designed to make people happier and feel more peaceful in multicultural societies has distorted reality and led to confusion.
What I would like to see in a multicultural society is people of different religions celebrating their religious holidays overtly.
With the traditional names and without all this coinage of language monsters which is simply dismal.
Joanne: this is what I predicted long time ago. This policy is leading to ridiculous nonsense. Something that was designed to make people happier and feel more peaceful in multicultural societies has distorted reality and led to confusion.
I know it's very easy to think that a trend becoming prevalent in one part of the US must be becoming prevalent in all parts of the US, but that really isn't the case. As long as there are people sane enough to recognize the idiocy of "non-denominationalizing," I think the majority of Americans will be calling the holidays "Christmas" and "Hannukah" for a very long time, despite howls of indignation from PC moonbats. (And I think most of those moonbats work in Human Resources, which is why we get these stupid non-denominational company tree trimming festival email invites , or warnings that putting up holiday trees and candelabras that are higher than your cubicle wall will get you a day in sensitivity training ) _________________ "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx
A rearguard action by the PC army to deny the rights of Christians to celebrate their birthright.
How do these gits plan to make the Muslim religious festival of Eid PC then? _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject:
Loic wrote:
What do you make of it? How secular are Christmas traditions in your country? Do people greet each other with a Merry Christmas or will they take umbrage at any religious connotations in that expression of goodwill? Personally, do you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or even Season's Greetings?
I've adopted the policy of simply giving a generic holiday cheer like "Happy Holidays" or "Have a great holiday season" ever since those penny-pinching college years when I worked in food service and retail. Middle-aged ladies would sneer at me "I'm Jewish!" whenever I would good-naturedly say "Merry Christmas". I even send out non-denominational holiday greeting cards so that I don't spend extra money buying a set of religious Christmas cards, another set for Hanukkah, Yuletide cards for my pagan and wiccan friends, Kwanzaa for my African-American friends, etc.
How do I feel about it? Well, I'm not religious so I don't mind taking out the religious connotations that have the potential of alienating others in our heterogenous society. I'm all for total integration where everybody can be a part of the festivities.
Joanne wrote:
One day we're going to have to greet each other with a "Happy Hannuchristmakwanzakah." Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
Hmm, interesting thread. I tend to come from the school of thought that Christ really has nothing to do with Christmas in the first place. Christmas is based on old winter-solstice worship festivals dating back to ancient Babylonia which focused on the birth (or rather, the annual re-birth) of the Sun-god (as opposed to the Son OF God), and was wrapped up in other winter-solstice festivals like the Saturnalia, Bacchanalia, etc. This is actually where Jesus so-called "birthday" comes from, and you'll find its nowhere mentioned in the bible in a sense involving any sort of Christian worship. This is also where the old saying comes from about Christ "driving his chariot across the sky" or whatever. That was actually the sun, riding across the sky every day. People were celebrating Dec 25 looong before Christ came along, and you'll find that on the older calenders Dec 25 was considered the actual date of the winter-solstice, before the calenders were improved and we moved it to the more accurate Dec 21-22. Christ was injected into the winter-solstice festivals by Rome centuries after He died (beginning with events like the Council of Nicaea in 325ish A.D.), and nothing relating to Christmas or even the celebration of the birth of Christ was practiced by the church or any of the Apostles after He died. This happened when Constantine began "replacing" (read: melding) the de-facto state religion of the day, sun-worship, with what had previously been a renegade rag-tag religion, Christianity. This is when many of the familiar elements we see today in what is now called Christianity began to appear. Interestingly, this was actually somewhat confusing to the citizens of Rome at the time. I've read that for quite some time, at the temples, which had previously been sun-worship temples, the priests would have to stop the patrons from turning around and bowing homage to the sun before they entered the temple, as had previously been the custom.
Most people tend to forget for some reason that Jesus was a Hebrew, and when He referred to "the scriptures" He could only have been referring to what we now call the old testament. Anything that can be deemed "Christian" can only be what HE spoke about and the elements that He added and amplified concerning the original old texts, which the apostles repeated until they died, nothing more, nothing less. I can find no evidence of any winter-solstice related celebrations either in the old testament, or in the writings of Jesus or the Apostles, or the celebration of anyones birth. Of course it was a wonderful event when Christ was ACTUALLY born, but I don't recall anyone celebrating that date annually. What's more, King Solomon (whom, if you'll recall, God saw fit to bestow great wisdom upon) declared that the day of a persons death is better than their birth. (Ecclesiastes 7:1) This would also include Christ's death, seeing He DIED for our sins, and was not BORN for our sins.
