CHRISTMAS--Part 2

This drama deals with the misconceptions of both Christians and unbelievers. The date for Christmas is, of course, the obvious one. The date was chosen by the post apostolic church to coincide with pagan holidays that celebrated the winter solstice. Early on in church history a belief was emerging that Christ never came as a human. A celebration of a birth certainly enforces that He was human. It took a long time for some denominations to embrace it because many of the practices were so vulgar. In fact, in early New England and Massachusetts Christmas was banned for a while. A few denominations still oppose it today.

The other and most important concept is that Christ was born of a virgin and it did not take sex for God to do that. Muslims believe that we teach God had sex with Mary. They believe that is blasphemy. They are right that it would be blasphemy, but God did not have sex with Mary. As Father says, “God created everything from nothing. Is it surprising for Him to be able to do this?”

This family is consciously and deliberately doing what they say, “We . . . need to study practices we have and make sure we are doing them for the right reasons. That is true for our traditions and for everything we do, even Christmas.”

All of us need to do this.