Do you celebrate Christmas?

[artsylady]

I have about a half dozen friends who are pagan. They think that Christians who DO celebrate Christmas are kinda messed up. And I do celebrate the birth of Messiah, just not on Dec. 25.

Was it their influence that made you change your mind about Christmas?

You have to be very careful who you associate with. Your pagan friends have fallen for lies. Don't fall for theirs.

[Guest yod]

[M45510G1C]

Well, neither are guitars, pianos, organs, etc. but we still use them to the Lord's glory!

But we don't change the word to songs praising pagan gods to praise Him, that would be wrong.

If we're gonna get so technical about things, we might as well rename the planets and days of the week as they are pagan in nature as well!

Thats a good idea.

God started it. God created each and every day and the calendars too. He didn't divey up the days to give a few to give to the devil. Why does it seem like this is what you want to do? For the life of me, I can't understand where you're coming from.

No, that is like saying that G-d invented child sacrifice. G-d created days, but He did not create pagan holidays.

If we had no holiday celebrating Christ's birthday, would you look at a calendar first to make sure it didn't interfere with a Pagan holiday?

The only religious holidays I celebrate are the ones G-d gave us. Why do we need more? Moreover why do most seem to be so gung-ho about rejecting those He gave us in favor of those man gave us?

Would you really care? Do you think that they have certain powers on that day and we should fear that? If yes, why?

No, as I have stated multiple times already, we are supposed to be set apart.

Was it their influence that made you change your mind about Christmas?

You have to be very careful who you associate with. Your pagan friends have fallen for lies. Don't fall for theirs.

No, I stopped celebrating Christmas years before I met them.

[Guest stray bullet]

  If this were so, why haven't we seen judgement from God all of these years?  If we've forsaken Him, why haven't we went into captivity like ancient Israel?  I'm not intending to be rude, but I'm asking an honest question here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do you think He is winking?

This story isn't over yet. Christmas in America is not but a few hundred years old. How long did Israel rebel before the Lord ultimately judged them?

He has been sending warnings to us for many decades now. 9-11 seems like a huge red flag to me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Christmas has been celebrated in America since the first Catholics arrived and likely Anglicans and Lutherans. It was the Puritans that didn't like the idea of religious holidays.

[Guest stray bullet]

It just happens that pagans brought over some of their customs to the holiday and some Christians still use them.

actually that is exactly backwards....

It was a pagan holiday that was "christianized" with new meanings to old understandings.

Which pagan holiday? Don't you say winter solstice because Christmas was celebrated and still is celebrated outside of the winter solstice.

It's intent was probably pure even if the result is debatable.  The early Roman Catholic Church believed that it would help the conquored pagan lands to understand God if it was put in their ethnic context by giving "new" meanings to things that they had done all their lives....but remember.....Rome was famous for idols themselves with multitudes of gods.

This, in my opinion, is the exact opposite of what the early church was taught about abstaining from idols.

The first recorded Christmas was not even within the realm of the Roman Catholic Church, it was under the Alexandrian Catholic Church. It has nothing to do with paganism.

Christmas is centered around Christ. It is a shortened form of "Christ Mass", a Mass celebrating the arrival of Christ. There is nothing pagan in the Mass about Christ. I go to Church on Christmas and celebrate Jesus.

The stuff about decorating trees and giving presents are just little holiday traditions that people decided would make the day more joyous and meaningful.

In the new "catholic" kingdom of Rome they didn't tell folks to just burn their idols. Instead they assigned new names to old statues. For instance, the obelisk in St Peter's square is imported at great price to the Vatican....and is an Egyptian sun-worship obelisk.

You don't understand the significane of the obelisk, do you?

That was where Saint Peter was crucified. That's where Peter died, right in the middle of Saint Peter's square in Rome. The obelisk brings to mind how they pagans killed Peter, just as Jesus said He would be killed.

Remember, the cross was created by PAGANS to kill Jesus, yet Christians have crosses and put them on their churches and bibles, not to celebrate paganism, but to remember just how much Jesus loved us and how He died for us. In the same way, the obelisk tells us how the apostles were willing to die to spread the Gospel.

Edited August 30, 2005 by stray bullet

[Guest stray bullet]

But they DId start it.  Christmas ain't in the Bible, bro. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure Christmas is in the bible, its when Mary had Jesus. The whole three wise men and the gifts, the manager, the star over Bethleham?

[M45510G1C]

Are you being purposefully obtuse? I am not trying to offend, but you seem like an intelligent guy, yet are somehow unable to distinguish between a holiday and the events it commemorates.

Which pagan holiday? Don't you say winter solstice because Christmas was celebrated and still is celebrated outside of the winter solstice.

