Only Pagans Observe Birthdays?

I just realized As Bereans Did has material on birthdays, but it is hidden all around here and there. We have no post specifically dedicated to the topic. About time I remedied that.

Growing up Armstrongist, we were taught never to celebrate birthdays. "It's pagan," they told us, "The only people in the Bible who celebrate their birthday were pagans, so you're a pagan if you do it, too. ...And don't wear makeup!" The Worldwide Church of God abandoned that position shortly after Herbert Armstrong died. Well, that wasn't official enough for some. I still get email asking about this topic. So, today, I want to investigate birthdays and find out whether or not we're pagan for celebrating them.

There isn't a whole lot of material to present, but I did run across some details I found to be interesting. Care to review birthdays with me? Oh, come on. What else did you have to do right now?

BIBLICAL BIRTHDAYS

In the interest of being thorough, let's see the three explicit instances of birthdays being celebrated in the Bible.

The birthday of Pharaoh (which Pharaoh is not known):

(GEN. 4: 20-22) 20 Now it came to pass on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. 21 Then he restored the chief butler to his butlership again, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them.

Pharaoh's birthday is the only one mentioned in the entire Old Testament. That makes it the only birthday in the Jewish scriptures.

The birthdays of Job's children:

(JOB 1: 4-6) 4 Every year when Job’s sons had birthdays, they invited their brothers and sisters to their homes for a celebration. On these occasions they would eat and drink with great merriment. 5 When these birthday parties ended—and sometimes they lasted several days—Job would summon his children to him and sanctify them, getting up early in the morning and offering a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said, “Perhaps my sons have sinned and turned away from God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.

Job did not think his children having birthdays was a sin, he only conjectured that perhaps they might have sinned secretly in one way or the other while they were partying.

The birthday of Herod Antipas:

(MAT. 14: 6-7) 6 But when Herod’s birthday was celebrated, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod. 7 Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.

(MAR. 6: 21-23) 21 Then an opportune day came when Herod on his birthday gave a feast for his nobles, the high officers, and the chief men of Galilee. 22 And when Herodias’ daughter herself came in and danced, and pleased Herod and those who sat with him, the king said to the girl, “Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.” 23 He also swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half my kingdom.”

And don't forget this next one..

The birthday of Jesus:

(LUK. 2: 9-14) 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

I prefer to include Jesus in the list of birthdays celebrated because the angels rejoiced at His birth, and because of the many people who will not have anything to do with birthdays mainly because of Christmas.

Was the incarnation of our Lord not a miraculous work of God, foretold by prophets, attended by angels, accompanied by signs (the star, the presence of John the Baptist, the visitations both to Mary and Joseph, born of a virgin, the death of the innocents), rich with prophetic imagery (the manger prophesying Jesus as true food from Heaven, the prophetic words of Elizabeth calling Mary the Mother of her Lord, the gifts of the Magi predicting Jesus' death), and did it not fulfill the specific timing as prophesied in Daniel?? The birth was no small event!

Some may balk since Jesus' birth was not a birthday celebration later in His life. I do recognize that and concede the point. Therefore, for the rest of the article I will try to leave it out. Today's post doesn't need it.

As an aside, there are some striking similarities between the accounts of Pharaoh and Herod Antipas. I think you would be very interested if you dug into that.

COMMONERS AND KINGS

If I were to ask you what is one thing all birthdays in the Bible have in common, what would you say? Probably that they are celebrated by pagans, I'd guess. Unfortunately, Job's children make off with that claim. Have you considered that they were celebrated by the wealthy and by kings..?

Job's children, Pharaoh, Herod Antipas - they were clearly advantaged. That is how things were until quite recently. According to the article "The Strange Origins of American Birthday Celebrations" on The Atlantic, until the 1800's, birthdays were rarely for common folk. How many of you honor President's Day in the United States? That was originally George Washington's birthday. Congress declared Washington's birthday a national holiday in 1879. In 1971, the federal holiday was moved from February 11 to the third Monday in February. There is also the slightly lesser-known Lincoln's Birthday. I mention these days because this is typical throughout history. Birthdays were usually for the societal upper crust.

That's just how things were. They had their way of doing things and we have ours, and the two are not the same. That doesn't make either one better or worse. It just makes groups of people think differently about birthday celebrations. It is possible people simply did not think of birthday celebrations as something common folk would do. You go to work on your birthday, peasant, that's what you do.

Society had structures, and most people who weren't in the appropriate social strata would not do those kinds of things. It's not just birthdays that were like this. People often didn't wear clothes of other social strata, or hold jobs, or use titles, or occupy the same spaces, or travel on the same level of the ship, or eat meat often, or any number of other things that were outside of their status. That's just the way the world was, and in many ways still is. It does not appear birthdays became the norm for common folk until the 1800's, when several societies started removing those social stratus barriers between the common and elite.

If you do a study into history, you will find some older practices that were really quite different from what we do today. That doesn't have any bearing on whether or not we are pagans. We aren't. I absolutely reject "once pagan, always pagan". We can place any guilt we may feel at the feet of an ancient Christian writer, Origen.

For more on the subject of "once pagan, always pagan" see our article "Peddlers of Paganism".

ORIGEN

Well, sadly, it seems we cannot have a conversation about birthdays in the Bible without mentioning Origen. That old Armstrongist quote-mining favorite. So, let's get this over with.

Origen touched on birthdays in two of his works from around the years 238-248 AD. Quite early! One I will quote, the other I will ignore. You can read the second quote, which I am ignoring, in his "Commentary on Matthew', available online at the Sacred Texts website. He just condemns birthdays as pagan and claims people who celebrate birthdays dance to the Devil. I just don't want to waste any more space on that than is absolutely necessary, so I will make you aware of it and move on back to Homilies on Leviticus.

On to quote 1....

Here are the actual words of Origen on the subject, from his "Homilies on Leviticus", translated into English:

"But Scripture also declares that one himself who is born whether male or female is not clean from filth although his life is of one day. 16 And that you may know that there is something great in this and such that it has not come from the thought to any of the saints; not one from all the saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had joy on the day of the birth of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of birthday . For indeed we find in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt, celebrating the day of his birth with a festival, 17 and in the New Testament, Herod. ls However, both of them stained the festival of his birth by shedding human blood. For the Pharaoh killed "the chief baker 19 Herod, the holy prophet John in prison. 20 But the saints not only do not celebrate a festival on their birth days, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, they curse that day."
-Origen, "Homilies on Leviticus", volume VIII. 
Taken from Gary Wayne Berkley, "The Fathers of the Church A New Translation", volume 83, "Homilies on Leviticus 1-16", CUA Press, 2010, p.156.
(You can download a copy of your own for free from Zlip.pub.)

Now, you will want a little context. This entire section of Origen's homily is about this one verse:

(LEV. 12: 2) "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her customary impurity she shall be unclean."

Origen is trying to expound on the uncleanness of the woman and the child. Origen is making a case that normal humans, including the greatest prophets, are unclean because of their conception and their birth. Then, he makes the case how that does not apply to Mary, because she is a virgin and never conceived in the normal way (in some places, it seems like Origen believes she did not conceive at all, even though Matthew and Luke say she did). The exception applies to Jesus as well.
He makes his distinction for Mary and Jesus, and then he continues on about universal uncleanness for everyone else. That brings us to the where the quote above appears.

