Aren’t you a little late for this Man of Spin?

Yes, such is a pertinent question, and as it is nearly the New Year in 2010, such is a present reality.

However, as this is such an annually relevant subject matter, in what is seemingly becoming a more loaded subject for those wanting to discredit the Christian faith, and it is definitely worth your reflection-to-inculcation!

Here is a little summative quote from the First Things blog…

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.
Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

You can read a little more quotation at Gene Edward Veith’s blog…

or

You can go straight to the source at the Biblical Archeological Review, where you can read the whole thing… references included!

For the Fame of His Name

Man of Spin