DID EARLY BAPTISTS CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?
Psalms 119:105 (KJV)
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
A few weeks ago now, someone I know posed the question…
Did early Baptists celebrate Christmas?
There were, I think three responses to his question. I can only remember two of them:
· The missionary Baptist church I attended as a child would not touch Christmas
· Why would Baptists celebrate the Catholic Mass on that day any more than they would any other day?
I did not respond then. I want to do that now.
My first response is this
I. WHAT MISSIONARY BAPTISTS (OR ANY OTHER GROUP OF BAPTISTS) DID WHILE YOU WERE GROWING UP IS IRRELEVANT TO THE SUBJECT
Psalms 119:105 (KJV)
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
I am as Baptist as anyone you will ever meet.
I am convinced that John the Baptist was a Baptist and that those baptized by him were Baptists.
Though the earliest churches were not called Baptist churches, they were, in every significant way, Baptist in:
· Origin
· Authority
· Doctrine
· Practice and
· Purpose
My understanding of church history is this:
· At first there were only Baptist churches[2]
· Very early in history, some churches apostatized
· By 314 AD there were independent (Baptist) churches and those that organized into Roman Catholicism
· For 1200 years Roman Catholicism tried to wipe out those independent churches
· Protestants are all Catholics who left their authority
· Baptists are not Protestants because they were never a part of Catholicism
I said all of that to say this,
We must believe what we believe because the Bible teaches it and not because Baptists of the past believed it.
God’s Word is the lamp unto my feet and the light unto my path, not ancient Baptist beliefs.
If there were some document somewhere that irrefutably proved that Baptists of centuries ago considered Christmas a pagan holiday, I would still observe Christmas because I am certain the Bible guides me to do so.
Here’s the thing, the response to the guys question was:
· The missionary Baptist church I attended as a child would not touch Christmas
What, I ask, does that matter?
· The Missionary Baptists only represent a small group of Baptists[3]
· They represent a fairly recent (within the last 200 years) segment of Baptists
Real quickly then, let me give to you my understanding of Baptist history.
· As I have already said, I believe that the first church, and all those that came from it were Baptist churches.
· They were called Anabaptists by the Catholics some time after the Catholic Church was instituted. They were the ones that refused to become Catholic and refused to accept Catholic baptism as true baptism.
· There were Anabaptist churches scattered throughout Europe and the British Isles very early in history. Perhaps even as early as the first century.
· Underground Anabaptist churches were everywhere in Italy, France, Germany and England long before the Reformation of the 1500’s.
· When England gave dissenting churches the right to exist in 1649, Baptist churches came out of hiding.[4]
· Nearly every ship coming from England to the new world contained some Baptists[5]onboard
· By the 1680’s many of the Baptists in England had become highly influenced by the Protestants
· The Baptist churches in America were filled with, and influenced by Protestants during the first[6]and second[7]Great Awakenings[8]
I do not believe you can find a Baptist church anywhere in the world, including our own, that hasn’t some degree of Protestant influence and thinking.
Most of us were saved out of some sort of Protestant Church.
It would have been impossible for us to not bring some of the old theology with us.
That’s why Psalms 119:105[9]is so very important.
That, together with passages like,
Psalms 119:99 (KJV)
I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.
· We don’t depend on what the believers of years ago taught.
· We might refer to it, we might gain some insights from it.
But the Word of God alone guides us.
Frankly, it does not matter whether Baptists of 200, 400 or 1000 years ago celebrated Christmas.
What matters is
· Whether the Bible gives us any reason to celebrate it, or
· If the Bible teaches us that we should not celebrate it.
Did early Baptists celebrate Christmas?
II. THE ASSOCIATION OF CHRISTMAS TO CATHOLICISM IS IN ERROR
Those who think Christmas is a pagan holiday that Catholics incorporated into their religion have generally three points:
A. December 25th
The argument is that December 25thwas originally a pagan holiday called Saturnalia.
Saturnalia was a Roman festival in honor of the god Saturn, held somewhere between the 17th-23rdof December[10]and later changed to December 25th.
The Emperor Constantine supposedly converted to Christianity about 314 AD. When he did that
· He demanded that everyone in his realm convert to Christianity too
· He also demanded that he was the head of all of the Christians
Some of the churches of the day gladly joined with him, hoping for the peace and safety it offered.[11]
Obviously most of the people who “converted” never became true Christians.
It was not until around 350 AD that Emperor Julian the Apostate[12]that there is any connection of December 25th, Christmas and Saturnalia made.[13]
He changed the date of Saturnalia to the 25thto associate it to the Christian Christmas, not the other way around AND he did it specifically to defile the day in the mind of Christians.[14]
In this case, the connection of Saturnalia to December 25thsupports that date as the actual birthdate of Jesus.
