While Christmas may or may not have pagan roots, it will certainly have a pagan future if Christians lose sight of what it is all about.
This article is a guest contribution from R. L. Solberg.
I can be a bit of a Grinch about Christmas. Especially when stores start putting up Christmas decorations before Halloween! That said, I recognize Christmas—the celebration of the birth of our Savior—as one of the most important seasons on the church calendar. So, I’m always surprised this time of year when I start seeing social media posts railing against Christians celebrating Christmas. Because of my work in the field of apologetics, I probably see more of these messages than the average Christian. But the claims are out there, and they deserve a response.
Let’s look at the two most common protests we’re likely to hear: First, the claim that Christmas has pagan roots, and second, the objection to Santa Claus. Before we dive in, allow me to offer a brief note of caution to the reader.
We live in an era of two very different Christmases. One is based on the birth of Christ; it honors and remembers what God did in history. The other is a secularized, commercialized, “warm and fuzzy” cultural tradition. The latter is where the greater danger lies. A secularized Christmas pulls our attention away from the mind-blowing fact that the God of the universe chose to walk among us in the dust and dirt of earthly life so that he might save us. In his book Hidden Christmas, Timothy Keller captures the magnitude of this event:
“There has never been a gift offered that makes you swallow your pride to the depths that the gift of Jesus Christ requires us to do. Christmas means that we are so lost, so unable to save ourselves, that nothing less than the death of the Son of God himself could save us.” [1]
This is the true meaning of Christmas and the version I am defending. While Christmas may or may not have pagan roots (we’ll look at that in a moment), it will certainly have a pagan future if Christians lose sight of what it is all about.
Is Christmas Pagan?
The claim typically goes like this: At some point in history, an ancient pagan winter celebration morphed into the holiday we know today as Christmas, and therefore, Christmas has pagan roots. This is why we celebrate it at the Winter Solstice, put trees in our homes, and use symbols like stars, bells, and holly.
At first glance, this claim may appear daunting. On closer inspection, however, it reveals a profound misunderstanding of both paganism and Christianity. Ancient pagan cultures had a great reverence for (and even worshipped) nature, the weather, and the sun. The Romans, for example, held a festival in late December called Saturnalia, where they offered gifts and sacrifices to the gods during the winter sowing season in the hope of a plentiful harvest in the coming year. During Saturnalia, the Romans held feasts, sang songs, socialized, and gave each other gifts. Sound familiar? Because of these similarities to Christmas, some believe that our modern holiday emerged from such pagan festivals. There are two big problems with that conclusion.
First, those social customs are not unique to Christmas. Feasts, songs, and gifts are also common in many non-religious settings, including birthday parties, graduation parties, and weddings. Second, pagan winter celebrations are at odds with the Christian observance of Christmas at the most fundamental level. Consider these profound differences:
- Pagan celebrations feature the worship of idols, false gods, and nature; Christmas is about worshipping the one true God of the Bible.
- Pagan celebrations are future-focused; believers hope for the favor of the gods in the coming season. Christmas is past-focused; believers commemorate and remember a true historical event.
- Pagan festivals focus on the gods meeting the physical needs of the people; Christmas focuses on God addressing the spiritual needs of the people.
- Pagan celebrations require the people to give gifts to the gods; Christmas celebrates the gift that God gave to the people in Jesus Christ.
Christmas began as a celebration of Christ’s birth called the Feast of the Nativity, and the early Christians who celebrated it openly rejected paganism and its idols and gods. From a religious perspective, the Christian celebration of Christmas is the polar opposite of pagan winter festivals. Consider the essence of a Christmas church service: the story of Christ’s birth is read aloud from Holy Scripture, the God of the Bible is worshipped through singing and prayer, and the gospel of Jesus is preached to millions of people who may not typically attend a church service. Christmas is a God-honoring observance that would make any pagan squirm in their seat!
What About Santa?
Many Christians see the Santa Claus myth as a fun, harmless social tradition children enjoy and eventually outgrow. After all, no one who enthusiastically believes in Santa as a child grows up to become a practicing “Santa Clausian.” For this reason, I don’t buy into the more dramatic objections to Santa as a tool of the devil intended to deceive the masses. (No, the name Santa was not chosen as an anagram of Satan!) The real danger doesn’t come through deception but a distraction from the true meaning of Christmas.
So, what are Christians to do about Santa? I believe it’s important for each of us to approach this issue prayerfully and follow our Spirit-led conscience. The Santa myth has nothing to do with the biblical story of Christmas, so believers who choose to reject it are justified in doing so. Conversely, I believe those who view Santa as a harmless tradition for children have the freedom to indulge in such cultural fun provided (and this is key!) it does not overshadow or replace Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas.
My wife and I chose a hybrid approach, taking the myth of Santa Claus captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) by turning it into something of a modern parable: The reason this jolly old man from the North Pole flies around the world giving gifts to everyone is to remind them of the gift that God gave us: Jesus Christ. This approach allowed us to keep our family’s focus squarely on the birth of Jesus without taming our children’s young imaginations about the fantastical, supernatural realm of reality taught in the Bible.
Ironically, staying in touch with our childlike imagination can be a way to bolster our faith. This was the idea behind the stories of Christian authors C. S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) and J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings). They understood the power of story to communicate truths about God and his universe in ways that our post-Enlightenment, data-driven minds would likely reject. Stories tap into a different facet of the human mind than cold, hard facts. Perhaps this is why Jesus, the greatest teacher who ever lived, regularly used fictional stories (parables) to teach deep truths about God.
It is all too easy to close our modern, scientific minds to the supernatural realm of existence affirmed throughout Scripture. Yet, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1). The Bible calls us to a reality beyond what our eyes and ears can empirically confirm. Christian faith includes believing that things can and will be better someday, even better than what we can think or imagine. Perhaps the children’s story of a bearded, jolly follower of Jesus blessing the world with gifts is one way to temporarily kindle that youthful sense of wonder and awe.
Here is the bottom line: What we fix our minds and hearts on is what we worship. So, during this time of year, let’s set our hearts and minds on the birth of Christ and the incredible mission God undertook to save us. As long as our observance of Christmas is focused on Jesus, we can be sure we’re not participating in Santa worship or a pagan holiday.
Merry Christmas!
R. L. Solberg is an author, apologist, and professor of theology based in Nashville, TN. He runs an apologetics/teaching ministry called Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity and is known for communicating on complex topics with clarity and grace
[1] Timothy Keller, Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2016), 123.