In fact, even The Catholic Encyclopedia itself asserts that: "Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts (in Lev. Hom. viii in Migne, P.G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday" (vol. 3, pg. 724).
Protestant churches don't seem to have a clue either, as they happily follow suit with dozens of practices began by the Catholic church that they are supposedly "protesting" from.
Somehow I just don't think Jesus is being offended by me not celebrating a holiday that was practiced by pagans before He came to us, and then adapted by these same pagans from paganism to a holiday supposedly celebrating Him. Mixing paganism with God's Law was specifically covered and forbade numerous times in the bible anyway (for example Matthew 15:9, just to name one... there are plenty more).
So I guess I'm just a generic "Christian" and my religion is just the bible, as churches seem to have no problem bending and adapting the rules to serve their needs. In fact, the prophet Daniel described one of the most abominable man-made creations ever, the 4th beast of the Babylonian king Belshazzar's dream, as "..he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.." (Daniel 7:25). Incidentally, I feel compelled to point out that pretty much all modern biblical scholars from all walks of life have correctly identified the 4th beast of King Belshazzar's dream as none other than the Roman Empire.
Nowadays, the only reason Christmas is as popular as it is, especially in this increasingly secular world, is its commercial value. Christmas is a very very lucrative commercial holiday. Only <insert number here> shopping days until Christmas!
Taking all of this into account, I find it very very difficult to rationalize following any modern holidays that are based upon paganism, but attempt to put a Christian facade on it. Any thoughts?
Hmm, interesting thread. I tend to come from the school of thought that Christ really has nothing to do with Christmas in the first place. Christmas is based on old winter-solstice worship festivals dating back to ancient Babylonia which focused on the birth (or rather, the annual re-birth) of the Sun-god (as opposed to the Son OF God), and was wrapped up in other winter-solstice festivals like the Saturnalia, Bacchanalia, etc. This is actually where Jesus so-called "birthday" comes from, and you'll find its nowhere mentioned in the bible in a sense involving any sort of Christian worship. This is also where the old saying comes from about Christ "driving his chariot across the sky" or whatever. That was actually the sun, riding across the sky every day. People were celebrating Dec 25 looong before Christ came along, and you'll find that on the older calenders Dec 25 was considered the actual date of the winter-solstice, before the calenders were improved and we moved it to the more accurate Dec 21-22. Christ was injected into the winter-solstice festivals by Rome centuries after He died (beginning with events like the Council of Nicaea in 325ish A.D.), and nothing relating to Christmas or even the celebration of the birth of Christ was practiced by the church or any of the Apostles after He died. This happened when Constantine began "replacing" (read: melding) the de-facto state religion of the day, sun-worship, with what had previously been a renegade rag-tag religion, Christianity. This is when many of the familiar elements we see today in what is now called Christianity began to appear. Interestingly, this was actually somewhat confusing to the citizens of Rome at the time. I've read that for quite some time, at the temples, which had previously been sun-worship temples, the priests would have to stop the patrons from turning around and bowing homage to the sun before they entered the temple, as had previously been the custom.
Most people tend to forget for some reason that Jesus was a Hebrew, and when He referred to "the scriptures" He could only have been referring to what we now call the old testament. Anything that can be deemed "Christian" can only be what HE spoke about and the elements that He added and amplified concerning the original old texts, which the apostles repeated until they died, nothing more, nothing less. I can find no evidence of any winter-solstice related celebrations either in the old testament, or in the writings of Jesus or the Apostles, or the celebration of anyones birth. Of course it was a wonderful event when Christ was ACTUALLY born, but I don't recall anyone celebrating that date annually. What's more, King Solomon (whom, if you'll recall, God saw fit to bestow great wisdom upon) declared that the day of a persons death is better than their birth. (Ecclesiastes 7:1) This would also include Christ's death, seeing He DIED for our sins, and was not BORN for our sins.
In fact, even The Catholic Encyclopedia itself asserts that: "Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts (in Lev. Hom. viii in Migne, P.G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday" (vol. 3, pg. 724).
Protestant churches don't seem to have a clue either, as they happily follow suit with dozens of practices began by the Catholic church that they are supposedly "protesting" from.
Somehow I just don't think Jesus is being offended by me not celebrating a holiday that was practiced by pagans before He came to us, and then adapted by these same pagans from paganism to a holiday supposedly celebrating Him. Mixing paganism with God's Law was specifically covered and forbade numerous times in the bible anyway (for example Matthew 15:9, just to name one... there are plenty more).
So I guess I'm just a generic "Christian" and my religion is just the bible, as churches seem to have no problem bending and adapting the rules to serve their needs. In fact, the prophet Daniel described one of the most abominable man-made creations ever, the 4th beast of the Babylonian king Belshazzar's dream, as "..he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.." (Daniel 7:25). Incidentally, I feel compelled to point out that pretty much all modern biblical scholars from all walks of life have correctly identified the 4th beast of King Belshazzar's dream as none other than the Roman Empire.
