Christmas as a Religious Holiday

Should Christians Invent Religious Holidays?

By Carl O. Cooper

            It is that time of the year again. You hear Christmas music coming from your TV and all the department stores, and there are beautiful light displays and even nativity scenes in people’s yards. There is a warm feeling for all those Christmases from the past when the kids were small and there was the tree and the presents and the joy of family and friends for Christmas dinner. I have to admit, there is great joy in celebrating Christmas. Is all this wrong for a Christian to enjoy? Let’s look at a few logical conclusions about Christmas.

            Well, let me say this. Most of the religious world will have no interest in the logic of what I am about to say. Only those Christians who understand and respect the concept of restoring the “original New Testament church” will have any respect for this line of reasoning at all. I hope you are one of those who understand how important this concept really is.

            When we look around us and see just how many religious churches there are we should be concerned that people who profess to be Christians are so divided. And not just divided by church name and denomination but also by doctrines and beliefs as well. Churches who teach totally different and contradicting doctrines with each other are actually telling people that it is really OK and all these doctrines that don’t agree and contradict one another are really all true and OK with God. Do you realize how wrong this is? When two doctrines contradict each other, then either both are wrong or at least one is wrong. Do you really think God thinks this division is OK with Him? Not if you believe the Bible. Look at this Scripture in John 17.

John 17:20-21 (NKJV)

20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;

21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that      the world may believe that You sent Me.

            Jesus prayed this prayer when He was in the garden of Gethsemane just before He was arrested to be crucified. God’s desire for all who would call themselves Christian is to be united as “one”. As He and Jesus are one. By being united in what we teach, the world can be convinced that the Gospel is true. How can they believe a message that contradicts itself?

            What does this have to do with Christmas? Plenty!

            If we are going to be united as “one” with one Gospel and one doctrine that does not contradict, then we will all be united into one church. Well, which church will that be?

            In the first century when the church was established, there was only one church. All Christians were a part of it. Don’t be fooled, it was not the Catholic Church. That church came several hundred years after the apostles and first century Christians were already a part of the first church. The first church had no other name than “The Church”. Sometimes it was identified as the church that belongs to Christ, or the church of Christ.

            Now if we wanted to unite into “one body” as the Bible puts it; that church would be the church we want to be a part of today. We need to “Restore” that church. That’s not as hard as you might think. All we have to do is “plant the seed for that church” into the hearts and minds of Christians today. You can do that by discarding all the creeds and statements of faith and manuals used by churches today that spell out the differences that make them the denomination that they are. If you want to produce a Baptist, you plant the seed of a Baptist church into a person’s heart. The seed is the books that tell a Baptist what he is suppose to know to make him different from a Methodist or some other denomination. Without these books there is no “seed” to divide us. If we discard these books then we must start planting a new seed. That seed is the Bible only. If we only plant the “Pure Original Seed” we will only grow members of that first church.

            The problem comes in when the “original seed” is altered. Men have been doing this for hundreds of years. This is why we have all the division we have today. So it is vitally important that the seed is not altered. The only way to protect the seed is to be very; very cautious that we never, never add or take away anything the Bible tells us to do. We speak where the Bible speaks and we are silent where the Bible is silent.

            This is where the celebration of Christmas as a religious holiday comes into the picture. You see, there is no authorization in the Bible to invent another religious Holy day for our worship to God. We are clearly taught in the Scriptures to observe Christ’s death every first day of the week and we are told to worship God in specific ways every Sunday. God has designed the worship we are told to engage in and we are not authorized to invent to ourselves new forms of worship that God, Himself, did not design. To do so, alters the seed.

            When we invent new worship to God that is not described for us by God in the Bible we create a new church because it is not the exact copy of the original one started by the apostles in the beginning.

            We do not have the authority to invent to ourselves new religious Holy days that God did not design.

            Can Christmas be celebrated without it being celebrated as a religious holiday? Of course it can. My family has done so for years. We have always understood the “seed principle” and we do not have nativity scenes and baby Jesus and we do not sing religious songs to celebrate Christmas. We have Santa Claus and a Christmas tree; and we have gifts and our children have an exciting time. We have family and friends for Christmas dinner and we build great memories.

            Yes, you can celebrate Christmas without altering the seed of the word of God in the process. Don’t ever forget, God has instructed us all to be one. This means “one body” and we must “teach the same things”. Don’t forget Jesus’ prayer for “all to be one”. That is the written will of God. This means one church for all Christians who dwell together in unity. And let’s not forget what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:10 NKJV;

            10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Carl O. Cooper