Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Christmas Message-ID: Date: 7 Sep 89 08:37:54 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: WINCO, INEL, Idaho Lines: 62 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article conan@skippy.berkeley.edu writes: >I am disturbed by this attitude that Christmas cannot be a Christian holiday >because it has roots (which are in fact unclear and subject to scholarly >debate) in a pagan holiday. The late Walter Martin had a good point to make in this regard. (Roughly reconstructed from memory based on hearing it a couple of times.) Do you refuse to write dates as we know them? Many of the names of months and days come from pagan origins. Some examples: Thursday = "Thor's day" January = named after Janus March = named for the god Mars (there are several more, but memory fails me) So, does that mean we should stop writing or saying "Thursday," "January," or "March"? Nonsense. Neither should we stop celebrating Christmas just because it was originally a pagan holiday. >Isn't the incarnation of Christ an event worth >celebrating? The event itself is scriptural, but the exact date is not >given. Is it not therefore in the power of the church to select a date >(albeit arbitrarily or for pragmatic reasons) on which to commemorate this >event? Absolutely. One person (I forget who), posted that maybe the solution to the secualrizing of Christmas is for Christians to take it back. I agree. We need to remember that the holiday is CHRISTmas. "Jesus is the reason for the season," and "Wise men still seek Him." I think that Christmas and Easter (another holiday with pagan origins, but that should still be celebrated) offer us one of the best opportunities to remind our non-Christian friends of who Jesus is and what He did for us. >Our goal should be to celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus, and allow >the silly, consumeristic hullaballoo to blow past us. And remind those caught up in the "silly, consumeristic hullaballoo" that there's more to the holiday. Larry Norman wrote a song a while back called "Christmastime." I hope I won't violate any copyrights by quoting some of it: Santa Claus is comin' and the kids are gettin' greedy. (It's Christmastime) They know it's in the store because they've seen it on the TV. (It's Christmastime) It used to be the birthday of the Man who saved our necks. (It's Christmastime) But now it stands for Santa Claus; you spell it with an 'X.' (It's Christmastime) :-) -- Geoff Allen {uunet,bigtex}!pmafire!geoff ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff "May the God of Peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." -- Hebrews 13:20,21 (NIV)