The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?
A Defense of Christmas
Jeffrey J. Meyers
December 2003
For a few Presbyterians this is not the season to be jolly; rather, it's open season on churches and Christians that celebrate Christmas. Almost every year about this time I get handed or emailed the same anti-Christmas essays. Well-meaning brothers are "concerned" that we have a Christmas tree in the foyer of our church, light Advent candles in December, and decorate the church with garland and holly for the season.
Yes, we do these things. We also arrange our Scripture readings to highlight the themes of Advent, use prayers and hymns that focus the church's petitions on the coming of the Lord, and actually encourage our members to rejoice and feast during the holiday season to commemorate our Lord's incarnation and birth. All of this, I am solemnly warned, is either blatant anti-Christian paganism or quite un-Reformed and therefore an offense to God.
Consider this author's summary judgment:
This may be a shocking thought
to some: but . . . I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing
Christian about Christmas; that in its present observance, as well as in its
origin, Christmas is basically and essentially pagan.
Another internet essayist, in an article called Tis the Season for Pagan Worship, intensifies this indictment:
I'll admit upfront that I am angered by this kind of rhetoric. Let me be clear. I'm not angry with people who don't celebrate Christmas. Individuals and churches have the liberty to celebrate or not. What is troubling is to hear those of us within the Reformed church that do commemorate the incarnation of the Son of God at Christmas labeled as compromisers, crypto-Romanists, idolaters, second-commandment breakers, and worse. Beyond that, the anti-Christmas rhetoric is inflammatory, but the reasons offered are pitiful.
If we were bowing down to Christmas trees, praying to or lighting candles before icons of St. Nicholas, or adding some strange ceremonies to the Sunday morning service, I might understand these sorts of accusations. But as it is, all we are doing is ordering our Scripture readings to highlight the theme of Jesus' coming, focusing our prayers on the faithfulness of God and his covenant promises, meditating on the significance of the Son of God's incarnation, and decorating our homes and churches with symbolic reminders of these themes. Does an annual focus on the theme of the Lord's coming warrant the charge of idolatry?
I will do my best to refrain from impugning the motives of these anti-Christmas crusaders, but I honestly don't know what is gained by making such provocative accusations. Some of them, no doubt, actually believe that Christians who simply celebrate Christmas are "idolaters," that we violate the second commandment when we decorate Christmas trees, trim the house with holiday decorations, erect manger scenes, and exchange gifts. For them Christmas is a "monument to idolatry"!
Christians who read these inflammatory accusations against Christmas and see their own churches enacting and encouraging these "idolatrous" activities are quite understandably bewildered. What faithful Christian wants to be called an idolater? It's only natural that an accusation of idolatry should cause the accused to pause and reflect on the practices that are labeled as such. But if the accusations turn out to be false, then a degree of righteous anger is surely justified.
Is there really nothing Christian about Christmas? Is it true that Christmas is essentially pagan? Should we believe that "God is offended" by Christians celebrating Christmas? That God commands loyal Christians to get rid of Christmas because it is a wicked "monument to idolatry?" Do the fiery warnings of the Old Testament prophets against compromise and religious syncretism apply to simple Christians who enjoy decorating their Christmas trees with lights and ornaments?
I believe the answer to all of these questions is a resounding "No!" I hope the reader will come to understand my reasons at the end of this essay.
The first three arguments, usually the most prominent with anti-Christmas crusaders, all turn on a proper understanding of history, both the history of Reformed worship and liturgy as well as the history of the development of Christmas celebrations in church history, especially the development of the church year in the early centuries of the post-apostolic church. The fourth depends on a proper understanding of how the Bible informs and regulates our worship and devotional practices.
I will work my way through the arguments using a question-and-answer format. Hopefully, this will allow the reader to navigate the whole with greater ease.
I.
Anti-Christmas
Arguments Based on the Supposed
Historic
Practice of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.
Q. 1. Have Protestant churches historically
celebrated Christmas?
Answer. I'm on safe ground saying that historically most Protestant churches have cheerfully celebrated Christmas. Of course there are some that have not. But those who have not are in the minority.
So what do we do with Kevin Reed's astonishing claim?
Following an initial look at the
origins of Christmas, we will note historic opposition to its observance, with
special emphasis on Protestant objections to the holiday. We will see that
Protestants, and especially Presbyterians, have rejected Christmas celebration
. . .
Well, there's only one thing to do with it. Denounce it as a blatant falsehood. The facts are spread all over the history of the Protestant church. How can any one dare suggest that Protestants have rejected Christmas celebrations? The author is either ignorant or deliberately twisting what is readily available from the historical record.
