Ronnie W. Rogers, “Taking every thought captive…”

According to the Associated Press, Gallup polls from 1994 to 2005 consistently show that more than 90 percent of adults say they celebrate Christmas, including 84 percent of non-Christians.

Some Christians—as well as secularists, Muslims, Hindus, etc.—believe that Christians should not celebrate Christmas because the Bible does not command us to celebrate Christ’s birth, it has its origins in the pagan celebration of the birthday of the sun god Tammuz, and/or it is too commercialized.

I am one of those who think we should celebrate Christmas, these and other arguments not withstanding.

The Bible does not tell us to celebrate each other’s birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Mother’s or Father’s days…and it seems to me that if we are going to celebrate any birthday, it should be Christ’s.

Further, there are many things that we support or do that Scripture neither explicitly commends nor condemns.  However we are commanded to be thankful for all things (Ephesians 5:20), and if our Christmas is a time of sharing and thanksgiving to God, it seems to be honoring to Him.

As for the pagan connection, so are the names of our week—Saturday for the god Saturn, Sunday for the sun god, but we do not consider changing them.  In addition, one could argue that it is good to change a day honoring a false god into a day that honors the one true God. 

In addition, according to Greg Peters, an assistant professor and expert in early church history at Biola University, “There is also a theory that Dec. 25 was picked based on some early Christian sources that say that Jesus’ death would have been on March 25, based on the year and when the Passover happened….[he] also explains that according to ancient rabbinic practice, one’s death date was one’s birth date.  In case of Jesus, it was March 25.  Also in rabbinic tradition, birth is the same as conception.  Therefore, if Jesus was “conceived” on March 25th, you add nine months and get Dec. 25.”

As for the fact that Christmas has been over-commercialized, this warrants only de-commercializing your Christmas not eliminating it.

Christmas is a wonderful time to give thanks to God, to celebrate family, life, and eternal life; sing about God’s bountiful love toward us, recommit ourselves to sharing the gospel, and thereby honor God.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

God created man and placed him over the natural world, which includes the earth, the fruit of the earth, and the animal kingdom (Genesis 1:26, 2:1-18).  This vision clearly places man over nature and signifies that he is more important than the natural world, as well as allowing him to enjoy and profit from its bounty, to wit capitalism and ownership of private property.

Many secularists and environmentalists reject this understanding as too anthropocentric or “speciesist” and promote a “biocentric” vision, which makes man merely a part of the natural world, possibly even a detriment, but clearly not over it.  This is simply biological egalitarianism. 

Of course, the “biocentric” view is actually nothing more than romanticism. Humans are the only ones who have the rational and moral ability to be stewards of the environment.  In a purely “biocentric” world where everything is equal, there is no real stewardship.  In other words, if we are not making decisions about the environment, there will be no decisions regarding stewardship of the environment, i.e. do not look for an environmental symposium led by monkeys and attended by dolphins.

The Acton Institute offers a third alternative—which is the biblical vision—and that is a “theocentric” view.  This God-centered approach is the Christian approach, which recognizes the role of man and private and free enterprise as well as government involvement.

In this view, man is essentially more valuable and higher than nature and has been charged by God to govern and benefit from it (Matt 20:13-15).  However, the fall of man into sin made man most capable of turning liberty in license and stewardship into abuse.  Consequently government is to play a role in holding man accountable for such (Romans 13:1-7). 

However, since government is also composed of sinful humans, governmental power may also be abused (Ps. 94:20; 1 Samuel 8).  Therefore, government must be limited as in our Constitution and as taught in the Scripture, in both power (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) and division of power – judicial, legislative, and executive reflected in God as the Judge, Lawgiver, and King (Isa. 33:22). 

Consequently, in a Christian or “theocentric” approach, capitalism, profit, private ownership, limited government, and personal responsibility and accountability are the ingredients for solving the environmental questions of our day.

In a televised debate with Alan Keyes, Alan Dershowitz argued that he did not believe in God, while maintaining that people who do not believe in God can establish and do what is right, and there is no need to invoke God for us to be a moral society.  He said repeatedly in one form or another, all we have to do, is do what is right.  That became his mantra for refuting the idea that we need God to know right and wrong.  All we need to do is what is right, he would say.

The question from the audience for Dershowitz was this, “What makes something right?”  Following is his response.

It’s a question I’m actually writing a book about. It’s called “Doing Right.”  In my book, I reject natural law.  I also reject simple legal positivism.  If something is right, you have to struggle over that.  It’s very, very difficult.  There are no simpleminded answers.  It’s not because God says so.  Certainly I don’t hear the voice of God.  I don’t believe any human being has ever heard the voice of God.  But what is right is very difficult. What’s right is what experience has taught us over generations is right.  In my book, I say it’s much easier to know what’s wrong than to know what’s right.  We know what absolute evil is.  We’ve seen it.  We’ve seen it in the name of Secularism: Nazism.  We’ve seen it in the name of atheism: Communism.  We’ve seen it in the name of religion: the inquisitions and the crusades.  We know what evil is.  We know what wrong is.  Right is a process.  Right-ing is a process.  A process of eternal search, beginning from the first human beings, moving through the Greek philosophers, through religious leaders, through civil leaders.  I don’t know what’s right. I know what’s wrong.  But I have something else to tell you folks. You don’t know what’s right.  The minute you think you know what’s right, the minute you think you have the answer to what’s right, you have lost a very precious aspect of growing and developing.  I don’t expect ever to know precisely what’s right, but I expect to devote the rest of my life to trying to find out. (italics added)¹

Now I am really perplexed, if no one knows what is right, then why did he write a book about it–whatever it is?  If one does not know what right is, then how pray tell may one know what is evil since evil is the absence of right?  Moreover, how does Dr. Dershowitz know that no one else knows what right is, for that seems to make him all knowing and able to determine that someone does not possess what he cannot even identify.  A fortiori, why should anyone read his book, which by his own admission is not right since he does not know what is right and has no intention of ever knowing? 

Lastly, while I do agree that Dr. Dershowitz has never heard the voice of God, which is undeniably true  since he does not know what is right; I take exception to his averring that “[no other] human has ever heard the voice of God” since he gives no evidence for such a Brobdingnagian claim. 

It seems quite clear to me when faced with the option of believing Dr. Dershowitz’s claim—having already conceded that he does not know what is right—or believing Jesus’ claim, to not only know truth, but to be truth (John 14:6), for which he gave ample supporting evidence,  it makes little sense to side with Dershowitz.

1. http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=159474-1 [↩]