Celebrating Christmas - an abomination?
Through a friend of my wife - it has been brought to my notice that there are Christians who think that celebrating Christmas is an abomination in God's eyes. There are those who hold to Arthur Pink's views on Christmas
Pink's main arguments as far as I understand them are:
(1) There is not a word in Scripture which tells us to celebrate Jesus' birth
(2) That the date of Christmas is a pagan festival and most people who celebrate Christmas - do so without any thought for Jesus
(3) That Christmas (Christ Mass) is a Roman Catholic celebration and therefore an abomination
(4) That Christmas cards are an abomination to God (even if they have a verse of God's word inside) because God's word forbids unholy mixtures
I am not sure if the argument belongs to Pink, but there are people also arguing that Christmas trees are an abomination to God - because "when we are kneeling down to put presents under the tree - what do we think we are kneeling down to?"
Discuss!
Comments
I don't see it Neil....I really don't.
#1 - There is not a word in Scripture which tells us NOT to celebrate Jesus' birth.
#2 - I'm not a pagan and the 25th of December is just a day. I am not celebrating the 'day', I am celebrating the birth of Christ.
#3 - See above.
#4 - What? Even after reading Pink's problem with it I still don't see it.
I see a lot of legalism and pharisee-ism in these issues that Pink has presented and no freedom to celebrate the birth of Christ.
I don't worship December 25th...I don't worship a card...I don't worship a tree.
I worship the true living God who took on flesh and dwelt among us!
Merry Christmas Neil!
I am with you. For me Christmas is a time to worship Jesus and an opportunity to spread the gospel. I have written a polite e-mail to my wife's friends saying that I can't for the life of me see the problem with celebrating Christmas.
Of course the same argument that Pink raises would have to be attributed to Easter if he was being consistent - especially since a lot of secular (Pagan?) celebration goes on around Easter. Also, as far as I can think of, whilst Jesus tells us to remember his death, I am not sure we are commanded to celebrate the resurrection.
But we do celebrate the resurrection, because without it His death would have been futile. So too I believe we can celebrate His birth - since without His incarnation neither of the above could have taken place.
Worship is about what is going on in the heart and if we choose on Christmas day to make this a day of worship of Jesus, a time to remember the incarnation then to me that can surely only be pleasing to God.
Have a most God blessed Christmas Wayne!
Neil
I think that the first and second point are the most important to me. God never tells us to make any sort of 'big deal' out of the birth of Jesus. To simply say that He also doesn't tell us *not* to make a holiday out of it is bad logic/reasoning, IMHO. I don't believe that God has to tell us every single thing that He does *not* want us to do. When I go to McDonald's I simply tell them what I want...I don't also go on and on about everything that I *don't* want.
Regarding #2, the whole reason that the church started celebrating Christmas was to try to get pagans to join the church. They were not interested, and had the winter soltice (sp?)...so the Christians basically 'made up' Christmas so that the pagans could become Christians and still have their party. We are very far removed from that now, to where that's not much of an issue for most Christians, but even so, I do think that its origins are important. To me it's sorta like how some churches try to make Halloween a Christian thing now, while other Christians practically have a heart attack at any positive mention of Halloween. Who's to say that in 200 years Halloween won't be thought of as a major Christian holiday throughout the world?
If as a Christian you believe in 'sola scripture' and like to go on and on about how horrible tradition is (and especially the Roman Catholic Church) then it makes sense to me that those same people would be anti-Christmas. If on the other hand as a Christian you believe that tradition is important and has a place within the church, then I would suppose that you would be all about Christmas. I think that a lot of it has to do with your view of Scripture and the place of tradition.
Regarding Easter though, to me it makes more sense for Christians to simply celebrate Passover then 'make up' another holiday. If you read the story of Passover, it's so obvious that it's foretelling of Jesus.
It is a great thing for all people and it is a terrific opportunity to share Christ with the loney, the hurting, the lost.
Thanks!
God Bless
And a warm welcome to you!
Look forward to hearing from you.
Neil