The Perennial Struggle
Every year around this time there is
the same list of questions circulating among Christian Identists, and
many of us have the same inward struggle. What should we do about
Christmas? For many of us it is not a struggle at all.
Rather,
we simply alienate our families and friends by shunning their pagan
holiday. However while it is good never to compromise the truths of
our faith, we are also told to love our brethren above all but God
Himself. There certainly are places where we should never cross the
line, and we should not violate the commandments of God even in spite
of our brethren. But it may be advantageous to see Christmas as an
occasion to witness to the truth, rather than as an opportunity to
somehow prove that we ourselves are more holy than our kith and kin.
Of course many of the people who
adhere to the true Christian faith as it is found in Scripture, as
those who associate ourselves with one form or another of Christian
Identity see it, have come to understand the errors of our ancestors.
Therefore it is natural for Christian Identists to despise Christmas
as a pagan holiday. They have good reason to do so, because Christmas
and many of the things associated with it clearly have pagan origins.
But the winter festival has been a de facto part of our culture for
thousands of years now - in spite of its complete absence from
Scripture. And because of this, it is traditionally a principal
gathering time for most White families. In fact, often it is the only
time of the year in which many White families take an opportunity to
gather at all! And if you are in the position that many in Christian
Identity find themselves, the rest of your family celebrates
Christmas with all of the usual holiday fervor.
It is fully evident from Scripture
that Christ was born not in December, but sometime during the end of
what is to us September – that time of the year at which the Old
Testament Feast of Trumpets occurred, and a couple of years before
the year in which our popular chronology places His birth. A few
hundred years after Christ, the Roman church adopted the ancient
pagan winter solstice festival for its own purposes. There is no
doubt that the winter festival is a pagan holiday, celebrated among
the Greeks as Bacchanalia, and in Rome as Saturnalia. It was a time
of drunken revelry and sexual promiscuity.
Examining the pagan origins of what
we now call Christmas, we find, for
instance, the so-called
Christmas tree described in Jeremiah chapter 10, written
nearly 600 years before the birth of Christ, from verse 3: “ For
the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the
forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck
it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with
hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but
speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not
afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them
to do good.” This is but one of the pagan customs which our
Scythian-Israelite ancestors took out of Mesopotamia when they
departed.
And in spite of all this, I find
myself at times wanting to defend Christmas, but only because the
jews and all the other enemies of Yahshua Christ are continually
attacking it. And they do this even in spite of the fact that jewish
merchants and bankers profit so handsomely from it! So this is the
perennial struggle which I referred to at the opening of this
discussion. Yet it need not be a struggle at all, once we attain the
proper perspective.
1 John 4:21: “And this commandment
have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”
We in Christian Identity should be
well aware of the prophecies which Yahweh uttered of our people, that
there are those who would slumber, and there are those whom He has
called into awakening in His marvelous light: the truth of the Gospel
and the Covenant. We who are called to understand His Word need not
vaunt ourselves over our brethren who have not yet been blessed in
that same manner. For God – and no man – decides which of us
awaken, and which continue in that prophesied blindness.
Yet if one can use even a pagan
holiday to do good, how can that ever be evil? Was that not the
example of our Redeemer in the first place? While most Christian
Identists certainly would not eat the ham, and most of them may also
- as they should - shun the silly tree and the made-in-China
decorations, we certainly should not shun our kin. We should reject
the commercialism which the jews profit from so handsomely - but we
should also reject that commercialism all the rest of the year! We
should celebrate and cherish the little time that we get with our
families all year long, but for many of us this is the only time we
may actually get to spend with them. Therefore we should not despise
them, even if they know nothing about those things which we esteem to
be true. Rather, this is also an excellent time to testify to that
truth.
At John 8:22-23 we find this: “Then
there was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem – it was winter –
and Yahshua walked about in the temple on the porch of
Solomon.”
The feast of dedication was
instituted by the Maccabees after the restoration of the temple about
150 before the birth of Christ, after the temple had been spoiled by
the Greeks of Syria. Like Christmas, it is a holiday instituted by
man, and not by God. Christ was found in the temple during the feast
of dedication, not necessarily because He was celebrating the feast,
but because that is where His people were gathered! Yahshua was
teaching in the temple at the feast of dedication, and although the
religious authorities were opposed to Him, John tells us at 8:30
that: “Upon His saying these things many believed in
Him.”
We can indeed go to our family
gatherings on Christmas, and every other chance that we get. And
while we certainly should not go into debt for those unnecessary
things which the jews try to sell us, we can, and we should, use
those times to testify to the truth of the gospel.
As Paul said speaking of his trial
in Rome, albeit in a somewhat different context, at Philippians
1:15-18: “Some indeed even because of envy and strife, but some
also by approval are proclaiming the Christ. Surely these out of
love, knowing that I am set for a defense of the good message, but
those out of contention are declaring the Christ not purely,
supposing to stir up tribulation in my bonds. What then? That in
every way, whether in pretext or in truth, Christ is declared, and in
this I rejoice. And surely I will rejoice.”
Whether in pretext or in truth, if
Christ our Redeemer is declared, we too should rejoice. Therefore we
should not let the jews take the Christ out of Christmas. Rather, we
should celebrate our Redeemer on that day and on every other day.
However if the Christmas holiday is the day upon which we can be with
our kin, and attest our love for them and for Christ too, then we
must certainly take advantage of it as best we can.
So to hell with the antichrists!
Transform the pagan winter holiday into a true celebration of Christ.
And in the meantime pray for His return, that He may make all new
things, and make gone His enemies.
- William Finck
