While most Christians embrace Christmas, a few recall a more complex
history
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2007/12/16/this_day/doc4763954ed7680714433466.txt
[also appeared in The Review (East Liverpool, Ohio) Saturday. December 15,
2007 p 8A]
While most Christians embrace Christmas, a few recall a more complex
history
Saturday, December 15, 2007 6:12 AM PST
By The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- As Christmas draws near, Pastor John Foster
won't be decorating a tree, shopping for last-minute gifts or working on a
holiday sermon for his flock. After all, it's been 50 years since Christmas
was anything more than a day of the week to him.
He's one of very few American Christians who follow what used to be the
norm in many Protestant denominations -- rejecting the celebration of
Christmas on religious grounds.
"People don't think of it this way, but it's really a secular holiday,"
said Foster, a Princeton-based pastor in the United Church of God. He last
celebrated Christmas when he was 8.
His church's objection to Christmas is rare among U.S. Christians. Gallup
polls from 1994 to 2005 consistently show that more than 90 percent of
adults say they celebrate Christmas, including 84 percent of
non-Christians.
That's a huge change from an earlier era, when many Protestants ignored or
actively opposed the holiday. But as it gradually became popular as a
family celebration, churches followed their members in making peace with
Christmas.
The change didn't happen overnight. Through much of the 19th century,
schools and businesses remained open, Congress met in session and some
churches closed their doors, lest errant worshippers try to furtively
commemorate the day.
"The whole culture didn't stop for Christmas," said Bruce Forbes, a
religious studies professor at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa.
"Government went on as usual, business went on as usual, school went on as
usual."
In researching his book, "Christmas: A Candid History," Forbes discovered
that major American denominations -- Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers,
Methodists and Congregationalists -- either ignored the holiday or actively
discouraged it until the late 19th century.
That rejection was rooted in the lack of biblical sanction for Dec. 25 as
the date of Jesus' birth, as well as suspicion toward traditions that
developed after the earliest days of Christianity. In colonial New England,
this disapproval extended to actually making the holiday illegal, with
celebration punishable by a fine.
"Some somehow observe the day," wrote Boston Puritan Samuel Sewall on
Christmas Day 1685, "but are vexed, I believe, that the body of people
profane it, and blessed be God no authority yet compels them to keep it."
Some 322 years later, Sewall might be surprised to see his congregation --
today known as Old South Church -- proudly displaying a decorated Christmas
tree outside the church.
"We think it's cheerful and seasonal," said Nancy Taylor, senior minister
of Old South, one of America's most venerable congregations, counting among
its past worshippers not only Sewall but Benjamin Franklin and Samuel
Adams.
Now part of the United Church of Christ, Old South not only has a Christmas
tree, but encourages its 650 or so members to exchange Christmas presents
-- although the focus is on charitable donations and service, rather than
shopping.
"We are the descendants of the Puritans and Pilgrims, but we have loosened
up a lot since then," Taylor said. "We have changed and adapted and I think
that's part of why we haven't died out."
Like Sewall's successors, the mainline Protestant churches have learned to
accommodate Christmas. But the change came from the pews rather than the
pulpit.
Christmas benefited from a 19th century "domestication of religion," said
University of Texas history professor Penne Restad, in which faith and
family were intertwined in a complementary set of values and beliefs.
Christmas became acceptable as a family-centered holiday, Restad said, once
it lost its overtly religious significance.
At the same time, aspects of the holiday like decorated trees and
gift-giving became status symbols for an aspirant middle class. When
Christmas began its march toward dominance among holidays, it was because
of a change in the culture, not theology.
"In America, the saying is that the minister follows the people, the people
don't follow the minister," Restad said. "This was more of a sociological
change than a religious one. The home and the marketplace had more sway
than the church."
That's partly why Christians like the United Church of God reject the
holiday: They say divine instruction, rather than culture and society,
should determine whether the holiday is appropriate.
"It's common knowledge that Christmas and its customs have nothing to do
with the Bible," said Clyde Kilough, president of the United Church of God,
which has branches all over the world. "The theological question is quite
simple: Is it acceptable to God for humans to choose to worship him by
adopting paganism's most popular celebrations and calling them Christian?"
There is still lingering unease with the holiday in denominations that once
rejected it. This can be glimpsed in worries about commercialization and in
individual Christians like Phillip Ross.
Ross is an elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Vienna, near
Parkersburg. Well-versed in the history of Christianity, Christmas and
Presbyterianism, Ross knows his church historically objected to Christmas.
On the other hand, Ross is also a father of two, and while he made up his
mind to reject Christmas as a teenager, his children's early years included
gifts, decorations and a tree.
"I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas," he said. "It seems
obvious to me that there's nothing scriptural about it, but that's a hard
sell with children."
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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