When Origen gets to this section I quoted above, he is trying to make the case that all humans are unclean from birth, and birth should not be celebrated by us because we are unclean. He goes on to show how we should curse our birth, even saying the Holy Spirit would lead us into cursing our own birth. (So, when Jesus says it would be better if the one who betrays him was never born, we should all feel that way about ourselves? I don't think so.) He gives examples of Job, David, and Jeremiah. Then, he explains this uncleanness is why the Church performs baptism even on infants. (Recall, he wrote Homilies on Leviticus between 238 and 244. Quite early!)

That is the context of the quote on birthdays.

Do you agree with all of that? I bet you don't. I certainly do not. I have three large issues with it.

1) Not moral uncleanness but ceremonial.

The first major problem I have with Origen's concept of uncleanness is he makes the uncleanness about moral uncleanness. You can see the concept of Original Sin hiding in here. I disagree that the uncleanness in Leviticus 12 is moral. Rather, the uncleanness is ceremonial.

Unclean people were not sinners, per se, rather, they were ceremonially impure and unfit to occupy sacred space or join in the sacred assembly. This uncleanness is taken care of by waiting a few days and offering sacrifices. Childbirth is directly in line with many, many other causes of ritual uncleanness described in the Old Testament, including such things as menstruation, touching a carcass or dead body, touching someone who was unclean, sickness, and etc. This same uncleanness affects animals and inanimate objects. Can dishes sin? No. None of these are moral; all of these are ceremonial. There was no need to go on and on about how we are all unclean from conception and birth, pleading a special exception for Mary and Jesus, because this was never permanent moral uncleanness to begin with. It was all temporary ceremonial uncleanness. And at the end of the day, it did apply to Mary and Jesus after all, as you can read in Luke 2:

(LUK. 2: 22-24) 22 Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”), 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

This is Mary obeying the law in Leviticus 12, which absolutely is about ritual impurity. For Origen to make a way that it did not apply to her is to contradict Luke. (There used to be a church holiday called Candlemas that honored this very event.)

But none of this applies to us in the New Covenant.

2) Ceremonial uncleanness not in the New Covenant.

The second major problem I have with Origen is that there is no ceremonial uncleanness in the New Covenant. That is entirely an Old Covenant thing. This objection needs no lengthy explanation. It really is as simple as that. Origen speaks out against birthdays because of a cleanliness system that does not apply to us. I go over ceremonial law a little more in the post "Is Ceremonial Law Removed?"
The entire foundation of Origen's argument is gone.

We are left with his claim that it was only observed in the Bible by pagans.

3) He left out Job's children.

The third major problem I have with Origen is that he only gives Pharaoh and Herod Antipas as his evidence. Except .. he left out Job's children. Given what we know about Job and how he would pray with his children, we can see they were clearly faithful people. Only, they were faithful people who knew how to party. That doesn't make them bad people or pagans.

About that paganism, notice Origen never calls Pharaoh or Herod "pagans". He calls them murderers. His complaint was they shed blood on their birthdays. Job's children definitely didn't do that. I would hardly say it is a compelling argument that no one should celebrate their birthday because Pharaoh and Herod had people killed on theirs. Well, better stop keeping Passover, then. Pilate had someone killed on that day.

The people who use Origen to support their condemnation of birthdays probably do not understand Origen to begin with, but I bet they would also have major problems with Origen if they did understand him. Many would certainly not agree with original sin or infant baptism. I personally hope they would not agree that the Holy Spirit would lead us to curse our birth. So, do they quote Origen as an authoritative source, or just because he is convenient? Clearly, they don't think he is authoritative if they think he is a pagan himself who professes heretical beliefs (heretical to their own systems, I mean). Therefore, it is clear they quote him only because he conveniently says a few words they agree with.

Is Origen as an example of what the early church believed about birthdays? I would not go so far as to hold Origen up as the standard for his time. He was influential and respected, but some of his ideas were unconventional. If this was typical, peddlers of paganism would find other authors of his time to quote.

And that, dear reader, is yet another in a long line of examples of how people will quote mine for things that want to hear regardless of all else.

HEROD ANTIPAS

I actually have a problem 3b.

You probably came here because you heard the only people in the Bible who celebrated their birthdays were pagans. That is what I was told in my days in Armstrongism. Is it true that in the Bible only pagans celebrate their birthdays? No. As we have already seen, Job's children were not pagans. But there is one other non-pagan to discuss: Herod Antipas.

Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great. He was half Edomite on his father's side and half Samaritan on his mother's. Was Herod Antipas a pagan? Surprisingly, no. He was religiously Jewish!

The Jewish Encyclopedia article on Herod Antipas says this about him:

"It is true that, at least ostensibly, he complied with the more important ordinances of the Jewish faith, and that he went to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts."
-"Antipas (Herod Antipas)", Jewish Encyclopedia, 2015, https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7602-herod-antipas. Accessed Nov 3, 2024.

See? Jewish. Go ahead, Google what Herod's religion was. You'll find it was Jewish. It doesn't matter if you think Herod Antipas was a bad Jew. The fact remains he was a practicing Jew. Ergo, by definition he was not a pagan. At the very least, he was not a pagan in the same way Pharaoh was.

The Jewish Encyclopedia article goes on to show that Antipas was hated and did nothing to counter that. Origen, in his Homilies on Matthew, which I did not quote, says Herod Antipas was a worse man than Pharaoh. So, we can conclude Herod Antipas was universally seen as a bad Jew. But if you want to compare bad Jewishness, Solomon was arguably worse yet. So, there's that.
In Herod's defense, he did not want John the Baptist killed. He had carelessly walked into a trap. It was his wife and daughter that were the worse offenders here. Herod was just too weak to stand up and insist their request was unreasonable.

Therefore, the initial claim that the only people in the Bible who celebrated birthdays were pagans is false. Two out of three explicit references to birthday celebrations were non-pagans. That is all that some churches make their stand on against birthdays, and it's not even true.

That will be of little use against people dead set on the accusation of paganism. To them, everyone not in their own system are pagans. So, to them, Job's children and Herod were pagans, regardless. And so are you and I. Case closed.
I simply cannot and will not agree with that.

NOT IGNORED

The point in todays' article is to investigate birthday celebrations, but I want to make a very brief detour.

Understand that birthdays are not ignored by people in the Bible, or even by the Jews outside of the Bible. When I listed the birthdays from the Bible, what I gave you were the three explicit mentions of birthday celebrations. One might conclude that means those were the only mentions, and therefore birthdays were largely ignored. That is not so. What I have not given you are the many, many times ages were mentioned.

People knew how old they were. They had to know their birthday, or roughly know, in order to know how old they were.

Think of all the times you heard a person's age in the Bible. Also, one had to know their birthday to determine things like the age of accountability, the age of eligibility for military service, or coming of age celebrations like bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs (which are inherently a celebration of age), just to name three.

So, people did know their birthdays. They just didn't usually celebrate them.