The feast of the Epiphany, which had existed fairly generally in the Greek Church even in the third century, is now found in the Latin Church also. In migrating, the feast acquired, however, a new meaning. Whilst in the East it commemorated more especially Christ's Baptism, in the West it came to be a festival in honour of His manifestation to the Gentiles. The other meanings of the feast gradually passed into the background, one of them, that of Christ's birth, becoming the object of an entirely new festival, Christmas. The origin of the latter is by no means clear: the Armenian Ananias the 'Computer,' writing at the beginning of the seventh century, tells us that it was kept at the imperial court under Constantius (337-61); we have also an illusion of the so-called Chronographer of A.D. 354. If his notice at the head of the Depositio Martyrum is to be taken as indicating that December 25 was merely reckoned as Christ's birthday, then the feast may have arisen subsequently to 354, but if it refers, as quite possibly it may, to a festival, then Christmas must have been kept as a feast not only in 354, but, as is clear from a comparison with the Chronographer's Depositio Episcoporum, as far back as 336. However this may be, the feast certainly existed in Rome before 360, and from thence it spread throughout the Church; Justin I [p. 199] (518-27) was, nevertheless, obliged to issue decrees making its observation compulsory throughout the empire. Armenia alone refused to accept it, and there Christ's birth is still commemorated on the Epiphany. December 25 seems to have been chosen on account of the Roman custom of keeping this day as the festival of Sol Invictus - i.e. of the re-birth of the sun; it was judged fitting to substitute for the pagan feast a Christian one commemorating the birth of the true Sun of the world and Redeemer of mankind.

Manual of Church History, Volume I., Dr. F. X. Funk, Published by B. Herder, 17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo., Copyright 1912 pp. 198 & 199.

A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century A.D.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god

[Guest yod]

I go to Church on Christmas and celebrate Jesus.

Then you and I have no disagreement worth arguing over.

You don't understand the significane of the obelisk, do you?

obviously I don't understand it the same way you do but that is not necessarily the same thing as not understanding the signicance of it.

That was where Saint Peter was crucified. That's where Peter died, right in the middle of Saint Peter's square in Rome.

Is there any verification of that event outside of roman church tradition?

Remember, the cross was created by PAGANS to kill Jesus, yet Christians have crosses and put them on their churches and bibles, not to celebrate paganism, but to remember just how much Jesus loved us and how He died for us. In the same way, the obelisk tells us how the apostles were willing to die to spread the Gospel.

And if that is what it means to you then I'm happy for where you are on your faith journey. Let all things be done to His glory!

Yet...just to help me see if I'm hearing you right....an actual altar of an Egytian sun-god set up in front of the "headquarters" of Christianity is a good thing?

[Guest stray bullet]

Yet...just to help me see if I'm hearing you right....an actual altar of an Egytian sun-god set up in front of the "headquarters" of Christianity is a good thing? 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I dunno, is a pagan cross they used to sacrifice Jesus wrong to put in front of a church?

If you put a replica pagan cross used to sacrifice Jesus on top of a church, then what's wrong with having the actual obelisk under which Saint Peter died in front of Saint Peter's Basilica?

Wouldn't you love to have the cross that Jesus died in front of the Apostolic See? We don't have that, but we have the obelisk. Everytime you pass it, you can remember the price paid to bring the Gospel to us. Not only that, but it is taught that passing it before entiring Church is walking by paganism, symbolizing the leaving of the pagan world behind and entiring what is God's.

[Guest stray bullet]

Are you being purposefully obtuse?  I am not trying to offend, but you seem like an intelligent guy, yet are somehow unable to distinguish between a holiday and the events it commemorates.

Which pagan holiday? Don't you say winter solstice because Christmas was celebrated and still is celebrated outside of the winter solstice.

The feast of the Epiphany, which had existed fairly generally in the Greek Church even in the third century, is now found in the Latin Church also. In migrating, the feast acquired, however, a new meaning. Whilst in the East it commemorated more especially Christ's Baptism, in the West it came to be a festival in honour of His manifestation to the Gentiles. The other meanings of the feast gradually passed into the background, one of them, that of Christ's birth, becoming the object of an entirely new festival, Christmas. The origin of the latter is by no means clear: the Armenian Ananias the 'Computer,' writing at the beginning of the seventh century, tells us that it was kept at the imperial court under Constantius (337-61); we have also an illusion of the so-called Chronographer of A.D. 354. If his notice at the head of the Depositio Martyrum is to be taken as indicating that December 25 was merely reckoned as Christ's birthday, then the feast may have arisen subsequently to 354, but if it refers, as quite possibly it may, to a festival, then Christmas must have been kept as a feast not only in 354, but, as is clear from a comparison with the Chronographer's Depositio Episcoporum, as far back as 336. However this may be, the feast certainly existed in Rome before 360, and from thence it spread throughout the Church; Justin I [p. 199] (518-27) was, nevertheless, obliged to issue decrees making its observation compulsory throughout the empire. Armenia alone refused to accept it, and there Christ's birth is still commemorated on the Epiphany. December 25 seems to have been chosen on account of the Roman custom of keeping this day as the festival of Sol Invictus - i.e. of the re-birth of the sun; it was judged fitting to substitute for the pagan feast a Christian one commemorating the birth of the true Sun of the world and Redeemer of mankind.

Manual of Church History, Volume I., Dr. F. X. Funk, Published by B. Herder, 17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo., Copyright 1912 pp. 198 & 199.

A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century A.D.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god