Christmas. Banned By The Church?
Tomorrow, December 22nd, is the date of the winter solstice this year. According to Wikipedia many cultures have celebrated this event. “Often since the event is observed as the reversal of the Sun’s ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods have been common..”.
Many believe that the designation of December 25th as the date of the birth of Christ, was an attempt by the early Church to take attention away from the Pagan celebrations associated with the winter solstice. Biblically there is nothing to associate mid-December with the birth.
Since I wrote about the commercialization Christmas, I’ve done a little more reading on the subject.
Green Bay, Wisconsin was in the news this week after they put a nativity scene in front of City Hall. In an attempt to include everyone, they also put up a Wiccan pentacle consisting of an evergreen wreath encircling a gold five-pointed star.
Almost immediately a city resident requested permission to place a Festivus pole on the site. The man making the request said it “…was intended to showcase how deciding what religions to include in the display can turn to the absurd.”
Again, the Christian tradition of Christmas is the main reason for celebration this time of year, so is there any reason to include every other religion?
According to an article at the dailypress.com website, “…Gallup polls from 1994 to 2005 consistently show that more than 90 percent of adults say they celebrate Christmas, including 84 percent of non-Christians.”
The hot topic this time of year is how various groups are trying to disassociate Christmas from religious symbolism, what many decry as an attack on Christmas. It turns out that this is not the first time that a concerted effort has been made to separate the birth of Christ from a celebration that is considered by many to be a purely commercial endeavor.
The dailypress article continues, “Through much of the 19th century, schools and businesses remained open, Congress met in session and some churches closed their doors, lest errant worshippers try to furtively commemorate the day.”
“‘The whole culture didn’t stop for Christmas,’ said Bruce Forbes, a religious studies professor at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. ‘Government went on as usual, business went on as usual, school went on as usual.’”
“In researching his book, ‘Christmas: A Candid History,’ Forbes discovered that major American denominations–Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Methodists and Congregationalists–either ignored the holiday or actively discouraged it until the late 19th century.”
“That rejection was rooted in the lack of biblical sanction for Dec. 25 as the date of Jesus’ birth, as well as suspicion toward traditions that developed after the earliest days of Christianity. In colonial New England, this disapproval extended to actually making the holiday illegal, with celebration punishable by a fine.”
“‘Some somehow observe the day,’ wrote Boston Puritan Samuel Sewall on Christmas Day 1685, ‘but are vexed, I believe, that the body of people profane it, and blessed be God no authority yet compels them to keep it.’”
How ironic then that the very institutions that tried to keep Christmas from becoming a religious holiday, are now the most vocal in keeping the holiday associated with the birth of Christ.
Could it be that the holiday has outlived it’s importance as a religious symbol? Is the opposition to the holiday that we see today merely the early stages of what might be a natural death of a holiday? Wouldn’t you think that the religious leaders would be in favor of disassociating the ultimate event of their religion from the commercial event that is modern Christmas?
Maybe the average Christian should be thanking the Christmas dissenters for their help in giving the birth of Christ back to the Churches to celebrate in a fitting manner.
Thanks guys, now I have a reason for not having gotten the decorations up this year!