Is Christmas A Pagan Holiday?

You may have heard someone say “Christians shouldn’t celebrate Christmas because Christmas has pagan origins”. If you haven’t heard it in person, you likely stumbled across the idea online. I happen to agree with this statement, but only if we break it into two parts: “Christmas has Pagan origins” and “Christians shouldn’t celebrate Christmas”. Now on its face that sounds a little misleading, especially coming from someone who currently has a Christmas tree in his living room. So let me explain.

Christmas has pagan origins.

I am not going to try to convince you that Christmas does not have pagan origins. Because, honestly, that argument does not seem to me to be as effective as the one I am trying to make. Here is a short list of some of the things that people claim we adopted from Pagan religions.

1.        Christmas Trees

2.        Gift Giving

3.        Caroling

4.        December 25th

A quick Google search will reveal plenty more. But while we are at it, let’s also talk about some other things that the Pagans were doing long before Christians.

1.        Getting Married

2.        Sharing meals

3.        Singing

4.        Praying

Surely if we are going to stop putting up Christmas trees, we should also stop doing all the other things that Pagans were doing before Christ stepped on the scene? Maybe I am being too facetious, but here is the point I’m trying to make. God is in the business of redemption. He takes things that have been corrupted by the world (talking about you and me here) and makes them righteous. If we can trust him to redeem our souls, surely he can redeem a tree?

People seem to be afraid that they are going to accidentally worship something other than Christ. While yes, people do very often worship things other than Christ, I doubt that is has ever been accidental. They may be ignorant of what they are worshipping, but I don’t believe they have ever desired, honestly, to bring Glory to God and ended up glorifying something else. Remember that our God is a very Jealous God, and it seems unlikely to me that he would allow a man’s honest worship to end up in the wrong hands. Exodus 34:14

Our Christmas traditions cannot be Pagan rituals any more than open heart surgery can be a human sacrifice. They may look similar to an outside observer, but the intent behind them is completely different. Pagans performed rituals in order to try to influence their gods to have favor on them or ward off evil spirits. They thought that their actions could sway them into good standing with a higher power. Christians know that our works cannot earn our salvation. Christmas is a way for us to glorify our creator, not a way to convince him to send rain to our fields. Christmas is not pagan, but legalism might be.

Christians Shouldn’t Celebrate Christmas

Now we come to the more confusing of the two statements. When I say that Christians should not celebrate Christmas, I don’t mean that Christians should not take part in the Christmas Celebration. I’m using semantics here to illustrate a problematic mindset that has been slowly gaining a foothold in our culture. Christmas is itself a celebration; it is not something to be celebrated for its own sake. It is a means, not an end. Secularists celebrate Christmas because they have nothing deeper to celebrate. Christians celebrate the birth of our savior and call it Christmas.

The true meaning of Christmas is a recurrent theme in just about every children’s Christmas movie, but not all of those movies get it right. It is important that we remember we are celebrating the birth of Christ, and Christmas is just a name for that celebration. We put trees in our homes like crazy people because a green tree in the middle of winter is a fantastic reminder of Christ’s power over death. We put a star or angel on top to remind us that Christ’s birth was so important Angels announced his coming and the very stars changed. We give gifts to celebrate God’s provision and show love to each other as he commanded. We celebrate our Savior’s birth during the darkest time of the year as a reminder that he is the light of the world. When we humble ourselves before our God and honestly seek to glorify Him, by His grace, that is what He helps us to do.