The Christmas wars

I’m going to briefly review some stock objections to Christmas:

1. The Constitutional objection:

According to this objection, a national Christmas holiday, as well as other official celebrations of Christmas (and Christianity), violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.

To my knowledge, that’s revisionist propaganda. To my knowledge, this is the original intent of the Establishment Clause:

Some of the Colonies had established churches. When the Colonies contemplated the prospect of confederated in a union of states, under a Federal gov’t, this raised the issue of whether they would lose their religious autonomy. Instead of several established churches, at the discretion of individual states, would a single national church be imposed on the country at large?

The point of the Establishment Clause, as I understand it, was to preserve the religious status quo ante. States could still disestablish their churches if that saw fit, but that was not a Constitutional mandate. Just the opposite.

The notion that our gov’t can’t sponsor or favor Christianity is, at best, a circular appeal to recent judicial precedent. And judicial precedent is reversible.

This is a separate question from whether or not it’s a good idea for gov’t to sponsor or favor Christianity. I’m just making the point that that’s Constitutionally permissible–liberal propaganda notwithstanding.

2. The Genetic objection

To take one example:

Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to celebrate Christmas, birthdays, Easter, Thanksgiving, or any other holidays, claiming they all have pagan roots.

http://www.towerwatch.com/Witnesses/Beliefs/their_beliefs.htm

But there are two problems with this objection:

i) To my knowledge, the claim that Christmas co-opted a pagan festival is historically dubious. I’ve quoted Roger Beckwith on that issue.

ii) Even if the claim were historically sound, this commits the genetic fallacy. The meaning of a holiday depends on the meaning which God, the culture, or the celebrant assigns to the holiday.

Likewise, the meaning of a religious rite or holiday can be reassigned. Take circumcision. Circumcision antedated the Jewish rite. God co-opted a preexisting custom, and reassigned to circumcision a meaning distinctive to in-group (i.e. the covenant community). It meant what God intended it to mean for his people. It meant what the celebrants intended it to mean, when they performed the rite.

In the nature of the case, the significance of a symbolic observance is fluid. Take another example: Protestants continue to observe the Eucharist. This is something we inherited from the Latin church. But this doesn’t mean we continue to assign the same meaning to the Eucharist that Roman Catholics do. Presbyterians and Baptists (to take two examples) have reassigned to communion a different meaning than the hereditary meaning which the Latin church assigns to communion. Presbyterians and Baptists have reverted to what they deem to be the NT meaning of communion.

Even though there’s a sense in which we took over the rites of baptism and communion from the church of Rome, we didn’t feel committed to honor the meaning which Roman Catholic theology assigns to those observances.

3. The Calendrical objection

According to this objection, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25. He wasn’t even born in winter.

There are two problems with this objection:

i) It’s historically dubious. As Dan Wallace explains:

The tradition for December 25th is actually quite ancient. Hippolytus, in the second century A.D., argued that this was Christ's birthday. Meanwhile, in the eastern Church, January 6th was the date followed.

But in the fourth century, John Chrysostom argued that December 25th was the correct date and from that day till now, the Church in the East, as well as the West, has observed the 25th of December as the official date of Christ's birth.

In modern times, the traditional date has been challenged. Modern scholars point out that when Jesus was born, shepherds were watching their sheep in the hills around Bethlehem. Luke tells us that an angel appeared to "some shepherds staying out in the fields [who were] keeping watch over their flock by night" (2:8).

Some scholars feel that the sheep were usually brought under cover from November to March; as well, they were not normally in the field at night. But there is no hard evidence for this. In fact, early Jewish sources suggest that the sheep around Bethlehem were outside year-round. So you can see, December 25th fits both tradition and the biblical narrative well. There is no sound objection to it.

Now admittedly, the sheep around Bethlehem were the exception, not the rule. But these were no ordinary sheep. They were sacrificial lambs. In the early spring they would be slaughtered at the Passover.

And God first revealed the Messiah's birth to these shepherds--shepherds who protected harmless lambs which would soon die on behalf of sinful men. Whey they saw the baby, could they have known? Might they have whispered in their hearts what John the Baptist later thundered, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

Now, of course, we can't be absolutely certain of the day of Christ's birth. At least, not this side of heaven. But an early winter date seems as reasonable a guess as any. And December 25th has been the frontrunner for eighteen centuries. Without more evidence, there seems no good reason to change the celebration date now.

http://bible.org/article/birth-jesus-christ

ii) More to the point, the objection is irrelevant. It misconceives the nature of a holiday. The date of a holiday is often conventional. For once again, the significance of any given holiday is symbolic. Being symbolic, it doesn’t matter when, exactly, the holiday is observed. For the meaning of the symbolism is culturally assigned.

iii) Indeed, the objection proves too much. Take Sunday worship. Christians traditionally worship on Sunday to commemorate the Resurrection.

