Is Christmas pagan, Christian or just convenient?

“Christmas is coming,” is the note that is sounded throughout our world from east to west and from north to south. With youth, those of mature age, and even the aged, it is a period of general rejoicing, of great gladness. But what is Christmas, that it should demand so much attention?

Christmas is: “The 25th of December, on which the Church celebrates Christ’s birth.” –Catholic Dictionary, p. 161.
“Christmas. . . the anniversary of the birth of Christ, and its observance; celebrated by most Protestants and by Roman Catholics on December 25.” –Zondervan’s Pictorial Bible Dictionary, p. 162

Some synonyms: Yule, Noel, Chrissy, Chrimble (Crimble), Crimbo (Chrimbo)

This day has been made much of for centuries. It is accepted by the unbelieving world, and by the Christian world generally, as the day on which Christ was born. When the world at large celebrates the day, do they show honour to Christ?

Is Christmas pagan, Christian or just convenient?

For the vast majority of Christians, Christmas is a Christian holiday. After all, is it not Jesus’ birthday? There are some Christians that recognize that the world has corrupted Christmas, but they still believe that it is a wonderful holiday. For this reason they struggle year after year to “put Christ back into Christmas.” This may come as a shocking surprise to some, but there is nothing Christian about most of the festivities which revolve around Christmas. In fact, both in its present observance and in its origin, Christmas is a pagan festival. There is not one word in the Scriptures to tell us the date when Jesus Christ was born, but what is recorded shows that it could not have been on the 25th of December, in the very depth of winter in the northern hemisphere.

“The early Christians did not celebrate [Jesus’] birth because they considered the celebration of anyone’s birth to be a pagan custom.” –The World Book Encyclopedia

Why make Christmas Day an issue?

Many still celebrate Christmas despite knowing about its pagan roots and lack of support from the Bible. Such persons could ask: Why should Christians take such an unpopular stance? Why make it an issue?

Modern denominations, that claim to be Christian, observe various holy days in celebration of religious events. These holidays include Christmas, Easter, Lent, and many others. While you may read in the Bible about the events these days are supposed to memorialize, you find nothing written telling us to celebrate these holydays in memory of these events. They have been developed by men over the centuries since the New Testament was written. The purpose of this article is to examine these holy days and see what the Bible says about them and, in particular, Christmas.

Many people observe these days simply from habit. They may be awed or excited by the ritual surrounding Christmas, Easter, or Lent. Their churches celebrate the days, so the members participate without questioning whether or not they truly ought to be part of Christianity. It may never occur to these folks to question where these holidays came from, or whether they are really right.

“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith. Prove your own selves.” 2 Corinthians 13:5. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21–22. The question to be considered is whether these observances are pleasing to God. To please God, religious observances must be authorized in His word. Worship must be in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24). “But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:9. The question we must consider is whether God has authorized this religious observance (Christmas) or whether it is human in origin.

Jesus commanded that we commemorate His death, not His birth (Luke 22:19–20).

Jesus’ apostles and early disciples did not celebrate Christmas. The New Catholic Encyclopedia says that “the Nativity feast was instituted no earlier than 243 [AD],” more than a century after the last of the apostles died. There is no proof that Jesus was born on December 25; His birth date is not recorded in the Bible. Had the Lord deemed this knowledge of His birth essential to our salvation, He would have spoken through His prophets and apostles that we might know all about the matter. But the silence of the Scriptures upon this point evidences to us that it is hidden from us for the wisest purposes.

Christmas is not approved by God because it is rooted in pagan customs and rites. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” 2 Corinthians 6:17

Origin of Christmas

It is well known that the term “Christmas” is derived from the old English word “Christmesse,” which means “Christ’s Mass.” The term originated during the Middle Ages from the practice of having a midnight Mass on the eve of December 25 to celebrate the birth of Christ. In other languages it is called “Nativity” (Latin, natalis ) or “Holy Nights” (German, Weihnachten).

A “mass” is the Catholic practice of repeating the sacrifice of Jesus in the Lord’s supper, so that it becomes Jesus’ literal, physical body and blood. However, Jesus was sacrificed only once (Hebrews 9:24–28; 10:8–10, etc.). The bread and fruit of the vine are not His literal body and blood but are memorials of them (1 Corinthians 11:23–26).