The Reformers and their churches were first called Protestants at the council of Speyer in 1529. They were mostly followers of Luther's reforms. Even so, the term Protestant has come to refer to those churches in opposition to Rome and associated with the Reformation. This includes Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and independent churches. Even if one finds cause to dismiss the Lutheran churches as "compromising with Romanism"--as is often done in anti-Christmas fundamentalist literature--they are the original Protestants! And Luther and the Lutherans have never had any problems with Christmas. They glory in Christmas! This is so well known that a citation proving it is unnecessary.
This is to say nothing of the other Protestant churches that use a church year calendar and observe Christmas--Anglicans, Methodists, and yes, even Reformed and Presbyterian churches, as we shall see.
Reed's assertions are simply erroneous, if not downright ridiculous. Protestants as a whole have not rejected Christmas celebrations.
Q. 2. But what about Reformed and
Presbyterian churches? Have they
historically observed Christmas?
Answer. Yes, the majority of Reformed churches have indeed observed a moderate celebration of Christmas. This is especially true for what has been called "the continental Reformed tradition." Since the 16th century, most Reformed communities have celebrated Christmas. This would include the German Reformed, the French Reformed, the Dutch Reformed, the Swiss Reformed, and the English Reformed churches.
Q. 3. Has the celebration of Christmas
ever been a test for orthodoxy in the Reformation tradition?
Answer. I can't say that it has never been, because presently there are some Reformed authors that indeed believe that it should be. And they can refer to individual authors in the past that spoke as if the observance of Christmas ought to function as a litmus test for orthodoxy. There are tracts and pamphlets, mostly from the 17th and 18th century Scottish Presbyterians, that seek to persuade churches to condemn, even discipline those who practice the celebration of Christmas. But officially the church has never taken this radical stand.
Unfortunately, Reed writes as if opposing Christmas has always been a mark of Reformation orthodoxy:
The Protestant Reformers
summoned us back to the scriptural law of worship which allows us to admit only
those institutions in worship that possess express scriptural warrant. To take
a stand in support of Christmas is a repudiation of this legacy of the
Reformation. It is a retreat from a hard-won point of orthodoxy.
Once again, please remember that phrase "the Protestant Reformers" includes Luther and the Lutherans who have never repudiated Christmas celebrations as such. Nevertheless, the repudiation of Christmas has never been "the legacy of the Reformation." This is a shameless untruth. But even if we narrow the horizon and include only Reformed and Presbyterian traditions, Reed's categorical pronouncements are simply untrue. Most Reformed churches have not considered Christmas observance a matter of "hard-won" orthodoxy. At the most, it is the legacy of a very small selection of radical Puritans and some Scottish Presbyterians.
Furthermore, celebrating Christmas is not a "retreat" from orthodoxy. How can we retreat from something that was never advanced? The majority of Reformed churches have never made the presence or absence of Christmas a matter of orthodoxy! As far as I know, Christmas has never been a litmus test for orthodoxy in any official Reformed or Presbyterian confession, catechism, or book of church order. You will find nothing of the sort in the Heidelberg Catechism, the Church of England's Thirty-nine Articles, the First or Second Helvetic Confessions, the Scot's Confession, the Canons of Dordt, the Belgic Confession, or even the Westminster Standards.
One of the most respected and widely received Reformed confessions in the 16th century was the Second Helvetic Confession (A.D. 1566). It explicitly praises the celebration of the central feasts of the church year.
The Festivals of Christ and
the Saints. Moreover, if in Christian Liberty the
churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord's nativity, circumcision,
passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the
Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly.
I commend to you Mark Horne's excellent little article called Celebrating a Calvinist Christmas with a Clear Conscience. Some of the historical data is there for you to see. He discusses the Westminster Assembly, the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), the Synod of Dortrecht (1619), the great Genevan Theologian of the 17th Century, Francis Turretin, and others.
Q. 4. What did John Calvin think about
Christmas?
Answer. If one is going to mount an argument based on Reformed tradition, one may as well go back to one of the initial sources of Reformed tradition--John Calvin himself. He approved of Christmas celebrations as long as they were purified from superstitious and idolatrous accretions.
Calvin did not condemn the annual celebration of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Furthermore, he believed the church has liberty to establish such feast days. In fact, it was Calvin's predecessor in Geneva, Farel, who had banned all such observances in the city. But when Calvin came he convinced them to reinstate the celebration of the five evangelical festivals (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost).
