Why do some Christians NOT celebrate Christmas?
If you did a survey on an average UK shopping street and asked, "What do you think about Christmas?" you may hear people say things like: "It's nice for the children"
"It should just be called a Winter Lights Festival; it's not right to give it a name with the word "Christ" in it, it's offensive to other religions"
"It's over-commercialised"
"I'm the third shepherd in the nativity play"
"We need to remind everybody that Christmas is about Jesus"
"Our office Christmas party is going to be great!"
"It should be banned cos it's too Christian and it's not multi-cultural"
"I don't do any of the religious stuff, but we get a tree and have a family get-together"
"I love Christmas! All the lights, and the Christmas songs, Christmas shopping, and choosing the right tree!"
"We go to midnight mass"
"We leave out sherry and a mince pie for Father Christmas"
You may be surprised that some Christians say: 
"It's ok to have Christmas as a celebration of the coming of Jesus, but we must make sure we avoid all the traditions that came from the pre-Christian mid winter festivals, like Christmas trees and mistletoe".
or even
"We shouldn't observe Christmas because it's not in the Bible and it's origins and traditions are totally pagan. The birth of Jesus is in the Bible, obviously, but no command or even suggestion from God that this day, whenever it was, should be marked by a special feast or holiday. However, the Bible does list a whole bunch of festivals God asked his people to keep. They are in the Old Testament, before the birth of Jesus, but each one had something to say about Jesus, and these are the festivals / holidays we should observe, not one made-up by man that compromises our faith because of all it's links to non-Christian gods. In fact, the Bible specifically says to steer clear of the tainted traditions of people who don't follow the Lord".
And so we are in the bizarre position of some Christians working to keep the "Christ" in "Christmas" and proclaim "Jesus is the reason for the season", while some Christians want us to abstain from all things Christmas because it is a pagan festival, Christian in name only.
Cynics: Christmas is not really Christian.
Cynics will say Christmas is, and always has been, a ploy to usher people into Christianity by taking-over all the aspects people love about the non-Christian mid-winter festivals of old, there-by creating at least nominal Christians. By this the cynics mean that everything, including people's hearts and spiritual allegiance, stayed pretty much as it was, but the church got to call it all Christian. These people hadn't really become Christians, because that requires a personal decision to be made to invite Jesus into your life, but culturally they adapted to "Christian" ways.
Anti-Christmas-Christians: We shouldn't have Christmas at all.
The complaint anti-Christmas-Christians have about celebrating Christmas is that by choosing the 25th of December all the traditions of the birthday's of the pagan gods got amalgamated -the Bible says "You must not worship the Lord your God in their way" (Deuteronomy 12: 31)- and anyway, there is no Biblical mandate for celebrating Christmas (or Jesus' birthday) on any day of the year. If we want to celebrate Jesus' coming we should instead observe the Feast of Tabernacles, which is in the Bible, and in part celebrates Christ's coming reign over all the earth. For the full anti-Christmas-Christian's argument see www.ucg.org/booklets/HH/
Where does all this leave Richmond Park Church? In the next category!
Christian Optimists: We are celebrating the gift of God's Son using traditions and symbols that non-Christians can relate to.
But Christmas isn't in the Bible...
Is it bad that the fourth century church chose to create Christmas by putting a Christian "spin" on existing festivals and traditions? Was it a shameless attempt to "trick" people into accepting Christianity? From what evidence there is from the period, it seems that they were mixed motives: for some, especially in the established church hierarchy, it was about white-washing the continuation of pagan practises through a veneer of "Christianisation". Other Christians, initially excited that a set day had been chosen to commemorate the birth of Jesus, were horrified and heart-broken by the vast alcohol consumption, wild partying, excess feasting and bribing (present giving) that came from the old mid-winter festivals and swamped the new Feast of the Nativity, and campaigned for a more Jesus-focused and reverent Christmas.
Churches like Richmond Park Church don't always observe all the same festivals and traditions that the fourth century church onwards established, because sometimes they seem too different from the church as described in the Bible, and that's the blue-print we would like to stay closest to.
