Summary Paper #1
The question of whether a reference to Christmas, a Christmas Tree or Christmas Gifts have a place in the Seventh-day Adventist Church was referred to the Committee for comment.
It was intimated to the committee that some members were unhappy with a Christmas tree or other thoughts, like a special service, or other symbolism around the matter of Christmas. The reason for this being that it is a pagan celebration.
The celebration of Christmas was not present in the early apostolic church and there is no reference to the birthday of Christ nor the celebration of such. Scripture does indicate at least one clear reference to a birthday celebration when the Book of Job refers to such in the case of Job’s children celebrating a birthday. By no means was their demise because of the celebration as it is clear that their demise was the act of Satan, not prevented by God. Job’s demise at the hand of Satan was prevented by God.
The date of 25 December is clearly not Biblical and has never been accepted by the Seventh-day Adventist Church as being the birth date of Jesus, neither has the church in any way regarded the birth date of Jesus to be important or celebrated except with reference to the prophetic time of Daniel chapter nine.
On the other hand, it is clear that the 25th of December, being a date selected by pagan worshippers of antiquity as the day in which the sun’s heat and brightness starts to strengthen in the Northern Hemisphere, is no secret. It is reasonable to accept, as Dr. Tibor Tonhaizer (‘The Origin of Christmas’ University of Debrecen, Hungary) that these festivities were the antecedents of Christmas.
Within Christianity, according to him, the first place where Jesus’ birthday is linked to the 25th of December is in the commentary of Daniel, written by Hippolytus in 202 AD. His assumption is that this was the church’s way of weakening the pagan cults by taking their biggest festivity and giving new meaning to it.
I quote him in his conclusion as follows: ‘Christmas got into the liturgy at the level of commemoration and thanksgiving, but this did not leave any sign in the externalities for a long time. The first manger of Bethlehem was built in the 13th century, whilst setting up the first modern Christmas tree took place only in the 16th century. Interestingly enough, this latter tradition took root in Protestant circles in the beginning and was only generally spread from the 19th century.’
When asking “how do people sin through celebrating Christmas?”, there are two main camps. Firstly, those who say you sin through association with idolatry and secondly those who say you sin through willful or conscious association with idolatry.
The first camp argues that if it can be proven that Christmas is part of pagan worship then it should not be allowed celebrate Christmas. It would be fair to say though that Satan didn’t need any pagan practice in the life of Job, Paul or Jesus to get access to them. It is clearer that Satan finds access to us through the sins we hold on to. Hence he had no success when tempting Jesus to sin. Joh.14:30. We conclude that activities are not made evil because they were created by evil people (Lamach was part of a cursed people but his children brought blessings – Gen.4:19-22), secondly, Satan has access to men because they are on the earth, even if they have no connection to pagan worship.
The second camp argues that celebrating Christmas only has meaning when the performer is considering and valuing the actual meaning of the festival as being just that, a pagan festival. There seems to be more Biblical support for this concept, as in Isaiah 1:12-14 where God had little care for the rituals and pilgrimages of the Jews who had no faith in the coming Redeemer and thus the rituals lost their value. In other words, we could say, if rituals without the heart are meaningless to the God fearing people then pagan rituals without the heart are just as meaningless.
The safest guideline with regard to the matter of Christmas would probably be the principles laid out by the Apostle Paul against giving offence because someone else’s faith is weak (1 Cor. 10:32,33). Where members joined the church from this very paganism it was better to lay upon them the responsibility to not partake any longer of matters that could link them back to paganism like eating blood, strangled animals, meats offered to idols and fornication. (Acts 15:28,29) In 1 Cor. 8:4-13 Paul would indicate that for the Christian idols are nothing and food offered to them is lawful to eat if it can be eaten without regard to the idol. Heathen people, however, eat with regard to their idols and it is by their regard to their idol that they transgress God’s law. So the question is, ‘should we be concerned about celebrating Christmas? The principle should be linked to the extent that people around us associate it with pagan worship. To that extent we should rather refrain, for the benefit of the weaker people.
Ellen White was not ignorant to the pagan associations of both the tree and Christmas day. But much of her remarks enhance a different principle of Christmas. This is, that instead of focusing on self, it should be a time to focus on others. Offerings and gifts should be focused on God who gave His only-begotten Son for our salvation.
“Shall we have a Christmas Tree?” – ‘God would be well pleased if on Christmas each church would have a Christmas tree on which shall be hung offerings, great and small, for these houses of worship’. (Current building projects). She also states that ‘there is no particular sin in selecting a fragrant evergreen and placing it in our churches’ but of course if the motive is not to the glory of God in caring for Him and those who He loves with the gifts given, then it would be a sin. – Adventist Home, p. 481-483.
The two principles that come out of this then is, firstly that if it offends someone in the church, rather have no reference to Christmas. Secondly, using Christmas as a method of reaching people in a way understood by them in a secular world can be an effective method to turn their secular mindset into a new understanding of Christ’s love for even the neediest person.