Nowadays, the only reason Christmas is as popular as it is, especially in this increasingly secular world, is its commercial value. Christmas is a very very lucrative commercial holiday. Only <insert number here> shopping days until Christmas!
Taking all of this into account, I find it very very difficult to rationalize following any modern holidays that are based upon paganism, but attempt to put a Christian facade on it. Any thoughts?
I couldn't agree anymore with the above D-dog. Your post is all very factual from a historical standpoint. However, there is one error. You mention the start of the adoption of the Saturnalia celebration in Christendom to be around the time of the Council of Nicea. If memory serves me well, this was actually the beginning of the adoption of the un-bibical teaching of the "divine trinity", which itself has origins in Mesopotamia and other pagan religions, dealing with a triune god-head.
The Christians thought they were "Christianizing" the pagans, but rather, the pagans proved to be the ones "paganizing" Christianity. Modern Christianity is far different from the form practiced by Jesus' disciples, and the majority of it is based on principles not found in the bible, in other words, "traditions of men", as Jesus called it. _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
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However, there is one error. You mention the start of the adoption of the Saturnalia celebration in Christendom to be around the time of the Council of Nicea. If memory serves me well, this was actually the beginning of the adoption of the un-bibical teaching of the "divine trinity", which itself has origins in Mesopotamia and other pagan religions, dealing with a triune god-head.
Oh yeah, you're absolutely right. but I was keeping it kind of broad so i just said "beginning with events like ...", because that kind of a deep topic in itself . Actually, as I recall, no one is actually 100% sure when Christmas came about to replace the existing winter-solstice festivals, but I believe it is generally agreed to have been sometime in the 4th century. There are things recorded such as comments from old church officials (such as Pope Gregory from the 5th century) having viewpoints on Christmas, so it was definitely around by then. He actually tried to abolish some of the Christmas practices for the specific reason that they came from the Saturnalia festival, but to no avail.
The Council of Nicaea was the really the first time the state decided to reign in control of the different Christian churches from all over the empire, and they established a number of doctrines there, including the one about the Triune God (which, as you have said, comes from a very old practice as well). Interestingly, another thing that took place there was that they decided to re-establish the Christian Passover to a different day, effectively separating it from the Hebrew Passover. There was a distinct impression of the day that they wanted to separate anything remotely Hebrew from Christianity. It wasn't long after the Council of Nicaea that they had the Council of Laodicea, about 25 or 30 years later. There they specifically prohibited Christians from "Judaizing", which basically meant that they couldn't do any customs that seemed Jewish, and they also formalized the changing of the Christian Sabbath from Saturday over to Sunday, a day pagans were already very familiar with worshipping on anyway, and was also related to the so-called de-Judaization of the new Christian church. Once again, this reminds me of Daniel 7:25, saying that that 4th beast would "speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.." Sounds remarkably familiar, as that is precisely what they did.
Ohhhh absolutely not, they've got their own set of ideas as well, as they have created their own set of doctrine that was convenient for them at the time. I just fancy myself a bit of a historian, thats all. This is all just stuff you'll find in Encyclopedia's and books written by well-known historians.
Edit: I became very interested in this stuff when I was about 18 and started reading the bible myself. I found pretty early on that the bible itself depicts a very different scenario than what all the churches I saw seemed to depict, so I've been studying deeper and deeper into it ever since.
Last edited by ddog800 on Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:19 pm; edited 2 times in total
This is all just stuff you'll find in Encyclopedia's and books written by well-known historians.
I know. It's just that you seem to be opposed to the celebration of Christmas on the grounds that it has 'pagan'* origins, which is similar to the view of Jehovah's Witnesses.
* Personally, I don't describe religious beliefs and practices as 'pagan' unless the believers themselves describe themselves as such.
I know. It's just that you seem to be opposed to the celebration of Christmas on the grounds that it has 'pagan'* origins, which is similar to the view of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Ahh ok yeah, you're right, the Jehovah's Witnesses do reject Christmas as well on those grounds. On that note though, there are a lot of random other Christian sect's that do so as well. You will, however, notice that there are very few, if any, "mainstream" Christian sect's that will reject Christmas and other holidays such as that... that just wouldn't be good business. Also, pretty much ALL protestant sects rejected Christmas, and any other holiday with pagan origins up until just a century or 2 ago, but very few do now.
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Personally, I don't describe religious beliefs and practices as 'pagan' unless the believers themselves describe themselves as such.