But just because something is started that isn't spelled out in the Bible, it isn't automatically wrong. God looks at why we are motivated to do what we do; if the church makes up a new way of doing things that gives it more power and money but does nothing to honour God or draw people closer to God, then it's a bad thing. But if the church introduces a new initiative solely with the aim of honouring God and drawing people closer to God, it can be a good thing.
What about the dodgey pre-Christian origins and traditions?
The Bible warns against accepting the practises and traditions of non-believers because although they may seem fairly harmless in themselves, what's behind them (their spiritual origins) is in direct opposition to God, and it's the start of the slippery slope of compromise that ends with abandoning all of God's ways (see 2 Kings 17: 32-41). But the Bible also talks about meeting people where they are at, being "all things to all people", and using symbolism that people can relate to and understand to tell them about the things of God. Jesus did that a lot when he was talking, by using culturally relevant examples.
People, who didn't know the Lord, had created their own framework for making sense of life and death, seasons changing, and good or bad harvests, which was based around sun gods and nature worship. If Christians wanted to tell them about Jesus it made sense to talk their language: a god, born on the 25th December, like all the sun gods were, but bigger than them all; just as the evergreen decorations throughout winter were a reminder that spring would return and life continue, so they could be a reminder that Jesus came to bring eternal life; the fir tree that's decorated has a triangle shape to remind us of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the red berries on the holly that showed the pagans that life continued even in the depths of winter could also show the blood of Christ who died for our sins and conquered death and hell; the rousing folk songs sung in public to unite people in winter cheer were replaced by songs telling Christian Christmas stories.
The date is all wrong...
The 25th of December is the date Christians are now used to celebrating the birth of Jesus, but it is historically inaccurate. Does this matter? One way of looking at it is by viewing Christmas as Jesus' official birthday, even though it's not his actual birth-date, in the same way as the Queen has an actual, but also an official, birthday! Did you know that the King or Queen has had an official birthday in addition to their real birthday since Edward VII, who was born in November, decided he would prefer birthday celebrations in the good weather of the summer?!
What does the Bible say?
The cynics say the invention of Christmas was a way of taking over and "Christianising" pagan festivals by stealth, and the anti-Christmas-Christians say the whole thing is wrong and unnecessary. But what else does the Bible have to say on this subject?
In chapter 14 of the book of Romans it says: "One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord..let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way" (verses 5, 6, & 13). Chapter 2 of Colossians, verses 16 & 17 say: "...do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come..."
We don't want to judge other Christians who are convinced that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas -we all have to decide for ourselves what is the best way of honouring God- but we believe God is more concerned about our attitude and motivation than the ins and outs of how we chose to tell people about Jesus or which day we chose to say thankyou to God for Jesus.
Muscling-in on existing non-Christian events doesn't have to lead to Christians being corrupted, it can work the other way round, with Christian influences taking-over from non-Christian ones. In the book of Judges, Gideon is ordered by the Lord to destroy the altar and symbol of the pagan gods and on the SAME SITE build an altar to the Lord (Judges 6:25-26). In other words, something good, and of God, DIRECTLY REPLACED something that had been pagan and leading people away from God. Christians who worry about the pagan origins of all of the Christmas traditions may also find this helpful - something that was pagan can be turned into something for the Lord: every tradition that stems from paganism has had a Christian make-over!
The modern accusations of Christmas being more about drinking and parties and presents are nothing new - the battle for the true focus of Christmas began back in the fourth century at it's inception! But Christian optimists, like Richmond Park Church, feel the invention of Christmas was a good means of displacing Saturnalia and the such like with the Christian message that Jesus came to save us. It's a fact that Christmas, with it's nativity play, accelerated the spread of Christianity throughout Europe - a good result. And we can use Christmas to the same ends today and for the same reasons: people are ready to celebrate and socialise and it's a great opportunity to share with them something worth celebrating - Jesus!
