Christmas and Cultural Syncretism
It’s that time of year again. The children are nestled all snug in their beds eagerly awaiting to celebrate syncretism. Oh wait…that’s not how that goes. Well, in truth that’s what it should be. Every year I write a short post explaining my rationale for abstaining from the practice of Christmas. I remember the first time I heard of Christians doing this, and I was puzzled beyond belief (as happens when I tell other believers). But when I started to study the origin of Christmas I realized that it was a syncretized holiday. If we are to worship in Spirit and truth then that necessarily entails the examination of our long-held traditions in light of Scripture. I heartily agree with the following quote:
“I’m not fighting the commercialization of Christmas; that fight was lost ages ago. What I’m after is more radical: Disentangling Jesus entirely from this blight on his good name. I’m out to change the bumper sticker from ‘Keep Christ in Christmas’ to ‘Free Christ from Christmas.’ […] So does his birth matter at all? Well, it matters to his followers today as one way of backing up his claim to be the son of God. But that’s not the way Jesus, himself, backed up his claim. He pointed not to his birth, but to his Resurrection. […] When Jesus denounced hypocrisy, he wasn’t talking about saying one thing and doing something else; he was talking about using God and the things of God as a means to some other end, like, oh, say, making a buck. This is why he drove the moneychangers out of the temple. We do him no honor by carting him out once a year to stand him on his head.” (Source)
Reasons To Abstain From Christmas
- Christmas was instituted by the Catholic church in the 4th century by “Christianizing” a pagan holiday celebrating Roman gods to increase unity within the Roman empire. This is why it is the “mass of Christ.” As Christians we must separate ourselves from any form of syncretism.
- The observance of “Santa Claus” is non-Christian. Supporting a human who has the attributes of deity (in fact, more than Christ, because Christ wasn’t omnipresent on the earth) can confuse children from trusting in Christ.
- Jesus pointed to His resurrection as what is to be remembered from His work on the earth. We are to look forward to our own bodily resurrection in memory of Jesus (1 Cor 15).
- Christmas is driven by, in truth, by temporal things of this world.
- Jesus, the apostles and the early church didn’t recognize this event which is more important when we realize that they did remember the resurrection (to be a perpetual remembrance through the Lord’s Supper).
- Jesus wasn’t born on Dec 25; in fact, all historical evidence points to a spring birth.
- The world loves baby Jesus, but when He is the resurrected Lord calling for repentance into His Kingdom the world shirks.
I have been liberated from this holiday to worship my God freely and in a pure fashion. I don’t miss it at all, and I encourage every Christian to examine this issue to see whether it is indeed Scriptural. Here is a short video going back over some of the points I mentioned above.
Not that I’m an advocate, but there’s an episode in the blantantly racist cartoon comedy the Boondocks where the girl says that Christmas is to celebrate Santa’s birth and resurrection.
Though it is a satire, it’s very iconic of how our culture confuses Christ and Santa and their very “similar” attributes.
She even says to pray to santa and the like for salvation.
Rediculous we say, but people believe it.
–P Whit
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/xmas/celeb.htm
A good detailed history of Christmas.
In response/addition to Paul’s post. I was with MJ’s family and talking to her younger cousins (both ~ 6 years old) and they were telling me:
“Santa is magic, just like Jesus and God”
Talk about being stabbed in the heart. Its not the kids fault though, they have been lied to to believe this.
Chris,
I appreciate a lot of what you have to say (especially after reading some of the appalling examples in the comments), but I’m not sure I would take things quite as far as you do. The Church should definitely emphasize the death and resurrection of Christ in every service (I personally think it’s presumptuous for the Church to meet together for corporate worship without making a celebration of the Lord’s Supper central to the meeting) — but the incarnation is also a precious scriptural truth, and if some churches want to take one specific time a year to celebrate the incarnation, I don’t know if I would necessarily condemn that (especially since we really don’t know for sure what time of year Christ was born). I certainly agree on the whole Santa thing though, and on the horribly materialistic and Christ-less “feelings of peace and goodwill” that have been divorced from a substitutionary atonement. I don’t care too much about the pagan roots, because no one thinks in terms of honoring the pantheon anymore — what are we going to do, not worship Christ in December, because pagans used December to worship false gods?
So, having thought through that much, I definitely agree that the Church should do some major changes in what they say about Christmas, but I’m not sure I would say that they should avoid reflecting on the incarnation in the month of December.
Just some rough thoughts, take them or leave them :).
Nathan
@Jeremy: Thanks for the article! Here is a good quote from it:
@Nathan: As always, good feedback Nathan.
Hey Chris!
I’ve never posted on your blog before.. but now’s a good time to start. :-)
I like your ability to take a controversial stand. And your post was very interesting.
About the video, out of curiousity, was that in support of your point? (Perhaps I’m blind. It seemed almost severely over the top so I wasn’t sure if it was a joke.) The video did have some good points.
I thought Nathan had some really good points — that it’s legitimate to celebrate Christ’s birth and that the pagan roots are just that — roots. What exists today is no longer what existed then. To have true syncretism you need a combination of different beliefs. Our culture doesn’t believe those things (although we certianly have materialism and nonsense, like Santa Claus, but that’s entirely different) so today we don’t have syncretism, but it seems to me that instead we have a materialized and secularized version of a Christian holiday (although its origins were syncretist).