The ones who lean towards birthdays being pagan will think this is a useless point to make. "Knowing their age is beside the point," they will say, "it is the celebration that is pagan not the knowledge." I hear this complaint. I agree this argument here is weak. But I do mention it for a reason. My reason is to nudge your thinking toward the idea that there is a lot more to the discussion of birthdays in the Bible than just three explicit mentions. There is a lot more to it even than what I've shown you here in this post.

I will recommend another item for you to read, which you can find for free online. There was once an online publication called "Halachically Speaking". They dive into detail on the Jewish perspective on birthdays in volume 9 issue 11, titled "Happy Birthday", dated 2015, written  by Rabbi Moishe Dovid Lebovits and reviewed by Rabbi Benzion Schiffenbauer Shlita. You can find it on the Wayback Machine.

There are some confusing terms in it for non-Jews, but overall it is easily understood. They touch on things it would take me far too much space and words to review, including such things as:

• Jews are not necessarily against birthdays,
• There are birthdays mentioned in the Bible indirectly,
• Birthdays were not ignored by people in the Bible,
• Birthdays in extra-biblical Jewish literature. 

NOT RELIGIOUS

I want you to keep in mind another very important point: Birthdays are not religious celebrations. If they are not religious, then they are not pagan. Pagan, by definition, has to do with religious matters. Pagans can celebrate their birthdays, but birthdays are not by nature pagan.

Birthdays are entirely secular. Birthdays are every bit as secular as the Fourth of July ...the birthday of America. Do you know anyone who condemns secular national holidays like Independence Day, Cinco de Mayo, and etc? I don't. (I'm sure someone out there does.) During my time in Armstrongism, I was never taught to avoid those days. What's the difference? There is none.

Birthdays are just anniversaries. Do you celebrate your wedding anniversary? Then don't throw rocks at birthdays.

Some people will not celebrate the birth of their Lord and Savior but they will celebrate the birth of their nation or their marriage. So, they are not against all birthdays, just specific ones. 

What's more, there are people who say we should not have any celebration that is not specifically commanded in the Bible. Where did they get that notion? Not from the Bible! (Please read Martha's article "Established and Imposed".)

But let's go with that. The new standard is, we can't do anything the Bible doesn't command us to do. Well, the Bible says nothing for or against birthdays. Condemning birthdays is not something we are commanded to do in the Bible! So, why are people doing it? The Bible is neither here nor there about birthday celebrations. It only mentions them as part of the narrative of events. It never says they are good or bad. It seems to me the weakest of all arguments to say if the Bible is against something, don't do it, but if the Bible is not against something, don't do it.

CONCLUSION

We have gone over some things today!

It is not true that in the Bible only pagans celebrate their birthdays. Job's kids were faithful. Herod Antipas was a Jew.
What is true, however, is that only people who explicitly celebrated their birthdays in the Bible were wealthy. Birthdays were for the upper echelons until quite recently, but not because they were rejected as pagan, rather because of societal norms. It seems reasonable to conclude it was the tearing down of social strata in the 1700s and 1800s that led to common birthdays.
Birthdays were not ignored in the Bible. Other birthdays besides the three explicit references are hinted at. Jews are not necessarily against birthdays.
Birthdays are not religious celebrations, they are secular, therefore they are not able to be "pagan" any more than Independence Day or wedding anniversaries.
Origen tried to apply guilt by association, but he misunderstood who kept a birthday in the Bible as well as what the nature of uncleanness is in Leviticus. We know the accusation that only pagans observed birthdays is false. We don't find it compelling to stop just because someone was killed on the day. We know the uncleanness was ceremonial only, and does not apply in the New Covenant. So, any guilt by association is removed.

What is left? Nothing much at all. I would say birthday celebrations come out rather clean in this investigation. Seems to me that makes the answer 'yes'. Yes, Christians may celebrate birthdays.

Were you accused of being a pagan for celebrating a birthday? You can see it was a baseless accusation, made by someone parroting something they heard but did not genuinely understand. People will accuse you of paganism for many things besides just birthdays. If you are considering giving up birthdays because someone accused you of paganism, don't fool yourself that it will help. You will only find you are accused for something else. It is an endless chase. In the end, will you find grace and peace?

I am not here to talk people into celebrating birthdays. My usual disclaimer for things like this is - if you feel guilty about it, don't do it. But research it to see if you feel guilty reasonably or unreasonably, rightfully or mistakenly. Hopefully today's post helped you do just that.

May God guide you to a life that glorifies Him, regardless.

Oh! And a happy belated birthday to you!

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Samhain Was Not On October 31

One thing As Bereans Did has never put through the patented gauntlet is Halloween. I personally am not all too interested in researching Halloween. Well, until recently, that is.

Two things have changed my mind somewhat.
The first is, when the God Cannot Be contained blog put up their post "Samhain and Halloween", I found a small desire to comment on a few points. It's a good post! Check it out.
The second is, last evening I decided to sneak around the internet for Armstrongist material against holidays. (I sometimes wonder if I do this to punish myself.) I started at COGWA's "Life, Hope, and Truth" blog, where they currently have a couple articles on Halloween highlighted. I wasn't looking for a Halloween post. I was hoping for a Christmas one. But, ya work with what ya got, I suppose. I poked around in the one titled "Answering Four Excuses To Celebrate Halloween". It has some terrible information. Surprise! Bet you didn't see that coming.

Here is a quote from the article:

"Both Halloween and All Saints’ Day originate from the ancient pagan Celtic festival of Samhain. Notice what History.com writes about this pagan festival (still celebrated by many Wiccans today):

'This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth' (History of Halloween). 

The Catholics changed the celebration of the dead to the celebration of dead saints in heaven. But, as we see on Halloween, many of the dark themes have remained.'"

-Eddie Foster. (10-8-2024) "Answering Four Excuses To Celebrate Halloween". Life Hope and Truth. 

Here are two points of many that I didn't agree with:

• "Both Halloween and All Saints’ Day originate from the ancient pagan Celtic festival of Samhain."
  False!
  Halloween comes from All Saints Day, and All Saints has nothing to do with Samhain.
• "On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain."
  False!
  Originally, the Celts did not use the Roman calendar. No one knows how they calculated Samhain, but it was according to their own methods not the Roman.

As you can see, the blog post references History.com article "Halloween 2024", which used to bear the title "History of Halloween". https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween
I like it that they at least cited something. Problem is, that article has some terrible information. We have seen that from History before.

Let's dig down into those points.

POINT #1 - ALL HALLOWS

Point #1 was: "Both Halloween and All Saints’ Day originate from the ancient pagan Celtic festival of Samhain." This is false. Let's explore.

Halloween comes from the Catholic holy day called All Saints Day. All Saints is also known as All Hallows and Hallowmas (hallow is an old word meaning holy). Halloween is the Eve of All Hallows. That is what Halloween means - All Hallows Eve. Halloween does not come from Samhain, it comes from All Saints Day. The day after All Saints is All Souls. All Hallows Eve, All Saints, and All Souls together became known as Hallowtide and Allhallowtide.

