Letter to the Editor

Christian traditions should be handled more carefully

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

To the editor:

It is true that Christian faith does not hang on Dec. 24th, 25th for the birth of Christ; however, it would be nice that if someone is going to write and discredit Christmas traditions, that they would offer some type of evidence to support their assertions.

When trained in doing research (what seems to be years ago now) we were taught to document any quote by pointing to the fact and then footnoting it. Sadly, a "front page" article by Mr. Pinkard does nothing like that. He simply makes the same old undocumented assertions for fact. For instance, "The holidays earliest origins can be traced back to the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia" and again "in the forth century, the Christian church stepped up and decided to import the celebration in to the practice of faith in hope of converting the masses ..."

Neither statement has any documentation in history to support them as statements of facts. If there are documents or first-person 4th century letters, at least have the courtesy of showing your documentation.

Fact: The idea that Dec. 25 is Jesus' birthday was popularized by Sextus Julius Africanus in Chronographiai (221 AD) third century, an early reference book for Christians at that time. This identification did not, however, inspire feasting or celebration. Jesus' birth date is based upon the biblical reference of Elizabeth, the mother of John the baptizer, the wife of Zechariah and his service in the temple.

Luke 1:5: When Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the division of priests named after Abijah. Later in Luke, The Virgin Mary, will greet her cousin Elizabeth in her sixth month of pregnancy.

The calculation of the date takes more biblical work and time, yet with these two pieces of information, Jesus' birth falls sometime in December/January. No, not everyone agrees -- some place Jesus' birth in September/October. The problem is working through the ancient calendars, no easy task.

Today, Christian faith is weak enough, and to have fellow Christians give into or "step up" and import historical myths into Christian culture helps no one, least of all the weak. But if a Christian takes the Bible seriously, that is, it is the inerrant Word of God in all parts and all the words are inspired by God, faith can grow and we can learn to separate myth from reality and we Christians can have a merry Christmas without doubting our traditions.

Yes, we can even enjoy Santa and the Christmas tree because they have solid Christian backing as well. (We can deal with those traditions at another time.) I write this on the fourth day of Christmas, the one with the four mocking birds. So merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Pastor Dennis FitzPatrick
First Lutheran Church

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sources used for Pinkard's article included the following:

-- "Roman Festivals" written by John F. Miller for The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome.

-- "Celebrating the Saturnalia: Religious Ritual and Roman Domestic Life" by Fanny Dolansky for A Companion to Families in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds

-- "Advent and Christmas" by Greg Dues

-- "Understanding Your Neighbor's Faith" by Philip Lazowski

-- "The Solstice Evergreen" by Sheryl Karas

-- The Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Ultimate Reference Suite

-- "Christmas in America" A History by Penne L. Restad

-- European History and Ancient Civilization History courses at Arkansas State University