However, this is customary rather than original. It’s not as if Sunday on the Gregorian calendar directly correlates with Sunday on the Julian calendar. It’s not as if you can start from Sunday on 12/26/10, then count back by intervals of 7 to arrive at the day when Jesus rose from the grave.

Likewise, Sunday doesn’t have the same significance on our calendar that it had to 1C Jews. Jesus rose on the “first day of the week.” But Sunday isn’t the first day of the week on the modern calendar. Monday is.

Yet that’s irrelevant since we’re dealing with symbolism. The emblematic significance of Sunday–not the historical significance of Sunday.

4. The Puritan objection

On this view, it is wrong to observe any (religious) holiday that isn’t commanded in Scripture.

But there are two problems with that objection:

i) This generates a false dichotomy, for there are three categories, not two: what is (a) commanded; (b) forbidden, or (c) permitted.

Put another way, the Reformed tradition (to take one example) has a category of adiaphora. Not every action is either commanded or forbidden. Some actions are permitted in the absence of a prohibition to the contrary.

So it’s fallacious to suppose that if something is not commanded, then the default assumption is that it must be forbidden. For what is proscribed is not the logical alternative to is not prescribed.

Of course, it would still be the case that Christmas is wrong. But you can’t validly infer that from the silence of Scripture. You need to mount a positive argument.

ii) In addition, the objection proves too much. For instance, the Puritans observed Sunday worship. Yet that lacks express warrant in Scripture. There’s no NT command to worship once a week on Sunday.

At best, that is merely consistent with some incidental statements regarding the practice of the NT church. But weekly Sunday worship is not a NT command. Not even by logical implication.

Likewise, Reformed pastors traditionally officiate at the Lord’s Supper. But, once again, that lacks express warrant in Scripture. At most, that is fitting or congruent with NT ecclesiology. But it’s not a command.

5. The “Baptist” objection

Some Baptists, as a matter of principle, accentuate separation of church and state. They object to nationalizing Christian holidays. Some of them also object to politicizing these issues. They object to the culture wars generally.

They think we should focus all our efforts on the spiritual side of things. On evangelizing the lost.

But I’ll just touch on one of the problems with that attitude: atheism is intolerant of Christianity. Militant atheism doesn’t approve of Christian homeschooling or Christian private schooling. It doesn’t approve of Christian “hate speech.”

If it had it’s way, militant atheism would require all children, including Christian children, to attend public school, where they would be coercively indoctrinated in secular values.

Peaceful coexistence between Christianity and atheism is not a live option. While many Christians take a live-and-let-live attitude, militant atheism vies for cultural supremacy. A totalitarian secular state.

6. The Commercial objection

Many Christians lament the commercialization, trivialization, and secularization of Christmas.

Up to a point, that objection is valid. However, in any culture where believers and unbelievers rub shoulders, Christian holidays will be abused by some members of society. So what?

Look at what unbelievers have done to Sunday? Does this mean we should cease to worship on Sunday?

7. The Politically Correct objection

Some unbelievers find Christian holidays offensive.

However, the important question is not whether somebody finds something offensive, but whether he’s entitled to be offended. If his has no right to be offended, then he has no right to impose his irrational scruples on the rest of us.

Of course, there are situations in which we may sometimes accommodate another party’s irrational scruples. But if we did that all the time, our lives would be dictated by our enemies. We could no longer practice our God-given faith.

8. The Ethical objection

Some Christians object to “lying” to their kids about Santa Claus.

But there are several problems with this objection:

i) Christmas is a bundle of customs. Christian parents are free to observe as much or as little of the Christmas season as they wish. If it comes to that, you can celebrate Christmas without the pop Santa Claus mythology. You can have a crèche without reindeer.

ii) Children have a vivid imagination. Play-acting comes naturally to little kids.

To accuse parents of “lying” to their children is pretty silly, since it fails to take into account the element of fantasy that is part and parcel of a young child’s mental life and cognitive development. This is harmless fun. It’s no more deceptive than reading bedtime stories to your kids.

iii) In addition, the objection can backfire. Wise parents pick their battles. Many parents have alienated their children from the Christian faith by being overly restrictive.

In my opinion, Christmas is a point of Christian liberty. We can take it or leave it. I think Christmas is permissible, but not obligatory. Participation ought to be voluntary.

Christmas can be edifying for Christians and their children. And it can also be a witness to the lost.