All Saints Day shares absolutely no origins whatsoever with Samhain. All Saints has roots in the Jewish practice of honoring martyrs. (For more, read "Martyrdom in Jewish Tradition" at Boston College.) From the start, Christian martyrs were honored on the date they were killed. (For more, read "How the Early Church Viewed Martyrs" on Christianity Today.) Open persecution by the Romans made more martyrs than was reasonable to honor on their individual death-dates. So, various areas decided to create a single day to honor all their martyrs. Different areas, different dates, same goal.
All Saints unified those various traditions and was enlarged to honor all the dead in Heaven. And that is why the day after All Saints is All Souls. Due to the doctrine of Purgatory, All Souls is dedicated to all faithful departed who have not yet entered Heaven.

Now that you have the summary, let's look at the details.

Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon in Rome (yes that Pantheon) to Mary and all martyrs on May 13 in 609 AD (Bede, "Ecclesiastical History of England", book II, chapter IV). That memorial was for the area of Rome only, and did not apply to the entire church. Various areas still held their own memorials. You can read about celebrations for all martyrs on days like April 20, or the first Sunday after Pentecost in Orthodox areas.

We can be confident Boniface IV did not do this to coopt Samhain, because 1) it was a church dedication, 2) to Christian martyrs, 3) it was half a year off, and 4) it was a local event to the region of Rome and had nothing to do with other areas.

The first time November 1st enters the equation is when Pope Gregory III dedicated an altar in a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica to all saints on November 1, 735 AD. This changed the focus from martyrs to all saints in heaven. This is where the name All Hallows ultimately originates, because this dedication was not just about martyrs only but all saints -- all holies. And it still did not apply to the entire church. Notice that this did not necessarily "move" anything. The Pantheon is still dedicated to Mary and all martyrs to this day. If anything, all it did was duplicate days. There were two memorials in Rome now, one to martyrs and one to saints in Heaven, in addition to memorials in other areas.
We can be confident Gregory III did not do this to coopt Samhain, because 1) it was an altar dedication, 2) to Christian departed in Heaven, 3) he seems to have done it in protest to Emperor Leo III's iconoclasm, 4) he held a conclave to counter the Emperor's iconoclasm on that very same day, and 5) it was a local event to the region of Rome and had nothing to do with other areas.
(For more, read the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Pope St. Gregory III. Also see Horace K. Mann "The Lives of the Popes" volume 1 part 1 p. 205.)

Finally, in 835 AD, Pope Gregory IV made November 1 the official date for the Feast of All Saints for the entire western church. Applying the feast to the whole church is what he did differently than his predecessors. He didn't do it coopt anything, since he chose a date that had been relevant in his own area for 100 years. He did it for uniformity. He was merging multiple scattered but related traditions into one.
We can be confident Gregory IV did not do this to coopt Samhain, because 1) all he did was unify all western traditions into one, and 2) he chose a day that already had this significance in his area.
(For more, see Horace K. Mann "The Lives of the Popes" volume 2 p. 230.)

To summarize what we just read:

• In 609 AD Pope Boniface IV created a memorial to all martyrs on May 13.
• In 735 AD Pope Gregory III created a memorial to all departed saints in Heaven on November 1, apparently as part of his dispute with the Byzantine Emperor.
• Lastly, in 835 AD Pope Gregory IV expanded the all saints memorial to the whole church.

That is how All Saints began. Notice how I said nothing about Samhain. It did not factor in.

A popular claim on the internet is that one or the other Pope Gregory moved the date to November 1 specifically to counter the popularity of Samhain. That seems to come from Sir James Frazer, author of "The Golden Bough". We talk about him in our Christmas articles. He was in the German History of Religions School, whose ideas are now all but rejected by modern researchers.

We've put ourselves into the shoes of an Italian. Now, let's briefly put ourselves into the shoes of these Celts we've been talking about. Particularly the Celts in the British Isles, because the Celts of the European mainland were thoroughly Christian.

The Celtic religion was heavily persecuted by the Roman Empire (itself extinct in the west by that time). The Romans were against the Celtic practice of human sacrifice. The Celtic native religion was in a state of heavy decline in areas of Roman control. It was becoming Roman. When the Romans evacuated from the Britain, the Celts fought amongst themselves within the power vacuum. When Christian evangelists arrived in Britain, it was to a people generally in a state of religious confusion. Converting them wasn't "easy" per se, but it was successful. By the time Pope Gregory III created All Saints on November 1, the Druids were all but gone, the Celts in the British isles were being conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, they were both being invaded by the Norsemen, and the Christians had real structure. If anything, Samhain was getting less and less popular, not more.

As you can see, there are several problems with claiming All Saints comes from Samhain. The basic claim that Samhain was so popular the Pope felt threatened and had to coopt it is just not realistic. Certainly, the way to coopt it would not be to make a feast day for the area of Rome only.

POINT #2 - OCTOBER 31

Point #2 was: "On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain." This is false. Let's dig into why.

Samhain was not on November 1. Samhain was not on October 31 either. Hard to coopt a festival by getting the date wrong.

We can say Samhain was not on these dates because the luni-solar calendar the Celts used did not line up to the Roman calendar. I've said this so very many times in other articles, but here we go again. The Celts did not have an October or a November. The Celts had a luni-solar calendar that did not align to any of the Roman calendars. Nothing the Celts did was always on any particular Roman date. Judging from the only Celtic calendar we have, the Coligny Calendar, we can see their calendar was more like the old Jewish calendar than the Roman. No one knows exactly how the Druids determined when Samhain was to occur, but we don't have to know that. All we need is their calendar. We can be completely confident they didn't use the Roman calendar, ergo we can be completely confident nothing they did was always on such and such a Roman date. We will expand on this idea later on. But the point here is - that the Pope set a fixed date at all demonstrates he wasn't coopting Samhain. Some people look at the claims against Christmas, where they say Christmas coopted Natalis Invicti, and then they try to repeat that claim elsewhere, like Halloween coopted Samhain. But in the case of Christmas, we are talking about one holiday that used the Roman calendar supposedly coopting another holiday that used the Roman calendar. Samhain was not determined by the Roman calendar. So, setting a Roman date is not going to coopt anything from another culture that didn't use Roman dates.

CELTIC CALENDAR vs JULIAN vs GREGORIAN

I promised to come back to the calendar issue. We need to talk about this.

The popular claim is that Samhain was always on October 31, and that forced Pope Gregory III to move All Saints to November 1 to coopt it, and therefore Halloween/All Saints is really Samhain. None of that is true. Let's think about why not.

Before we do, I want to warn you that this is going to be a bit technical. I apologize in advance. To summarize what we will do next - I am going to walk you through three Roman calendars. The point is, no foreign calendar matched any one Roman calendar, let alone all three. This is the most important point in my entire article. This proves no Druidic festival was always on such and such a date.

Roman Republic Period

Imagine yourself going back in time. Back, back, way back. The year is 100 BC (a date I chose completely at random). The Druids are in their heyday. Celts populate central and western Europe and the British isles. They were also pushing southeast, to the Mediterranean and into Turkey (think Galatians). It is October 31 on the calendar of the Roman Republic.
Now I ask you - what calendar are the Romans using?
Answer: the pre-Julian calendar.

Why is that important? Because, as I've discussed in many other posts, that Roman calendar was a hot mess.

