Pagan rituals
What war on Christmas? Jesus wasn’t born in December.
On December 25, don’t ask me to wish Jesus a happy birthday. Christmas day
commemorates a pagan festival, not the birth of Jesus.
Jesus’ birthday has been formally debated since A.D. 245 when a group of
scholars attempted to determine the exact date of Jesus’ birth. The result
was multiple dates: January 6, March 25, and May 20. The May date was
favored. Luke 2:8 reports that the shepherds hearing the announcement of
Jesus’ birth were watching their sheep by night. Shepherds only guarded
their flocks at night during lambing in the spring.
In A.D. 349, http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=A.D.+349%2C+Pope+Julius+christmas&btnG=Search Pope
Julius pronounced December 25 as Christmas, a date not considered by
biblical scholars. This date was already widely celebrated by Romans in
honor of the sun god, Mithras, taking place just after the winter solstice,
when the daylight becomes longer. For the next millennium-and-a-half, the
Catholic Church propagated Jesus’ birth as December 25. By the early 19th
Century, a unified date was gaining momentum. Catholic, Lutheran, Dutch
Reformed, and Anglican churches were most responsible for establishing
December 25th Christmas traditions in the United States.
In 1836, Alabama became the first state to declare December 25 as Christmas
and an official holiday. Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Puritans
voiced opposition to December 25 because of the pagan origins of most of the
Christmas festivities. Hoever, by 1890 all other states acknowledged
December 25th as Jesus’ birthday amongst strong opposition.
Today, religious media is making noise about *the secularization of
Christmas*, claiming that Xmas and Happy Holidays are secular expressions.
The abbreviation Xmas for Christmas originated with early Greek Christians.
X is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ: Xristos. By the
sixteenth century, Xmas was widely used in Europe among Christians who
understood that it meant “Jesus’ mass.” Holiday is from a Dutch word meaning
holy-day, a specifically non-secular sentiment.
The War on Christmas http://mediamatters.org/items/200511210003 has been
front-page news all across the United States. The Atlanta Journal
Constitution http://www.ajc.com/tuesday/content/epaper/editions/tuesday/news_3459937e80aa203b10a0.html?COXnetJSessionIDbuild111=Dr0jV9967toQzTkFIAKqv8wkzBiHa0WFI8CiLLNQFZvMDwxqmC0x%211847650096&UrAuth=aNcNUOaNVUbTTUWUXUTUZTYU%5EUWUcU_UZUU%5DUcTYWVVZV&urcm=y ran
*Happy holidays? The flap over Christmas* by Bill Hendrick reporting that
major retailers couldn’t wish folks a “merry Christmas” for fear of being
boycotted by “anti-Christians”. I emailed Hendrick and asked him to which
groups he was referring. I received no reply.
Every time I hear somebody discussing “The War on Christmas” I feel like
asking them: “What Christian values do you follow?”
*A Christian nation would:*
*1. leave vengeance to the Lord.*
*2. return good for evil.*
*3. love its enemies.*
*4. judge not, lest it be judged.*
*5. consider itself blessed when others persecute it for its beliefs.*
*6. trust God, rather than the armies of the flesh.*
*So, let’s stop pretending America is a Christian nation, okay?*
—Dr. Ken Larson
Happy Festivus. It’s for the rest of us.
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