Debunking 3 myths about the origins of Christmas

Christmas. 'It's the most wonderful time of the year,' Andy Williams croons. Or, as a cast of characters from Jim Henson's Creature Shop sang in The Muppet Christmas Carol, it is 'the summer of the soul in December'.

But for others, it is a season of woe, an opportunity to blow a cold frost wind over the festivities with assorted dubious claims, doubtless well-intentioned but badly thought through and poorly communicated.

Though I disagree with those of such a disposition, I have no problem if someone personally chooses not to celebrate Christmas as such, so long as they do not seek to force that decision on others. I am however concerned with whether the reasoning behind such a decision is correct. Let us consider three erroneous claims I have encountered in evangelistic and pastoral ministry.

1. 'Christmas is a pagan holiday'

No, it is not. The very word demonstrates this: 'Christmas' from the old English Crīstesmæsse, from Greek Χριστός ('Christ' - translated from the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ - Messiah) and Latin missa ('sent', with connotations of 'mission'). Whatever else people of other faiths or none may or may not have done throughout history at this time of year, and however some people choose to observe or not to observe 'Christmas' today, Christmas is fundamentally the celebration of God’s mission, Christ sent into the world to save sinners.

Even if 25 December as a date can be clearly linked with a pagan deity or celebration - and despite the obsessive insistence of a plethora of dubiously sourced blogs and easily debunked YouTube videos - that association means absolutely nothing.

Among a great many other things that have happened on 1 September, in 1939 Adolf Hitler ordered the extermination of the mentally ill and invaded Poland, starting WWII. That I also celebrate my birthday on that date does not mean that by proxy I celebrate genocide and global conflict, or that I worship the völkisch gods of esoteric Hitlerism. Likewise, my birth on a Tuesday does not mean I have any association with the Germanic god of war and the sky, after whom the day is named. Satan is called 'the Prince of the Power of the Air' and yet since my birth I have inhaled and exhaled with regularity.

Pagan associations with 25 December - be they true, false, or imagined - mean nothing so far as Christians are concerned. Down through the ages, on or around 25 December Christians have sung songs about Christ's birth, listened to sermons about His coming into the world to save sinners, devoted themselves to charitable endeavours in the name of Jesus, celebrated by illuminating their houses with lights and decorating them with portrayals of the nativity, exchanged gifts with family and friends, and feasted on good food - they have done so because of Christ. Christ is who we celebrate. Forgive me for being Captain Obvious but the holiday is not called 'Tammuzmas', 'Horusmas', or 'Saturnmas'. It is called Christmas.

2. 'Christmas is a Roman Catholic holiday'

No, it is not. This argument is sometimes made with reference to the ‘mas’ part of 'Christmas', which is to commit a rather grievous etymological fallacy that pays no attention to the actual meaning of words. I could leave it at that, but perhaps a brief history lesson is in order.

The Roman Catholic Church, almost as we know it, did not exist until the Great Schism of 1054. Tensions between East and West had existed for some time and on both sides of the divide there had been substantial drift from Biblical theology and ecclesiology. In any case, celebrations of Christ’s birth are recorded many centuries beforehand.

Christmas sermons from eminent theologians like Augustine (died 430), and John Chrysostom (died 407) are available to this day. The first extant Christmas sermon is from the Julian persecutions of 361-363, preached by Optatus of Milevis in Numidia. The first record of a Christmas celebration is in 336, a decade after the council of Nicaea which affirmed the Biblical Christian doctrine of the deity of Christ - this lead some to speculate that the holiday’s increased recognition and popularity came as a reaction against the Arian heresy that fundamentally denied the glory of the Incarnation.

There is some thought though that the celebration of Christmas preceded the beginnings of the Donatist movement in 311. Aside from any formal celebrations, thought about and reference to the day of Christ’s birth, and reflections on its significance, date to even before then.

Do Roman Catholics celebrate Christmas? Yes, because however distorted and even dangerous their doctrines of salvation and the church may be, they believe that Jesus Christ truly is 'God with us' and therefore worth celebrating. Observance does not mean ownership. Of all people, Reformational, evangelical believers ought to be able to celebrate most fully because of our rediscovery of redeeming, reconciliatory joy in the riches of God’s grace in Christ, experienced through faith.

3. 'Christmas is an Atheist holiday'

No, it is not. If you have not heard this argument, then you are probably in the richly blessed majority. I however have had this idea put quite forcefully to me on the basis that, to quote almost verbatim, 'In France, the holiday is called Noel. “No” means “no”, and “El” is Hebrew for “God”. No El. No God. It is an Atheist celebration that there is no God.'

This constitutes a mind-melting obliteration of the rule-book of etymology, language, translation, argumentation, and logic itself and hardly warrants response, but the utter sincerity and conviction with which it was put to me meant I had to give one anyway. You cannot take a French word, then break it down into totally unrelated English and Hebrew words with reckless abandon to the actual derivation of the French word. It is not as though a few centuries ago, some Atheist revolutionary dreamed up a celebration of God’s alleged non-existence and pulled out of English 'no' and out of Hebrew 'El', put them together and assumed everyone would understand what he was on about. That is simply not how language works.

The word 'Noel' is used in English as a slightly archaic word for 'Christmas', 'Christmas greetings', or 'Christmas songs about Christ’s birth' (thus, 'the first ‘noel’, the angels did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay' - hardly an Atheist sentiment). The English word is derived from the French, not the other way around, which is derived from the Latin 'natalis', meaning as a noun 'birth' or as an adjective, 'of/relating to birth'. It is used as a synonym of 'Christmas', and focuses on the birth of Jesus Christ, and because of His birth, the birth of new hope for a world in darkness.

Evangelical Christians do not celebrate Christmas as worshippers of many gods, nor as a worshipless believers in no god. We do not celebrate Christmas in the ritualistic context of a historically oppressive theocratic centralised system of salvation by works under the oversight of one man in Rome. We celebrate Christmas because it tells the story of God not only reaching down to us but coming down to us in our filth, futility, and faithlessness to shine on us His light and to raise us up into His life, to forgive us of our sins and to fuel us for lives of service.

A very happy Christmas to all. May you know the joy of 'God with us' in the sending of Christ.