Christmas is Actually a Pagan Universalist Holiday

A 2013 study by the Pew Research Center found that 8 in 10 people in America who are admittedly non-Christian celebrate Christmas as well as 96 percent of Christians. Though the former group is more likely to see Christmas as not a religious holiday, a significant number of the professing Christians also see Christmas as more of a cultural than a religious holiday.

Those who celebrate Christmas, claiming to do it as a celebration of Jesus’ birth, ought to wonder why the holiday which they celebrate is so compatible with fallen mankind in general. Are the many admitted Pagans who celebrate Christmas more Christian than they understand or care to admit? Or are the Christians who celebrate Christmas more Pagan than they understand or care to admit?

If one’s faith is in Jesus as He is known through the Bible, then what good reason would they have to defend a holiday which is: 1) Not prescribed in the Bible 2) Evidently heavily influenced by Paganism and 3) A holiday which many admittedly non-Christian people are happy to celebrate?

Consider how New Agers often say they believe in Jesus- yet they don’t mean that in the Biblical context. They don’t see Jesus as the only begotten Son of God, the unique redeemer from sin, and the risen King of Kings who is the ultimate Judge of mankind. New Agers see the “Jesus” they believe in as a guru who turned from a common man into a spiritually evolved master which can guide humanity towards enlightenment by awakening people to their own divinity. New Agers might use the name, yet they do so in a context which differs from the Bible’s. Is there any good reason to believe that attaching Jesus to Christmas is significantly different at its core?

Those who say they believe in and worship the real Jesus of the Bible might say: “It doesn’t matter if many people who celebrate Christmas worship a fake jesus or don’t claim to worship Jesus at all, we celebrate Christmas to honor the real Jesus of the Bible. Why should the people who celebrate Christmas for other reasons ruin this glorious Christian holiday for us?” Yet if they seek to honor Jesus as He is known in the Bible, how can they believe they ought to celebrate Christmas?

Christmas isn’t derived from any command in the Bible to make a holiday out of the birth of Christ nor is there even any good reason to believe that Jesus was born on December 25th. The Bible gives no command to celebrate the birth of Christ at all. Scriptures such as Titus 2:11-14 demonstrate that we are commanded to honor Christ’s first coming by cooperating with the goal in His incarnation of preparing a set apart people for Him to claim for Himself when He comes again. That is also the message conveyed by the Lord’s Supper as its significance is explained in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

The speculation in early Christian writings about Jesus being born on December 25th stems from the strange belief held by some that a holy person dies on the day of the year in which they were conceived. Using that strange logic which is foreign to the Bible’s counsel, they claim to calculate Jesus to have been born on December 25th. That logic in itself is superstitious and not warranted by anything that the Bible teaches. How is Christmas actually a holiday which rightfully pertains to those who believe in Jesus Christ in a Biblical context?

The Bible has much to say about making sure to keep Paganism and all covetousness out of the true God’s worship (see Deuteronomy 12:28-32 and 2 Corinthians 6:14-18). If there is no command in the Bible to celebrate it, then it is wise to have nothing to do with it if there is even so much as a risk of it actually being a Pagan holiday. Many in early America did indeed recognize or suspect Christmas’ Pagan origins and did not see it as a sound Christian holiday. It might surprise some to know that Christmas was not even an official holiday in any state until Alabama made it one in 1836. Christmas never even became a federal holiday in the USA until 1870. The very involvement in Christmas of Santa, elf clothes, reindeer, expensive and glittery light displays, decorated trees, and a multitude of other things which really don’t have anything to do with the real Jesus and have no foundation in the Bible at all, should make anyone consider that perhaps there is something sinister going on with Christmas.

Considering how the Roman Catholic Church has adopted many elements of Paganism into its worship in many ways, it makes a lot of sense that the Roman holidays of Saturnalia and the Sol Invictus Festival were modified and adapted to be a celebration of the birth of Christ by the Catholic Church in order to transition Pagans into professing Christians while accommodating their Pagan ways (Christmas became an official celebration in the Catholic Church in 336 AD under Constantine).

The date which the Catholic Church chose to celebrate Christmas on is the same day of the year (December 25th of course) which the Pagan Cult of Sol Invictus (which had recently been recognized as a State religion by Rome in 274 AD) celebrated the rebirth of the sun on (this cult worshiped the sun in the sky). This was also a time very close to the Roman festival Saturnalia as well. Saturnalia was a time of debauchery, gluttony, exchanging gifts, and overall seeking to alleviate the sense of gloominess that many people feel around the time of the Winter Solstice when the days are the shortest.

We may not be able to go back in history and point out the very moment when it was decided to modify the Saturnalia celebration and/or the Sol Invictus celebration into a celebration of the birth of Christ, yet it is obvious that Christmas is a Pagan holiday now. You just have to open your eyes and your ears to know that much. Is an ardent Christmas supporter who puts up a Christmas tree, Christmas ornaments, hangs wreaths, hangs mistletoe, wears a Santa hat, wears elf clothes, puts up a giant light display, etc. behaving like a Bible-believing Christian or a Pagan?

Some marvel for some reason at how Christmas has become so materialistic and commercialized. Yet Christmas was always about man indulging in carnality. And since Christmas is a Pagan holiday at its roots, fallen people often gravitate towards its celebration. It is only logical that gluttony, drunkenness, frivolous expenses, and unnecessary debt are typically associated with Christmas. Also note here that even the blatantly Pagan Romans showed some kindness and generosity towards lower class people during their gluttonous and riotous festival of Saturnalia.

If Christmas were called something else and openly identified as a blatantly Pagan holiday that has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, this winter holiday couldn’t convince people to reconcile Him with Pagan ways in their minds nor fool anyone into thinking that they are in His grace because they are involved in celebrating a holiday associated with His birth. Christmas is essentially a palliative to man’s critical spiritual condition which numbs his impetus (or driving force) to genuinely repent and flee to the real Jesus in order to actually obtain a new birth and mercy in Him.

The Bible states in 1 John chapter 1 that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Mankind overall is in darkness. All people choose to sin and stray from God. We must utterly forsake the darkness to have an inheritance in the light with Christ through His death and resurrection. What Christmas practically accomplishes in a disturbingly effective way is the confounding of darkness and light. It is an especially deceptive thing to have a celebration invoking Jesus Christ which involves the generality of society which darkness reigns among.

Acts 2:38-40 says: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward (wayward) generation.”

Imagine Peter saying “Merry Christmas” to a crowd before telling it what he told that crowd in Jerusalem in the verses just quoted. Doing that would have killed the power of the Gospel message and implicitly said to the people that they were okay simply because Christ has come. A society where darkness reigns celebrating a holiday which many claim is about Jesus practically offers God’s grace to people without wholehearted repentance and turning to the real Jesus in utter death to sin and self. That implicit message of Christmas, along with the Paganism at its very roots, make it a Pagan Universalist holiday.

Don’t think that your pastor or priest’s defense of Christmas makes it okay. Take into account that it is almost certain they would be fired quickly if they were to preach against it and refuse to celebrate it.