Later the Genevan council decided to abolish these observances. Calvin was blamed for this action, even though he had nothing to do with it and he himself objected to the decree. Nevertheless, inflammatory accusations were circulating about Calvin's indefensible rigorism, which forced Calvin to respond. People were accusing him of backing the prohibition against these feasts.
Calvin's first response was to write a letter to his friend Haller, a Reformed minister at Berne. His letter makes it very clear that he did not support the city council's decision to ban Christmas celebrations.
Since my recall [from
Strasbourg] I have pursued the moderate course of keeping Christ's birthday as
you are used to doing. [The Reformed churches of Berne, Strasbourg, and Zurich
celebrated the five evangelical feasts.]
There were even extraordinary days of prayer on other days; the shops
were shut in the morning, and every one returned to his individual calling
after dinner. There were, however,
in the meanwhile, certain inflexible individuals who did not comply with the
common custom from some perverse malice or other. . . . Let me say this, that
if I had got my choice, I should not have decided in favor of what has now been
agreed upon. There is no reason
why men should be so much provoked, if we use our liberty as the edification of
the church demands.
Those of you familiar with his writing will recognize this as classic John Calvin. We can sum up Calvin's position like this: churches have liberty to celebrate these festivals with moderation, as long as the practice will genuinely edify Christian people.
Of course, Calvin had serious reservations about the way in which Christmas and other Christian celebrations were conducted in his own day. Late medieval Roman Catholic superstitious and even idolatrous practices often mucked up what might otherwise be a rather simple and joyous feast of Scripture, hymns, and prayers commemorating the birth of our Lord. If the annual celebration of the incarnation of our Lord could be stripped of late medieval piety's unedifying and silly excesses, they might be observed with moderation and great benefit.
Calvin also wrote to Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1574), Zwingli's successor and city pastor of Zurich. In that letter he carefully distances himself from the rash decree of the city fathers in Geneva. Once Bullinger heard that Calvin had not slipped into the cultish repudiation of the great feasts of the church, he was relieved. Bullinger wrote back:
You have just given the answer
that I expected, my dear brother.
For I know that in matters of this sort, where duty is but little
heeded, and much ill-will is engendered, you have never been morose. I am anxious, indeed, in such matters,
to see that liberty preserved, which I perceive to have flourished in the
churches from the very days of the apostles.
It is a matter of historical record that some of the churches under Geneva's jurisdiction observed the Lord's Supper on December 25th, even when it did not fall on the Lord's Day. And whatever one makes of the ambiguous record that remains of the complex political and ecclesiastical struggles over the church calendar in Geneva during Calvin's time, one thing at least is clear from the record of Calvin's preaching schedule. On the major feasts days, like Christmas, he interrupted his normal practice of preaching through books of the Bible in order to preach on passages and themes related to those feasts.
Yes, certain Scottish Presbyterians opposed Christmas and all annual celebrations. One of the most referenced is George Gillespie's A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies, Obtruded Upon the Church of Scotland (1637). But there are all sorts of issues that called forth Gillespie's polemic that do not apply to most of our Reformed churches today. Neither the Church of England nor the Roman Catholic Church seeks to impose unwanted ceremonies on our churches. Protestant churches are able to celebrate Christmas without all the superstitious paraphernalia that clung to the festival in the 16th and 17th centuries. We don't say a mass, pray to any saints, or make Christmas "a holy day of obligation." Abstaining from celebrating these feasts was for some Scots and Reformed English of that day a way of distinguishing themselves from the hated Romanists and the persecuting establishment of the Church of England.
The bottom line is that our Reformed tradition is divided on this issue, and the divide is by no means down the middle. The majority of Reformed churches have celebrated Christmas joyfully and with moderation.
Arguments
Based on the Alleged
Roman
Catholic Character of Christmas.
Q. 5. Doesn't the very word
"Christmas" prove that the holiday is a Roman Catholic holy day?
Think about the name Christmas
itself. What does it mean? Many
people do not even know that it is a combination of Christ and mass. Christmas is the Roman Catholic
celebration of a particular mass in honor of the birth of Christ. Perhaps it would impress on our minds
the real meaning of Christmas if we would refer to it as Christmass. What is the significance of the
mass? At the heart of the Roman
Catholic mass is a denial of the sufficiency of Christ's atonement. It professes to be a reenactment of the
sacrifice of Christ for sin. It is
a denial of the gospel. The Roman
Catholic Church has many other masses, such as Michaelmass, but it is their
Christmass that Protestants have singled out for observance.
