IS CHRISTMAS CHRISTIAN?
Today, I received the following email in reference to yesterday's blog pic:

"I just looked at your blog today...
Advertisment for Coca-Cola?
You discovered some interesting things at easter, but the origin of the red-white-santa-claus you did not disccover, did you?
I never saw such a stupid picture...
Please don't be cross with me, I was simply really amazed about this picture...
Wish you some nice free days!"

Well, the purpose of the picture was to show that Jesus is the reason for the season, not santa.

But let's not stop there. What does the Bible say? No where does it say we should celebrate the birth of God's Son. In fact, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, Christmas was not observed in the first centuries of the Christian church. It was later on that a feast was established in memory of Christ's birth in the fourth century. Then, in the fifth century, the Western Church ordered the feast to be celebrated forever on the day of the Mithraic rites of the birth of the sun and at the close of the Saturnalia because no certain knowledge of the day of Christ's birth existed.

SATURNALIA
The Roman week-long (Dec 17-23) winter solstice festival commemorating the dedication of the temple for their god, Saturn


Santa Claus, decorated evergreen trees, yule logs, holly wreaths, and mistletoe all have their roots in pagan religions, not Christianity.

Early Christian Auld said, "As for the first believers, they had not the slighest interest in anything of the kind. Hope in the Lord's imminent return from heaven in great power and glory was the flame that fired their devotion."

In the book The Customs of Mankind it says, "Christmas was originally a festival of the Winter Solstice. It was customary to hold great feasts in honor of the heathen gods. The early teachers of Christianity prohibited these festivals as unsuited to the character of Christ. Yet the symbols and customs of the old festivals are adapted to the new, and so we find Christmas patterned with many customs of pagan origin."

To the mind of the Puritans, Christmas smelled to heaven of idolatry. The Puritans abolished Christmas as a hateful relic of Popery.

Tertullian wrote, "Let those who have no Light, light their lamps, let them affix to their posts laurels. You [Christians] are the Light of the World, a tree ever green. If you have renounced temples, make not your own gate a temple [by heathen wreaths]."

Crippen said, "At the time of persecution, Christians were detected by NOT decorating their houses at the Saturnalia."

Campbell said that the early Christians discouraged the use of evergreen decorations in Christian homes and assemblies because their display had long been associated with heathen festivals.

And the Encyclopedia Britannica says that as Christianity spread among the peoples of pagan lands, many of the practices of the Winter Solstice were blended with those of Christianity, because of the liberal ruling of Pope Gregory I and the cooperation of the missionaries.

So the roots of Christmas and santa are pagan and we Christians need to seriously considered what God's will is for us.

SUNRISE TODAY AT STONEHENGE
Every year pagans mark the winter solstice in Wiltshire, England


LINKS
The Origins of Christ-Mass: Catholic-Paganism by G.V. Growcott

The True Origin of CHRISTMAS by David C. Pack