I will quote from my article "Quotes Before Christmas":

"Rome was founded in the 700's BC. For the first few centuries they had no winter months at all. In the 500's BC, February was in the place of December. Around 450 BC they moved December to the end of the year. After that, the calendar was regularly manipulated for political purposes. In 46 BC, Julius Caesar completely revamped the calendar. In 8 BC Augustus corrected the calendar."

Do you see how the Celtic calendar could not match up with the mess of a calendar used in the Roman Republic in such a way that we can say Samhain was always on such and such a date? You couldn't rely on the Roman calendar to be the same year to year. Samhain was not always on October 31 in this period. The farther back in time you go, the worse it gets. If it was, it was only in some years, only because of sheer dumb luck, and we can never know which years. We cannot be sure Samhain was ever on October 31. We cannot claim it never was, but we can be sure "Samhain was always on October 31" is not an option.

Julian Period

Now, we move forward in time. The year is 735 AD. Imagine yourself in that time. Pope Gregory III just dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to all saints. The western Roman Empire has come and gone. Gregory III is in a dangerous struggle with Byzantine Emperor Leo III regarding icons. He has called a conclave from all areas of the west to protest the Emperors iconoclasm. The Celts in the British isles have been pushed north and west by the Anglo-Saxons. The Druids are practically extinct, except possibly in quite remote areas. It is 550 years since the first Christian King in Britain (Bede, "Ecclesiastical History of England", book I, chapter IV). The Venerable Bede is said to have just died. Charlemagne won't be born for 12 more years. Vikings will be coming to raid Britain in the next few years. It is November 1 on your Roman calendar.

Now, I ask you - what calendar are you using?
Answer: the Julian calendar.

Why is that important? Because you are now on your second Roman calendar system, and it loses time. 

The Julian calendar is not like the pre-Julian calendar. Dates on the Roman calendar have moved because the whole system was replaced. The entire math behind it is new, it went from lunar to solar, days were added, months were rearranged, it was an overhaul. Did that move Samhain? No. The Romans changing their calendar wouldn't affect any other calendar at all, including the Celts'. If there was any alignment between Samhain and October 31 before the Julian calendar, that alignment is now even harder to achieve. Not only that, but due to a flaw in the Julian calendar, the dates slip by one day every 130 years. November 1 to Pope Gregory is 5 days off from that of Julius Caesar. But dates are not moving around on the Celtic calendar. The farther forward in time you go, the farther apart they get.
Given these conditions, how can anyone say Samhain was always on such and such a date? They cannot.

Even if the Celts tied their festivals to the sun (which most people do not think they did), it still wouldn't match the Roman calendar because of what we just talked about.

Gregorian Period

Now, we move forward in time again. The year is 1582. Pope Gregory XIII has just implemented a correction to the Julian calendar that fixed its math problem and will stop the time drift the west has endured since 46BC. Most pagan groups in Europe are long gone. No one observes Samhain anymore. Chris Columbus has sailed the ocean blue. Martin Luther and King Henry VIII are dead, and the Protestant Reformation is in full swing. The date is Friday, October 15. And yesterday was October 4. (No, not 14th. Fourth.)
Now, I ask you - what calendar are you using?
Answer: The Gregorian calendar.

Why is that important? Because you are now on your third Roman calendar system, and this one is ten days off from the last. 

If Samhain could not match up to the first or the second periods, how much less the third? By 1582, the Julian calendar had lost almost 13 days. This was seriously affecting Easter. The Gregorian reform advanced the calendar by 10 days. The position of the year was reset back to the way it was in 325 AD, the year of the Council of Nicaea. Samhain didn't move, but October 31 and November 1 did. By ten days! Thursday October 4, 1582, was followed by Friday October 15. There was no October 5 through 14 that year. Not on the Gregorian calendar, anyway.

And the Gregorian calendar did not catch on all at once because the Protestants and Orthodox didn't care much for the Pope. It took centuries. People used the Gregorian or the Julian, depending on where they were. And they still do! The Orthodox Church still uses the Julian. Two October 31sts. Every year. Which is the right one?

The Samhain was always on such and such a date crowd are now faced with a terrible problem. If Samhain is on October 31 today, then it wasn't on October 31 when All Saints Day was established on November 1 in 735 AD. And if Samhain was on October 31 in 735 AD, then it isn't anymore today. Pick your fail.

Your only other alternative is to say Samhain was changed to match the Roman calendar, like Germanic days were (ie. Yule), which completely undermines the claim that All Saints was changed to coopt Samhain. It's literally the opposite. Consider how important a point this is. It also screams out loud that the original details of Samhain are unknown (which is true), and people should really stop making unfounded claims.

CELTIC CALENDAR

We have looked at the Roman calendars, now let's look at the Celtic.

In 1897, in Coligny, France, a bronze calendar was found. It is now called the Coligny Calendar. (I mentioned this earlier.) It was in pieces, apparently purposefully destroyed. The chief suspect in its destruction is Rome. As it turns out, this is the only known example of a Celtic calendar.

Coligny Calendar

I have done some reading on this calendar and I would like to give you some details on how it worked.

It seems to have been made in the second century AD. It is a luni-solar calendar - which means it is a lunar calendar with corrections meant to keep from drifting too far out of synch with the solar year. It is a peg calendar, much like the kind used in Rome around that time. It has roman numerals. So, it is definitely influenced by Rome. It has several measurements of time, including days and nights. It has 5-day weeks, six weeks in a month with either 29 or 30-day months (as any lunar calendar will), 12 months in a year, a 5-year annual cycle with leap-months every 2 1/2 years, and a 30-year great cycle (exactly as Pliny mentioned in his "Natural History"). It has names for the months. The month names have meanings, somewhat similar to the German calendar. It does list some festivals.

Some problems include, several pieces are missing, no one knows when the new year was (all claims are speculation only, but the top choice is in the fall), no one knows how the names of the months line up in the year (e.g., is the month of Samonios in the spring or the fall), and we know this calendar is not representative of all Celts.

And let us not overlook the fact that the Celtic calendar was luni-solar. That means leap-months - like our leap day, except it was a whole month. All lunar calendars need leap-months or they cannot stay in synch with the solar calendar. Just like the Jewish calendar has leap-months, the Celtic calendar did too. Leap months change dates. That's the whole point! That means the Celtic calendar was out of synch with the Roman solar calendars regularly.

You have a choice here. If Samhain was based on the Celtic calendar, then it was often a day out of synch with solar events like the equinox and the solstice. But if Samhain was based on solar events, then it was often a day out of synch with their own calendar. Pick your fail.

19-YEAR TIME CYCLES

You can tell from some of these details that the Coligny Calendar behaves similarly to the Jewish calendar. It also has the amazing ability to work in more than one way. If you work the calendar just so, it can count the nineteen-year time cycles necessary to keep the lunar year in alignment with the solar.

Does that phrase "nineteen-year time cycles" seem familiar to you? It was a favorite phrase of Herbert Armstrong's. He said understanding those time cycles was key to understanding prophecy. (For an example, read our post "All Systems Are Go!".) Yet, here we have the pagan Druids using nineteen-year time cycles. Doesn't that make it ... "once pagan, always pagan"?? So, the Worldwide Church of God went around promoting paganism?

