Inevitably, this time every year, I get this question from someone, or I get involved in an argument over this question. Honestly, I think this is one of the more foolish questions I am commonly asked. So I decided to address it here. I put this question right alongside the questions 'should Christians celebrate Halloween' and 'should Christians have Easter egg hunts.' I put these all together because they are all asking essentially the same thing, 'should Christians allow into our religious festivals activities that are not particularly Christian?'
My answer is always 'yes.' In all of our religious, and some of our secular, holidays there are traditions, rituals, and figures taken from other religions. The Christmas tree, decorations, Santa Clause myths, and even the date of the celebration (among other things) are all Christmas examples. For Easter we have, the Easter bunny, Easter eggs, and even the name Easter. In Halloween we have the idea that on All Hallows Eve the dead return to visit the living.
So the real question is, why are these traditions in our religious celebrations anyway? (and yes All Hallows Eve was a Christian celebration). When most of these celebrations were originated they were started in order to draw new believers away from their pagan rituals. During the early church, when many pagan believers were coming into the church, it became habit to place Christian festivals on or near the dates of the pagan festivals. The reason for this was that new believers would often return to celebrate the festivals from their former religions. This could have been for many reasons, but the early Christians started celebrations that would draw simultaneously draw these new believers away from the pagan festivals and towards things that would unite them with their new Christian brethren. It is understandable that some of the traditions from the pagan festivals would bleed over into these Christian festivals, both as a way to bring familiarity to the festival and as a way to tie these new believers to their new brothers and sisters in Christ.
While some of this is debatable and some of it is simply educated speculation it is both reasonable and understandable. On top of this we must ask, is it worth it to give up beloved and harmless traditions simply to be more legalistically puritan in our actions. Though this example is not entirely accurate it is sufficient for my purposes here, there is nor legitimate reason why Christians should not have Christmas trees, or sing jingle bells, or have Easter egg hunts.
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I agree that there is nothing wrong with having a Christmas tree or any of the other items in the name of tradition. However, I don't think that it is necessary to have one either. I often wonder why we don't simply display a nativity scene instead of the Christmas tree. I wonder how many Christians bother to display a nativity scene along with the Christmas tree. I believe that it is all fine and good as long as we don't allow our traditions to completely take over which would become blasphemous. Pardon my spelling!
ReplyDeleteI agree Stacey, there is no reason that a Christian must have a Christmas tree. And, if we follow Paul's advice in Romans 14, those who are close to Christians who feel it is sin to have a Christmas tree will refrain from causing their weaker brothers to stumble. You raise a legitimate point that we commonly lose our focus on 'the real reason for the season' in the commercialism that pervades it.
ReplyDeleteIndeed I believe that the attitude that I addressed in this post is a reaction to this very phenomenon. However it is an over reaction. We must not forget that we are celebrating the birth of Christ, but at the same time we must not overreact to that danger by refusing to engage ourselves with the common practices of the celebration.
Christians today encourage a profoundly separatist culture, to a degree which I think is extremely unhealthy...its something I'll say more about in a further post.