B. Christmas
The word Christmas is made of two words:
Christ- no problem there
Mas- means a sent or message
It is the root from which the word mission and missionary comes.
The word Christmas has two significant meanings for Christians:
Christmas – Christ sent[15]
Christmas – Christ’s message
Christmas, in effect, means Gospel, the message of Christ.[16]
The third thing opponents will use is the
C. Christmas tree
The Bible passage they are going to bring up is,
Jeremiah 10:3-4 (KJV)
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.
That passage does not speak of cutting down an evergreen and bringing it into the house to decorate and enjoy.
The passage refers to cutting down a tree and carving it up to make a false god of it.
Someone recently argued with me that pagans in old times brought greenery into their homes.
Greenery
· freshens the air,
· brightens the home and
· adds life in the house
I know there are people who worship nature, but it isn’t wicked to have some nature in your house.
There are no reliable historical records of the Christmas tree until Germany’s Martin Luther in the 1500’s.
My understanding is that he used it as a sort of object lesson for the doctrines of the Gospel plan of salvation.
That’s not pagan and that’s not wicked.
Lastly I would like to say that,
III. THE REAL HATERS OF CHRISTMAS WERE THE PURITANS, NOT THE BAPTISTS
Everyone here has heard of Henry VIII haven’t we?
Henry was king in England at a time when the Pope in Rome had more authority in a country than the king did.
Henry was married to Catherine but, because she had failed to provide him with a son, he wanted to divorce her and marry another[17]woman.
When the Pope refused to allow him to divorce Catherine, he rejected Catholicism[18]and made himself to be head of all of the churches of his kingdom – the Church of England.
He never reformed his church, mind you. Same doctrines, same pastors and same bishops, very same system – it was just no longer under the Pope in Rome.
What followed was 100 years of horror in England.
The country swung between being Protestant to being Catholic to being Protestant again with the passing of every monarch.
· When a Protestant monarch sat on the throne, all the churches were forced to be under the monarch and anyone who rebelled was killed.
· When a Catholic monarch came to the throne, all the churches were given back to Rome and all the Protestants[19]who refused to submit were killed
Finally, about 1600, King James I came to the throne and thoroughly grounded the country in England’s version of Protestantism.
In 1644 the British Parliament, then controlled by the Puritans, passed laws outlawing the celebration of Christmas[20]. New England followed suit.
When George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas to fight the Hessians at Trenton, Christmas was illegal in most of New England. Most of his American soldiers would not have celebrated it anyway.
However, there were never any laws against Christmas in Germany. Those Hessians had been celebrating all night and were in no condition to fight when Washington’s army arrived the next morning.
So here’s the thing
Modern Baptists, who preach against Christmas, are in fact reflecting a Protestant sentiment, not Baptist.
There are literally no reliable records of Baptists rejecting the celebration of Christmas until AFTER the British Protestants had outlawed it.
Did they celebrate Christmas before that?
We don’t know.
And that’s all right.
We don’t find our guidance from people who lived before us.
We find our faith and practice in the Bible.
Conclusion
Christmas declares to us:
The divinity of Jesus Christ
Matthew 1:23 (KJV)
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
The love of God for souls
John 3:16 (KJV)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And
The purpose for His coming in the first place
Matthew 1:21 (KJV)
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
[1]Jude 1:3 (KJV)
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
[2]In origin, authority, doctrine, practice and purpose. There was no denomination. Most well studied Baptists deny that the name Baptist is a denomination. It is rather a description of our faith.
[3]Right now there are something like 70 different Baptist groups just in the United States.
[4]They did not begin then. They were not a part of the protest out of the Church of England. They only surfaced at that time.
[5]It is interesting that the colonization of America and the Act of Toleration happened at about the same time.
[6]1730’s
[7]1790’s
[8]Note the near proximities of the awakenings, first to the American Revolution period and then to the period surrounding the framing of the Constitution of the United States.
[9]Psalms 119:105 (KJV)
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
[10]https://www.ancient.eu/Saturnalia/
[11]But many of them did not and immediately came under much more persecution than they had experienced before.
[12]So called because he “left” the Catholic Christian church Rome had established.
[13]Jerry Scheidbach, Is Christmas Pagan? https://youtu.be/g2RJ5oIJ1yk
[14]Much like Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed a pig on the altar in the Temple of Jerusalem because he knew it would defile it in the minds of the Jews.
[15]Galatians 4:4 (KJV)
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
[16]Romans 10:13-15 (KJV)
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
[17](and another, and another – he eventually married six times)
[18]This is 1533 AD virtually the same time as the Reformation happening in Mainland Europe.
[19]And multitudes of Baptists who got caught in the “cross fire.”
[20]It is important to note that they outlawed it not because they believed it was pagan but because they disagreed with the dancing and drinking involved.
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