I wonder how many people are trying to excuse away their belief in "once pagan, always pagan" right now. Well, welcome to the club! I've rejected it years ago.

UNBROKEN

I have one more small bone to pick with the "Answering Four Excuses" article.

In his article, Eddie Foster said, "Wiccans still celebrate Halloween today," as if to say it's an unbroken continuation. Not so. Wicca was invented in the mid-1900s. They take upon themselves old pagan practices from various cultures that they've read about in history books.
Some pagans in the United States and Europe have read through histories and decided to celebrate Samhain. Because they didn't think about the prior calendar changes (same as most everyone else), and because they didn't know much about the calendar the Druids used (same as most everyone else), they decide to just go with the current thing and put Samhain on October 31. They start spreading the idea that Halloween is Samhain.

Armstrongists come along and say, "Hey! We don't like Halloween anyway. This explanation affirms what we want to hear! Let's publish it like it's true." So, they sell you this story about how it was always like that. But it wasn't always like that. Because it couldn't be! So much for Life, Hope, and Truth.

Do you see how people today take what they see today and then project it backwards in time? That's not right. Don't do that. They also take what was in the recent past and project it backwards into the distant past. We will see that in the next section. That's not right, either. Don't do that.

SAMHAIN AND ETC.

If we are going to be on the subject of Samhain, we might as well hit a few of the highlights for good measure. My main point being demonstrated to death, I will give you a rapid-fire bunch of interesting facts and observations.

Samhain was a harvest festival at summer's end. Samhain was not a "celebration of the dead" as Eddie Foster quipped. They didn't celebrate the dead, they celebrated the harvest. Exactly when summer's end was to those people, no one knows for certain. Pliny, in his "Natural History" book 16 chapter 95, mentions mistletoe was collected, "on the fifth day of the moon, the day which is the beginning of their months and years..." So it appears they followed the moon and their calendar, not the sun. Makes sense. Even with that quote, we only know roughly, but not specifically.

I have read countless articles how Imbolc was February 1, Beltane was May 1, Lughnasa was August 1, and Samhain was ... October 31?? Why is that one always on the 31st, but the rest were on the 1st? Bias. Fact is, none of them were always on any of those dates.
Regarding those days, Ronald Hutton in "Stations of the Sun" page 411, says,

"The notion of a distinctive 'Celtic' ritual year, with four festivals at the quarter-days and opening at Samhain, is a scholastic construction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries [ie. invented by James Frazer and repeated] which should now be considerably revised or even abandoned altogether."

Well. Isn't that interesting!

I've heard the festivals were calculated based on solar events. Even though it was a lunar culture? Well, let's go with that. The equinox is on September 22 and the solstice is on December 21. Those are the wrong dates for sure. So, what is the mid-point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice? That's 90 days. Well, what is 45 days after September 22? November 6. Why, that's the wrong date, too! Do you see how this game is played?

I have read some articles that speculate if Samhain was coopted by Catholics at all, it wasn't All Saints Day that replaced it but Saint Martin's Day (aka Martinmas). Saint Martin's Day, now abandoned, was once the largest festival in that corner of the year. Some sources say it was as big before the Protestant Reformation as Thanksgiving is to us now. It was the Protestant Reformation that killed it. An interesting proposition! But equally difficult to prove out.

Samhain might have had religious overtones, but its primary focus was harvest. It is possible to have a harvest festival with religious overtones and still say it was not a religious day. We do as much every year at Thanksgiving.

Some people say Samhain was a three-day festival. It takes time to kill animals, burn them, feast, and make textiles. No one knows this for sure, however. Perhaps in some areas it was and others it wasn't. Or, perhaps, people today are looking at Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls and using that to make unfounded assumptions that Samhain was three-days long.

You've no doubt heard about the bonfires. Do you know why bonfires are called bonfires? The word means "bone fires". They were large fires where animal bones were burned. Bone ash was used to make all sorts of useful things, including soap. Amos 2: 1 mentions the bones of a king being burned into lime. I want to point out that bone fires were not typically lit at night. They were daytime fires that might last into the night. It does not have to be nighttime to have a fire (have you ever camped?). The word bonfire did not come to mean a large celebratory fire until the 16th century. That is well after Druidic paganism was eliminated. These weren't party fires nor purely religious rituals. They were farming necessities. I am not saying there were no large celebratory fires before the 16th century. I am just saying people need to drop the notion that the word bonfire is always synonymous with a pagan ritual. Also, drop the idea that just because they had a large fire it had to be about fires and had to be at night.
This all reminds me of the Yule Log, which turns out to be a Christian tradition. (For more, see our post "Christmas FAQ" in the section "Does the Yule Log come from pagan Yule traditions?".)

There was no demon/deity named Samhain at all. That is completely false. Yet another example of something everybody needed to know that wasn't true at all. For example, take this quote from the Plain Truth Magazine:

"'The earliest Halloween celebrations were held' - not by the inspired early church, but - 'by the Druids in honor of Samhain, Lord of the Dead, whose festival fell on November 1.' (From Halloween Through Twenty Centuries by Ralph Linton, p. 4)"
-Herman Hoeh, "Halloween Where Did It Come From?", Plain Truth Magazine, Oct 1955, p. 7

Herman Hoeh, "the most accurately informed man in the world". Plain truth, they called it. Mind your sources!

Some people say Halloween is Samhain because of costumes, trick-or-treating, and jack-o'-lanterns. Well, about that....

The practice of dressing up in costume was called "guising" in England. Putting on costume and going around to entertain or to collect charity was called "mumming". Mumming was done at many holidays, especially Christmas. According to Ronald Hutton, in his book "Stations of the Sun", mumming is first mentioned in France in 1263 AD (p. 11). and it grew in popularity for centuries afterward (pp. 11-12). Most of the dressing up kids do today comes from an American tradition from the 1900s. Did some pagans also dress up? Some did. But commonality does not prove causality. It is not reasonable to punt to an ancient tradition when we have a more recent tradition available.

Going door-to-door asking for soul cakes, or prayers, or charity was called "souling". I will leave some links at the end of this post to some websites that discuss souling. That will help you understand that dressing up and going door-to-door is quite Christian. Same as with mumming, souling was done at many holidays, including Christmas. It was a convenient way to raise money for church or charity. Could that have been a Christian thing and a pagan thing? Sure, I guess, but that is not certain. Why would pagans who believe in reincarnation make cakes to get souls out of purgatory? They wouldn't. 

My point in mentioning guising and souling is that trick-or-treats is not prima fascia evidence that Halloween is from Samhain. These claims of pagan origin could be on their heads backwards. It could be pagans adopted Christian ideas. Or, it could be entirely Christian.

But you should know, our modern costume tradition is a purely American phenomenon which is merely inspired by past traditions. It is not a direct continuation. Somebody got the bright idea to dress kids up and send them trick-or-treating to keep them from causing trouble. It worked! For a while. That is your true history of trick-or-treating.