“In the East, and later in the West, Christ’s birthday was observed on January 6th in connection with His baptism, a day on which the pagan world celebrated the feast of Dionysus, associated with the lengthening of the days. . .  In Rome, December 25th is attested as the day of Christ’s birth in 336. It was introduced perhaps by Constantine the Great who evidently chose the day because of the popular pagan feast of the sun.” –Baker’s Dictionary of Theology, p. 117

“The first mention of its observance on December 25 is in the time of Constantine, about A.D. 325.” –Zondervan’s Pictorial Bible Dictionary, p. 162

“Whether or not the birth of our Lord really occurred on this day, ancient authorities are not agreed.” –Catholic Dictionary, p. 161. Nothing is recorded in the Bible of anyone observing Jesus’ birth. If it was in the Bible, we would know that Christians observed it. “The early Christians did not observe the festival of Christ’s birth, to which they did not attach the importance ascribed to His death and resurrection.” –Baker’s Dictionary of Theology, p. 117. Clearly, those who observe Christmas religiously are admitting that the Bible does not authorize the practice. It is of later origin.

The practice began as a pagan festival in worship of the sun god, and was adopted by the Catholic church as a memorial to Jesus’ birth. It is a human religious ritual, formed in pagan idolatry and religious apostasy.

The Scriptures are our guide to good works (2 Timothy 3:16–17). These holy days are nowhere found in the Scriptures, so how can they be good works? Since this festivity is not ordained by Scripture, we do not consider it to be binding on believers. We recognize only one holy day, the Sabbath; and we keep it holy in obedience to our Creator and Redeemer.

In Calvin’s time you could have been fined or imprisoned for celebrating Christmas. It was at the request of the Westminster Assembly that the English Parliament passed an act forbidding the observance of Christmas in 1644, calling it a heathen holiday. When the Puritans came to America, they passed similar laws. In the year 1620, the early New Englanders made it a point to work steadily through December 25 in “studied neglect” of the day. It was not until the nineteenth century that Christmas had any religious significance in Protestant churches.

Why December 25?

Long before the onset of Christmas—even before the birth of Christ—a festival was celebrated among pagans at that precise time of the year. Why December 25? At that time of the year when the days began to lengthen again, the Babylonians celebrated the victory of the sun god. The Roman copy of this Babylonian custom was called Saturnalia, the feast of the birth of Sol.

“In the south of Europe, in Egypt and Persia, the sun gods were worshipped with elaborate ceremonies at the season of the winter solstice, as a fitting time to pay tribute to the benign god of plenty. . . . The exact day and year of Christ’s birth have never been satisfactorily settled, but when the fathers of the church in A.D. 440 decided upon a date to celebrate the event, they wisely chose the day of the winter solstice which was firmly fixed in the minds of the people and which was their most important festival. . .

“When missionaries were sent from Rome. . . . their instructions given by Pope Gregory I made clear the policy of the church: ‘Let the shrines of idols by no means be destroyed but let the idols which are in them be destroyed. . .  And because they were wont to sacrifice oxen to devils, some celebration should be given in exchange for this. . . they should celebrate a religious feast and worship God by their feasting, so that still keeping outward pleasures, they may more readily receive spiritual joys.’ (Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation.)” –Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 5, p. 643

It was for centuries an abomination to Christians. The celebration was an orgy of pagan revelry. But the Church, instead of  standing firm against paganism, began to compromise.

New Christians that came into the church from paganism were used to celebrating this winter solstice. The Church did not want to lose all these new members, so they decided to consider this holiday to be the birth of the Son of God. Instead of losing people back to paganism, the idea was simply to combine the two and gradually win more pagans to profess Christianity. The twenty-fifth of December was at the center of the pagan festival, for it was the day on which Tammuz, the son of the Babylonian Queen of Heaven, Semi-Ramis, was born. History reveals something about the leaders of what was referred to as the Holy Roman Empire. As these men sought to strengthen their political base, they united the worship of the pagans with the worship of the Christians. As you could well imagine, the two were actually at opposite poles in terms of their philosophy. So this uniting of sun worship with Christ worship had to be very subtly and cleverly done so as not to alarm the Christians. Its success is owed to changing the names of the pagan gods and ceremonies and giving them Christian titles and appearance. Hence we have Christmas, Easter, Lent, Sunday worship, and so forth. While Easter and Pentecost have their parallels in Judaism, Christmas was invented later.