I don’t know any Christinas who support Santa Claus and non-Christians aren’t bound to the beliefs we are so their support of Santa Claus can be expected.
While Jesus did tell us to memorialize His resurrection, He didn’t say not to celebrate His birth. While we can certainly do that every day of the year, we can do that with any Christian truth. Should we also stop celebrating Easter?
Christmas is driven by temporal things, but only in part. It is also, obviously, driven by eternal things (i.e. Jesus).
It’s probably fair to say that Jesus, the apostles, and the early church didn’t do a lot of things we do. Is that to be a litmus test for us? Perhaps other measurements should also be taken into consideration?
I’m sure most people agree that it doesn’t matter when Jesus was born but it is interesting to note that He probably wasn’t on born on Dec. 25.
I absolutely agree with your last point!! (Sorry to disagree with so many.)
One further point — if we are to stop celebrating Christmas primarily because it is a Christianized pagan holiday, do we do the same with Easter (also a Christianized pagan holiday)? What if “they” commercialize and corrupt something good that Christians institute? Do we then abandan it? Anything can be corrupted (people misuse the Bible).
I’ll stop. I hope my points don’t seem rude or impudent!! I tried to word my points nicecly. (Sometimes, in disagreements, just being direct can be rude.) So, obviously, I disagree with you. But I love the fact you can take a controversial stand the way you do. Any return thoughts?
And by the way thanks for posting on my blog! If you find something on my blog you disagree with, I hope you feel TOTALLY comfortable disagreeing with every last point like I just did with you. :-)
The guy who penned the following article believes that Resurrection Day should be celebrated a week before “Easter.”
http://www.askelm.com/news/n010412.htm
@Amanda: the video was a little over the top. To be honest, this position is a little over the top. I realize it is a very fundamentalist position so I want to be careful there.
Because the roots are syncretized I think that should cause us to examine why we celebrate the holiday. If all of the sudden the mass-Christian consensus was that pornography was moral that doesn’t make it moral (the bandwagon fallacy).
The litmus test for us concerning the early church is difficult. Certainly we can’t be expected to duplicate the “Christian Communism” (as it were) in the book of Acts, but when dealing with observances I think we should look to the instruction and the practical outworking of that instruction guided by the Apostles in the early church.
You weren’t rude or imprudent. I appreciate the comments.
I think that you make many good points Chris. I had never really thought of the celebration of Christmas as syncretism but that is exactly what it is. Materialism IS a form of religion (hence, “You cannot serve both God and mammon”), and Christmas certainly promotes materialism. I actually found the video refreshing as it supported the things that God has been putting on my heart these past couple of years about our re-worked pagan holidays.
I was amazed at Amanda’s comment that she doesn’t know any Christians who support Santa Claus. Sadly, in my experience, more Christian parents lie to their children about Santa Claus than those who do not. I am thankful that my parents downplayed this mythology so that I never had the trauma of discovering that my parents had lied to me about an important issue. I have heard of many kids being deeply disturbed when they found out that their hero did not exist and that they had been deceived throughout their early life. I find no acceptable justification for this practice.
I also liked Jeremy’s link to an article about Easter. The author is a bit repetitive about making his point, but he makes a good one. Personally, I have a far deeper objection to celebrating “Easter”, since the holiday still bears the name of the ancient Babylonian queen who set herself up as a goddesss and made her son into a false Messiah figure. She is quite possibly the origin of the majority of ancient mystery religions (which have various names in various countries). I find it offensive to celebrate the ressurection of the true Messiah on a day that bears the name of a false god, and I support the churches who are trying to address this by at least renaming it Ressurection Sunday.
Chris, you summarize the issue well when you say “Because the roots are syncretized I think that should cause us to examine why we celebrate the holiday.” I think that is the case with both Christmas and Easter. They were both instituted by the 4th century Catholic Church at the same time for the same reason (to gain pagan converts without asking them to give up their pagan practices). I think that the examination of one points to the examination of the other…and perhaps even an examination of how that same principle may be at play today in the “seeker sensitive” movement.
Keep up the good fight.
For clarity’s sake, I thought I’d add the following and completely agree with Chris and Kari.
We should examine why we celebrate any holiday that has syncretised roots “in light of Scripture.” Also, how long we’ve held these traditions means nothing. …There are rare times when I can be somewhat agreeable… :-) I still hold to all the points I previously made (although thanks Kari for helping me clarify — I probably did not communicate that I agree with the motivation for questioning the holiday — I just disagree with the conclusion.)
Amanda — I appreciate your feedback. If you haven’t looked at it, may I suggest that you take a look at the link Chris has to “Should a Christian Celebrate Christmas?” It has many thought provoking points.
Chris — I really appreciate your providing a forum for people to discuss such complex issues.
@Kari: I’m elated people want to participate and discuss these important issues.
In response to Nathan’s comments: I think that the point would be valid if the commemoration of the incarnation were not connected in any way with Chritmas or motivated by a an interest in keeping the “good parts” of Christmas. Christmas is what it is: a mixing of commemorating Christ’s incarnation with worldy and pagan traditions. We should clearly separate ourselves from this tradition of synchretism past on through the years.