And you should know something about jack-o'-lanterns. Some people say they were pagan, and some people say they started with Guy Fawkes, and some people say they started in the 1700s. I don't know. But I do know this: it was not exclusively a Halloween custom. In the United States in the 1800s, people carved pumpkins for all Fall holidays - Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. Only later did the custom migrate to Halloween only. You can see this in old cookbooks that tell us how to decorate for the holidays. For example, take the following quote from the New York Times November 24, 1895 edition, titled "The Day We Celebrate; Thanksgiving Treated Gastronomically and Socially". The article is about how to host a good Thanksgiving. In a section about how to entertain the children, it suggests a scavenger hunt for nuts, then it says:

"A 'booby' prize, that never fails to please the children, is an old-fashioned jack o' lantern, made from a small pumpkin, and brought in lighted, on a salver, to be presented to the luckless nut hunter."

So, jack-o'-lanterns were ubiquitous in the Fall, therefore they are not evidence Halloween came from Samhain any more than Thanksgiving did. Pagan, maybe. Exclusive to Samhain, no.

Some people say Samhain incorporated elements from the Roman festival of Pomona, the fruit nymph, in November. There is no evidence at all for such a festival for such an obscure nymph. Yet, it circulates in some history books. I dismiss it. Others say Samhain incorporated the Roman festival Feralia, the Roman festival for the dead. However, Feralia was in February. I dismiss this, too. If it was going to adopt something from Rome, why not adopt from Bruma, the Roman festival at the start of winter which occurred on November 24? Alas, I have yet to hear anything like that.

Regarding the idea that during Samhain the dead walked among the living - it is definitely something the Irish really did believe, but probably not the Druidic pagan Irish, because it looks like it might be a later development.

The Druids, you may have heard, did not write anything down. They passed on most of their traditions orally. The only written traditions we have about the ancient Druids come from the Greeks and Romans. When we read what the Greeks and Romans wrote, we see they were under the impression the Druids believed in reincarnation. This leads people to speculate the Druidic religion and the Hindu religion are cousins, from a time when all people lived in deep-ancient Mesopotamia. After death, a soul could take on a new body, either of a human or an animal. I would say it is unlikely anyone would believe the dead walk among the living during a few days each year when they believe in reincarnation. (For more, read "Passing Through the Middle: Death and Reincarnation Amongst the Celts" on Owlcation. I don't usually link to sites like this, but I don't feel like digging up all the quotes for Julius Caesar, and this site seems to have a decent collection already in place.)

The tradition about the closeness of the worlds of the living and the dead come to us in pieces from the British isles, mainly Ireland, and from quite recently. Does that mean it is fake history? No. It just seems to indicate it could be a much later development. No one knows for sure. It might not even be Druidic. Remember, the Druids were Celts, but not all Celts were Druids. The Druids ended, but the Celts continue on to this day. Apparently, I am part Celt myself (if the ever-shifting claims from Ancestry.com can be believed). And most Celts became Christians a millennia ago. It is sometimes difficult to piece together what is later Celtic folklore and what is original Druidic belief. Am I speculating that the formerly reincarnationist Celts could have picked up this otherworldly closeness after converting to Christianity? Yes.

Samhain was not the only festival where the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is thinned. Beltane, on the opposite side of the year around early May, also had this tradition. If anyone gives you the impression that Samhain was unique in its otherworldly closeness, that person is mistaken. Remember when we said Christians had memorials for all martyrs in late April to mid-May? Am I speculating that the formerly reincarnationist Celts could have picked up this otherworldly closeness after converting to Christianity? Yes.

You can be certain of one thing: precisely as people do with Nimrod, people make up definite claims based on imagination, speculation, and a bare minimum of information.

CONCLUSION

"Samhain was always on October 31" is not an option, so choose only one:
A) Samhain was never on October 31.
B) Samhain was accidentally on October 31 anciently, only sometimes, only before 46 BC.
C) Samhain was accidentally on October 31 in the past, only sometimes, for less than 130 years, only somewhere between 46 BC and 1582 AD.
D) Samhain is accidentally on October 31 today, but not every year, only since 1582, but nobody celebrated it during this period until recently.
E) Samhain was actually the one that was changed, so it could be on November 1.

With your choice, you automagically get these two bonus choices:
F) No one really knows exactly how Samhain worked, so we all should stop making unfounded claims.
G) All Saints Day has nothing to do with a Celtic harvest festival.

I declare the whole claim of Samhain always being on October 31, or November 1, or any day on our calendar for that matter, as well as the claim All Saints Day is a continuation of Samhain, did not survive the patented As Bereans Did gauntlet. It simply is not possible, given the details of the Celtic calendar and the three Roman calendars used in the past 2,700 years.

Once again, we see false history being passed off as true in Armstrongism. Once again, we see confirmation bias in place of responsible research. Once again, we see reliance on the un-biblical notion of "once pagan, always pagan". Once again, we see the people who say "the TEN COMMANDMENTS, God's great SPIRITUAL LAW" are bearing false witness against their neighbor. I think it is safe to say COGWA might want to rename their website to 'Life, Hope, and Fiction", or else actually start insisting on truth. Either way is fine with me.

Notice how this post relies mainly on simple logic and math - if one culture's calendar keeps changing, another culture's calendar cannot align with it. Simple. We didn't need to know lost details about Druids and their practices. All we needed was a teensy bit of common sense. Common sense also tells us that people are taking conditions as they see them now and applying them backwards in time thousands of years. We don't agree that's a good idea.

And, yet again, I am supremely disappointed with History (aka the History Channel). *facepalm*

I hope today's post helped you in some way. This is our first post about the whole Halloween thing. You may have noticed this post is not really defending modern Halloween. I spent time defending All Saints instead. Well, that's because I think secular Halloween decorations are disturbing, and I don't agree with them. Remember in my posts like "Where Do We Draw The Line?", I say things like, "If you want to know what my own personal line is, knowing what I know and having experienced what I have experienced, I draw the line at well-informed conscience. Not scrupulosity, but scruples. If I feel guilty about it, I don't do it. Easy peasy. But then I research it. I need to know if I feel guilty reasonably or unreasonably; rightfully or mistakenly." Well, truth is, parts of Halloween make me feel guilty. The bloody, demonic, frightening imagery of secular Halloween is not something I am comfortable with. I don't mind cute little comic book heroes and pretty princesses going trick-or-treating. I don't even mind the vampires and mummies. That doesn't bother me at all. I even read Washington Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" every year. I am not entirely against Halloween because I don't believe in "once pagan, always pagan". But the winged demons and axe murderers and bloody offal and such turn me off. I do not tend to defend Halloween because of all that. Today is the exception. I need to research and ensure I have a well-formed conscience. When I do, I inevitably find some Armstrongist peddler of paganism is out there making a mockery of the truth. For Eddie Foster to denounce it as dark, he had to first invent a way for it to be dark. Then he had to do something dark with it, by which I mean falsely accuse people of paganism. Seriously though, are you really going to go around calling people pagan for made up nonsense while you fail your own definition of paganism for talking about how great 19-year time cycles are? Pot, meet kettle. (Not just Eddie Foster, though, I mean all Armstrongist peddlers of paganism.)
My advice to you, dear reader, beloved of God, is to not offend your conscience. To the Lord do, or to the Lord do not do. But do not judge and condemn your fellow Christians who disagree with your choices. Have a happy Halloween if that's your custom, but I advise avoiding that dark stuff. No, you are not a pagan for keeping Halloween. Dedicate your celebration to Jesus and seek His glory, and it will be well with your soul.