Where do I begin with this? First, this kind of argument assumes that the meaning of a word can be defined by analyzing its constituent parts. This is almost too easy to refute. Does "Thursday" mean Thor's day? Is Wednesday really Woden's Day?
Simply put, in the 21st-century the word Christmas does not mean "a Roman Catholic mass celebrated to honor the birth of Jesus." Rather, it refers to the time of year when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. Of course, for some it's just a holiday when people exchange gifts and pretend to believe in the Santa Claus fairy tale. Even so, the most common meaning of the word today relates to the commemoration of Jesus' birth. Yes, Roman Catholics perform a mass on Christmas. But Protestants who observe Christmas do not do so.
Q. 6. But what about the word
"mass" in Christmas?
Surely the presence of that word alerts us to the tainted Papist origin
of the celebration of Christmas.
Answer. We won't give an inch here. Anti-Christmas radicals don't even get the meaning of the word "mass" right, according to their own methodology. Those who argue against Christmas, because it contains the word "mass" might want to go back a little farther in history, back to the original use of the word mass in the early church. Christmas did not originate as a Roman Catholic holy day.
In their zeal to be "historical" our anti-Christmas crusaders don't go far enough back in history. Two can play at this game. Sure, the term "mass" was used in the pre-Reformation, medieval church to refer to the sacrifice of the mass. But what was the earliest meaning of the word "mass" in the Christian church? As it turns out, the word was not originally used this way.
Initially, the word "mass" had no connection with the doctrine of transubstantiation or the repeated sacrifice of Christ on the altar by the priest. Before the A.D. 1000, the theory of transubstantiation was unknown and the word mass was used as a simple shorthand description of the Christian worship service.
The English word "mass" is an Anglicized way of writing the Latin word misse. From our earliest records of Christian worship, the service ended with the dismissal: Ite misse est. Translated somewhat woodenly this means: "Go, it is the dismissal" or possibly "the sending"--from the Latin verb mittere, "to send." And the word missa also seems to have been connected with the word missio (mission) in the 4th century. For early Christians, the service concluded, even culminated, with a missa as the worshipers departed. In time the Christian worship service as a whole came to be designated from its final act of blessing the congregation as she leaves the church to perform her mission in the world. Misse. Missa. Mass. Go forth into the world with the blessing of God and make disciples of all nations.
Even at the time of the Reformation, to designate a Christian worship service as a "mass" was not necessarily to give away the farm to Roman Catholics. Luther called his liturgies the Formula Missae (1523) and the Deutche Messe (1526). This illustrates that the word mass, in Latin and German, only gradually came to be associated exclusively with Roman Catholic worship over against Protestant services.
Q. 7. But why do Presbyterians celebrate
"holy days" at all? Why
should we adopt the Roman Catholic practice of observing holy days?
Answer. We don't and we shouldn't. Reformed and Presbyterian churches do not observe Christmas as a "holy day." Celebrating Christmas is one thing; treating it as a "holy day" is something entirely different--unless by "holy" one simply means set apart or special. But that's not the way the Roman church uses the term. Holy days are known as "holy days of obligation." What this means is "these are the days on which it is required that members of the Catholic faith who have attained the age of reason rest from servile work and attend Holy Mass" (Robert C. Broderick, ed., The Catholic Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated Edition [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987], p. 267). According to the Apostolic See, Christmas is one of these holy days.
Failure
to attend a mass held on a "holy day" is a mortal sin, given, of
course, that there are no extenuating circumstances. If a Catholic transgresses with "full knowledge and
free consent" of his will the result is the loss of sanctifying grace, the
loss of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, remorse, and the punitive effect of
eternal separation from God. If
the Catholic wishes to avoid these consequences after a mortal sin is
committed, he or she must make use of the Sacrament of Penance in order to
return to the love of God. (I've
tried to stick to the language that the RC church uses to describe matters like
this. See the Code of Canon Law, Canons 1244-1253, and the new Catechism, para. 2180-2183; thanks to Joel Garver for these
references).
This is not our understanding or practice. This is why it is so ridiculous when some of our more radical Presbyterian brothers accuse those of us who celebrate Christmas of keeping "holy days." There's nothing meritorious about attending a Christmas Eve vespers service. Neither is it a sin to fail to attend. For Presbyterians, Christmas services, unless they fall on the Lord's Day, are entirely optional. We believe it is beneficial for people to gather to celebrate and remember our Lord's birth, but it's certainly not mandatory.