I have covered this topic with people before also, this seems to be a common idea. What it boils down to though, in what I've read, is that in the bible there is no precedent for God's people (Hebrews, or Gentiles alike) taking in surrounding customs of pagan cultures and attempting to worship God. In fact, that very thing is one of the elements that caused God to dismantle the nation of ancient Israel: The meshing of surrounding pagan customs with their worship of Him. Also, you would have to think, during the time of Jesus, Judah was part of the Roman Empire. They were more than aware of the winter-solstice festivals taht went on every year, whilst they (the Jews) were celebrating their customary "feasts of the Lord", including Jesus. Considering that most of the original converts to Christianity were Jewish, it seems like they would have found it a bit odd to suddenly be turned around and told that they're now supposed to begin celebrating birthdays (a practice at the time only done by pagans), and whats more they were to celebrate their God's birthday at the very time that all the pagans around them were celebrating the various births of their winter-gods. That would be like going into a Christian church today and telling everyone "Ok guys, we're all gonna worship Jesus here, but we're gonna start doing it how they worship Buddha, and Allah, and we'll throw in a little bit of that Hindu stuff too... cool?"
Meshing in pagan practices with a Christian facade was started because Rome was ready to go out and convert the pagan masses to their new religion, and frankly, the church officials didn't feel that the "heathen masses" would be able to comprehend such change and be able to live by it. So they authorized their bishops to just take whatever local custom they have and convert it to Christianity along with the people themselves. The people would then go on with their new religion, but continue to celebrate whatever festivals they already had in place, albeit with a new face.
In this advanced and modern age, where people blessed enough to live in such well-to-do countries as we here all do, where the literacy rates are very very high, and we are all fairly intelligent people, I feel that to be somewhat of an antiquated notion. I would take offense to the idea that my brain isn't capable of viewing the truth of the bible without the crutch of some ancient pagan religious elements.
Also, pretty much ALL protestant sects rejected Christmas, and any other holiday with pagan origins up until just a century or 2 ago, but very few do now.
Yes — this is why Christmas was still technically 'banned' in Scotland until the 1960s, and is why it's still seen as a less significant festival than New Year there.
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I have covered this topic with people before also, this seems to be a common idea. What it boils down to though, in what I've read, is that in the bible there is no precedent for God's people (Hebrews, or Gentiles alike) taking in surrounding customs of pagan cultures and attempting to worship God. In fact, that very thing is one of the elements that caused God to dismantle the nation of ancient Israel: The meshing of surrounding pagan customs with their worship of Him. Also, you would have to think, during the time of Jesus, Judah was part of the Roman Empire. They were more than aware of the winter-solstice festivals taht went on every year, whilst they (the Jews) were celebrating their customary "feasts of the Lord", including Jesus. Considering that most of the original converts to Christianity were Jewish, it seems like they would have found it a bit odd to suddenly be turned around and told that they're now supposed to begin celebrating birthdays (a practice at the time only done by pagans), and whats more they were to celebrate their God's birthday at the very time that all the pagans around them were celebrating the various births of their winter-gods. That would be like going into a Christian church today and telling everyone "Ok guys, we're all gonna worship Jesus here, but we're gonna start doing it how they worship Buddha, and Allah, and we'll throw in a little bit of that Hindu stuff too... cool?"
Meshing in pagan practices with a Christian facade was started because Rome was ready to go out and convert the pagan masses to their new religion, and frankly, the church officials didn't feel that the "heathen masses" would be able to comprehend such change and be able to live by it. So they authorized their bishops to just take whatever local custom they have and convert it to Christianity along with the people themselves. The people would then go on with their new religion, but continue to celebrate whatever festivals they already had in place, albeit with a new face.
In this advanced and modern age, where people blessed enough to live in such well-to-do countries as we here all do, where the literacy rates are very very high, and we are all fairly intelligent people, I feel that to be somewhat of an antiquated notion. I would take offense to the idea that my brain isn't capable of viewing the truth of the bible without the crutch of some ancient pagan religious elements.
Very well, but that wasn't what I was saying. Basically, I object to describing religious beliefs as 'pagan' unless the believers themselves describe(d) them as such. I find your approach, which seems to classify all non-Judeo-Christian beliefs as 'pagan', to be overly Christian-centric.
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. Actually, as I recall, no one is actually 100% sure when Christmas came about to replace the existing winter-solstice festivals, but I believe it is generally agreed to have been sometime in the 4th century. There are things recorded such as comments from old church officials (such as Pope Gregory from the 5th century) having viewpoints on Christmas, so it was definitely around by then. He actually tried to abolish some of the Christmas practices for the specific reason that they came from the Saturnalia festival, but to no avail.