Calling Christmas a pagan celebration is only partly true. December 25 was observed as the birthday of Mythras, the god of the soldiers of the Roman legions. Though the timing of Christmas has its origin in a pagan festival, the content does not—the birth of Jesus is spoken of in the Bible.

Within the Christian Church no such festival as “Christmas” was ever heard of until the 3rd century AD and that not until the 4th century did it gain prominence. Christ’s birthday was never once celebrated by the apostles, neither was it ever celebrated by the Christian Church during the first 300 years of its existence. It was only as the Church began to drift away from the Bible and apostolic practices that Christmas began to be observed as a festival. As McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia states: “The observance of Christmas is not of divine appointment, nor is it of NT [New Testament] origin.”

Instead, an examination of the history of Christmas exposes its roots in pagan religious rites. The Bible shows that we offend God if we try to worship Him in a way that He does not approve of (Exodus 32:5–7). (see The Reformation Messenger, vol. 23, Number 8—August 2016, p. 17).

Was Jesus Born in December?

Jesus warned His followers, “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.” Matthew 24:20. And if winter was not a fit time to flee, it would not be a fit time for shepherds to lie in their fields at night watching their sheep, neither a fit time for citizens to be moving to their hometowns to be taxed by the Romans.

Although the Bible does not tell us when Jesus was born, it does give us sound reason to conclude that His birth did not take place in December. Consider the weather conditions at that time of the year in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. The Jewish month of Chislev (corresponding to November/December) was a month with cold and rainy weather. The month after that was Tebeth (December/January). It saw the lowest temperatures of the year, with occasional snows in the highlands. Let us see what the Bible tells us about the climate of that region.

The Bible writer Ezra shows that Chislev was indeed a month known for cold and rainy weather. After stating that a crowd had gathered in Jerusalem “in the ninth month [Chislev], on the 20th day of the month,” Ezra also reports that people were “shivering . . . because of the heavy rain.” Concerning weather conditions at that time of the year, the congregated people themselves said:  “It is the rainy season. It is not possible to stand outside.” (Ezra 10:9, 13; Jeremiah 36:22). No wonder shepherds living in that part of the world made sure that they and their flocks were no longer out of doors at night when December came around!

The Bible reports, however, that shepherds were in the fields tending their flocks on the night of Jesus’ birth. In fact, the Bible writer Luke shows that at that time, shepherds were actually living out of doors and keeping watch in the night over their flocks near Bethlehem (Luke 2:8–12), not just strolling outside during the day. They had their flocks in the fields at night. Does that description of outdoor living fit the chilly and rainy weather conditions of Bethlehem in December? No, it does not. So the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth indicate that He was not born in December.

The Christmas Tree

What could seem more harmless than the beautiful Christmas tree that lights up the homes during the Christmas season? From ancient times, trees have played an important role in pagan religion and were even worshipped. “Tree worship, common among the pagan Europeans, survived after their conversion to Christianity.” One of the ways in which tree worship survived is in the custom of “placing a Yule tree at an entrance or inside the house in the midwinter holidays.” –Encyclopædia Britannica

Europeans decorated their homes “with lights and evergreens of all kinds” to not only celebrate the winter solstice but also to combat evil spirits. It is therefore common to hear it alleged that Christians adopted and adapted a pagan feast.

Norsemen, Celts, and Saxons used trees to ward off witches, evil spirits, and ghosts. In Egypt, the palm tree was prominent; in Rome, it was the fir. Because of this association, idols were often carefully carved from trees. Jeremiah warned the Old Testament people of God: “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” Jeremiah 10:2–4

The Nativity Scene

Amazingly, even the nativity scene widely regarded as a Christian symbol of Christmas, can be tainted with some pagan influence. Nearly every recorded form of pagan worship which has descended from Babylonian “mysteries” focuses the attention of the worshipper on a mother goddess and the birth of her child. In Babylon it was the worship of the queen of heaven and her son Tammuz, the sun-god who was thought to be the incarnation of the sun. The birth of the sun-god took place at the winter solstice. “Yule” was the Babylonian name for the child or infant and “Yule Day” was celebrated on December 25, long before Christ’s birth. So the next time you see a manger with Mary and Jesus having a halo about their heads, be aware that the influence of the Babylonian “mysteries” rests upon much of society’s art and culture.  Christmas is somehow connected with the Roman cult of the Invincible Sun (Latin, Sol Invictus), the rebirth of the sun, which was celebrated on December 25. This could explain the importance of lights during the celebration of the Nativity, although “light” is also associated with Christ in the Scriptures (e.g., Luke 1:78–79).