Furthermore, not only do individual Christians have liberty in this matter, but we believe particular churches also have freedom to observe or not observe Christmas. I think churches that don't observe Advent and Christmas and don't follow a simplified church year calendar are missing out on a wonderful opportunity to instruct their people in the life of Christ. But I don't believe that they are in violation of any commandment or obligation from God. God has given us freedom in these matters.
Moreover, quoting Galatians 4:9-11 is beside the point. The author of Is Christmas Christian? gets it all wrong:
Paul wrote to the Galatians in
dismay, "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years! I am afraid of
you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain" (Gal. 4:10-11). He
wasn't condemning them for observing those institutions commanded by God, but
for observing those of man's making, contrary to God's law.
Paul most certainly was condemning the Galatian Christians for observing institutions commanded by God! The "days, months, and years" refer to the Jewish festival calendar consisting of weekly, monthly, and annual feasts commanded by Yahweh (Lev. 23). But these festivals have been made obsolete with the coming of Christ. The Christians of Galatia were being seduced by erring Christian Missionaries from Jerusalem who taught them that faith in Jesus Christ was not sufficient to be justified before God. Only observing the distinctives of the Torah (circumcision, Sabbaths, feasts days, food laws, etc.) would guarantee their justification.
The problem was not that the Galatians were observing their own special festival days (like Christmas and Easter) not commanded by God, but that they were acting as if the old law was still in force and that Jesus had not yet come to fulfill it. Paul's words must not be taken out of context and made into some sort of abstract prohibition against all extra-biblical celebrations.
Arguments
Based on The Presumed Pagan Roots
of
Christmas Symbols and Ceremonies.
Q. 8. But surely you must admit that the origins
of Christmas, especially the symbolism and ceremonies associated with it, are
rooted in Paganism. How do you
answer this?
Stop and take a breath. Okay, let's review what we know about the origin of the annual celebration of Christmas.
First, we have reliable records from the middle of the fourth century indicating that Christians celebrated Christmas in the churches of Rome. The earliest record of Christ's birth being celebrated on December 25th is A.D. 354 in a work called Chronography. The Chronography documented the various seasons and festivals of the churches in Rome, most of them commemorating the death of Martyrs. By A.D. 398 Christ's birth was being celebrated on December 6th all across the empire--except in Armenia (January 6th).
Second, the story of how December 25th was chosen has been caricatured for many years. The Christian leaders who gave us the great Trinitarian and Christological Creeds of the fourth and fifth century were not so theologically na•ve as to simply import a pagan feast into the church wholesale in order to pacify some recently baptized and nominally Christian pagans. This is absurd.
On the contrary, the facts suggest it was the pagan Roman emperor Aurelian in A.D. 274 who introduced the pagan feast of the "invincible Sun" (sol invictus) in order to counteract the influence of the growing Christian population and their celebration of the birth of Jesus during this time of the year. Pagans were imitating and aping Christians, not visa versa. If you want to learn more about this, read William J. Tighe's excellent article Calculating Christmas: The Story Behind December 25. His summary is worth quoting:
Thus, December 25th as the
date of the Christ's birth appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan
influences upon the practice of the Church during or after Constantine's time.
It is wholly unlikely to have been the actual date of Christ's birth, but it
arose entirely from the efforts of early Latin Christians to determine the
historical date of Christ's death.
And the pagan feast which the
Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date in the year 274 was not only an effort
to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost
certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of
importance to Roman Christians. The Christians, in turn, could at a later date
re-appropriate the pagan "Birth of the Unconquered Sun" to refer, on
the occasion of the birth of Christ, to the rising of the "Sun of
Salvation" or the "Sun of Justice."
Third, there is sufficient historical evidence that the church's choice of December 25 as the festival of Christ's nativity was reached by independent calendrical calculation on the part of Christian scholars and pastors. It was chosen for symbolic and chronological purposes as believing scholars reflected on the symbolism of the seasons and the chronological information available to them.
They believed that God initiated the new creation on the same day in which the old creation was made and redeemed the world on the same day as well (Spring). The new creation began with the incarnation of the Word at the annunciation (March 25). Add nine months to this and you get December 25th.
Whatever you think about this line of reasoning, it is anything but pagan! The church deliberately chose December 25th because 1) they believed that Jesus was born sometime in the winter, and 2) having Christmas around the time of the winter solstice would enable the church to highlight the themes of darkness and light so prominent in the Gospel records. The pagans did not own the seasons; they tried to commandeer them from God and his people. And so in order to reclaim the seasons f