As A Christian, What will you do with the Pagan Holy Days?

Will you serve God or man? You cannot serve both! We are told to shun all idolatry and sun worship (Ezekiel 6:4; 8:13–14). God warns that we can become ensnared by following pagan customs and keeping their holy days in like manner as they do.“Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them. . . and that thou enquire not after their gods. . . . What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” Deuteronomy 12:30, 32

Prove all things. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:20. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” 2 Timothy 3:16

The Seventh-day Adventist Church Reform Movement (International Missionary Society) does not celebrate Christmas or any other religious festivals throughout the calendar year as holy feasts established by God. The only period in time the Reform Adventists celebrate as holy is the weekly Sabbath (from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset). There is absolutely nothing wrong with selecting any particular time to meditate and reflect on the incarnation of our Saviour, but make sure to keep the Sabbath holy.

Regarding Christmas, we read from the Spirit of Prophecy:

“As the twenty-fifth of December is observed to commemorate the birth of Christ, as the children have been instructed by precept and example that this was indeed a day of gladness and rejoicing, you will find it a difficult matter to pass over this period without giving it some attention. It can be made to serve a very good purpose.

“The youth should be treated very carefully. They should not be left on Christmas to find their own amusement in vanity and pleasure seeking, in amusements which will be detrimental to their spirituality. Parents can control this matter by turning the minds and the offerings of their children to God and His cause and the salvation of souls.” –The Adventist Home, p. 478

The Bible encourages us to think for ourselves, to use our power of reason, “that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Romans 12:1–2. It teaches us to value the truth (John 4:23–24). While we are interested in how others view us, we adhere to Bible principles even if it means that we become unpopular.

“We are nearing the close of another year. Christmas and New Year’s will soon be here. Let us candidly and carefully review our life during the year that is about to pass, with its burden of history, into eternity, and consider the many tokens we have had of the favor of God in the blessings He has bestowed upon us. The most unspeakable gift which God could bestow upon the world was the gift of His beloved Son.”  –The Review and Herald, December 11, 1888

The only sanction Ellen G. White gave to the use of the Christmas tree is in the following quote. And notice it was

only for the purpose of giving gifts to Jesus, not to one another. It was not decorated as is the custom today, but people were encouraged to hang their monetary offerings to Jesus on the tree.

“On Christmas, so soon to come, let not the parents take the position that an evergreen placed in the church for the amusement of the Sabbath-school scholars is a sin; for it may be made a great blessing. Keep before their minds benevolent objects. In no case should mere amusement be the object of these gatherings. While there may be some who will turn these occasions into seasons of careless levity, and whose minds will not receive the divine impress, to other minds and characters these seasons will be highly beneficial. I am fully satisfied that innocent substitutes can be devised for many gatherings that demoralize.”

“Christmas is coming. May you all have wisdom to make it a precious season. Let the older church members unite, heart and soul, with their children in this innocent amusement and recreation, in devising ways and means to show true respect to Jesus by bringing to Him gifts and offerings. Let every one remember the claims of God. His cause cannot go forward without your aid. Let the gifts you have usually bestowed upon one another be placed in the Lord’s treasury. I present before you, my brethren and sisters, an object, the European mission. In every church let your smaller offerings be placed upon your Christmas tree. Let the precious emblem, ‘ever green,’ suggest the holy work of God and His beneficence to us; and the loving heart-work will be to save other souls who are in darkness. If all, both old and young, will forego giving presents to one another, and forego the selfish outlay of means in these coming holidays, there would be in heaven a most precious record of self-denial for Christ’s sake.

“Now, brethren, let us on Christmas make special efforts to come before the Lord with gifts and grateful offerings for the gift of Jesus Christ as a Redeemer to the world. Let nothing now be spent needlessly; but let every penny that can be spared be put out to the exchangers. Satan has had his way in managing these occasions to suit himself. Now let us turn the current heavenward instead of earthward. Let us show by our offerings that we appreciate the self-denial and sacrifice of Christ in our behalf. Let God be brought to remembrance by every child and parent; and let the offerings, both small and large, be brought to the store-house of God.”  –The Review and Herald, December 9, 1884

Victor Shumbusho,
D R Congo