I might as well toss in some helpful links as a parting gift:

"Is Halloween Pagan In Origin And Evil?" on Crosswalk.

"Halloween Hysteria" at Life After WCG blog.

"Halloween - Sifting Historical Facts vs 'Christian' Myths" at God of Green Hope blog.

"Samhain and Halloween" at God Cannot Be Contained blog.

"It's Time For Catholics To Embrace Halloween" on Word On Fire.

"The Origins of Halloween: A Catholic Celebration Rediscovered" on EWTN.

"Souling" on Medieval Histories.

"Souling for Cakes and Beer: The Catholic Tradition of Trick-Or-Treating" on Aleteia.

"Why Christians Can & Should Celebrate Halloween" from InspiringPhilosophy on YouTube. Thanks to ericsjca for this one.

"Is Halloween A Pagan Holiday (And Should We Celebrate It?)" from ShamelessPopery on YouTube.

"Ecclesiastical History of England" by Bede. Available on Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

"The Ancient Irish Get Far Too Much Credit For Halloween" on Ancient Origins.

"Samhain Is Not A God" on Learn Religions.

"'It’s all just a big joke': Halloween, Samhain, and Moral Panics in the 1980s" on Dig Podcast.

"Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages" volume 1 part 1, book by Horace K Mann, on Archive.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Where Do We Draw The Line?

Greetings, dear readers. It's your punctilious proliferator of peeves and profundities, presenting a post about paganism and principles. Today, I would like to talk about where to draw the line with people of weak conscience who take issue with holidays and birthdays. Also, there is something you should know about the people who peddle these message about holidays being evil.
Yes, it is that time of year.

I was reading through my old 2018 article "Three Reasons Why I Stopped Keeping Christmas - Part II", because I honestly could not remember what it was about, and in the comments I noticed a small mention of scruples. To refresh your memory, scruples are, "An uneasy feeling arising from conscience or principle that tends to hinder action" (from the American Heritage Dictionary).
I said in a comment:

"I can promise you that once you start down that road to scrupulosity, there is virtually no end to that road. There is practically no limit to the things a person can question and worry about. You can become a slave to it. Trust me on this one, I have seen some seriously enslaved people who worry about the smallest little things and constantly need reassurance. Their lives are beset by it."
-Me, back then.

Nothing has changed my mind about that statement.
But the reason I said that was in response to a request for more holiday articles on things even like the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving. I never did write those articles. It's not that I thought it was an unreasonable request. I thought at the time it would be more efficient to get directly to the heart of the matter - which I think is scrupulosity.

Scruples are good. Scrupulosity is not. Scrupulosity takes our good conscience and twists it into fear and doubt. It can paralyze us with questions and worries. It can take over our lives. It can negatively affect our relationship with our Savior. Not good!

It can be beneficial to go away from your own posts for a while then visit back again after forgetting all about them. When I am thinking about what to write, I know just what I mean. When I write, that doesn't always come across as I'd thought. Coming back later erases all those thoughts and gives me the perspective of a first-time reader. Many times I say to myself, "I think I know what I was getting at, but it could have been stated so much clearer." This is one of those times.

I had hoped it would be more efficient to comment on scrupulosity rather than write more articles. But I never really explained what I meant by scrupulosity nor gave any advice at all on what to do about it. I was asked about holidays and responded with scrupulosity, and that was that. It all made sense to me back then, but now it seems I sidestepped the request without heeding it at all. Not what I intended!
You know what they say about good intentions.
Maybe I can make amends six years later?

As I discussed in my post "Peddlers of Paganism", there are people out there who make their living off exploiting people's fears and scrupulosity. They twist good things, things created to be received with thanksgiving, into doubtful things. They tell you God cannot save you if you enjoy pine trees or lights or candy or various mundane things, even when God Himself used these items in His worship in the Bible. They use shifting definitions they themselves don't meet. They tell you once a thing is tinged with paganism it remains pagan forever. They tell you that you can secretly contract paganism without even being aware of it. They tell you that you are headed for condemnation if you celebrate God's own miracles. And it doesn't matter at all how terribly false their claims are, so long as the end result affirms what they want to hear. How preposterous!
I disagree with all of these things, and ABD has several articles that explain why.

I also said in that same post:

"The question is - how far do we take this? Do we let people of weak conscience control our lives and our homes and our churches? No. Their weak conscience is not a license for manipulation."

Much of this discussion on drawing a line rests on good taste and Christian charity. Paul is clear, in I Corinthians 8 and 10, that a good Christian bears those of weak conscience with patience and charity. Sometimes, doing the right thing means avoiding what we fully believe is perfectly acceptable if that thing upsets our brethren of weak conscience. We bear it until they mature in the faith.
But that has to have its limits.

We cannot let people of scrupulosity and superstition take over our churches, our faith, and our good conscience. To bear with a brother or sister in Christ with patience and understanding is good! It's the loving thing. It's the Christian thing. But not when it ends up making people feel terrible about themselves and causes division.

The anonymous commentor on my Christmas post said:

"If there is truly a pagan holiday out there then I'll give it up for God. No pagan holiday is worth participating in if it risks our relationship with God."

That is noble! There is a very commendable spirit at work in this heart. Look at how they are willing to repent and change anything they feel comes between them and their Savior. Well done!

But!

That good intention is easily taken advantage of by people of weak conscience and ignoble motives who peddle paganism. The comment started, "If there is truly a pagan holiday..." Therein lies the rub. The holidays are most often not pagan. The claims most often false.
The good intention of avoiding paganism is taken advantage of. That particular commentor might not be easily taken advantage of, but I have had several other readers over the years who were/are.

Do pay attention to your conscience. Do not violate it! But at the same time, do not base your conscience and decisions on the questionable information you get from peddlers of paganism. Test the spirits!

I want you to know something else, most esteemed reader. The story you are being told about pagan holidays, from many sources but not all, is not really about informing you. What it is really about is uplifting themselves in their own eyes by putting you down.
Those are not informative messages you are reading. Those are accusations.

In Armstrongism, the system the As Bereans Did blog is mainly about, my former church system, we did not tell people about their pagan ways to educate and reform them. That would be a misunderstanding. We were told the rest of the world is not being called by God right now. We literally were told that to help the world is to fight against God. We were even discouraged from giving to charity because of this. Those messages about paganism were never intended to bring the world to repentance. Then why did we put out so much material about pagan holidays and etc? We did it for us! We preached about the world's pagan ways so we could feel superior! That message isn't for you, it's for them. And it goes far beyond holidays.

Herbert Armstrong's Church of God movement is a branch of Seventh Day Adventism. They preach seventh-day Sabbath, Old Covenant holy days, meats laws, tithing, and various other Old Covenant traditions. They are anti-Trinitarian, and believe the Holy Spirit is not a person. They are iconoclasts, and believe the image of the Cross of Christ is a pagan symbol of Tammuz. They used to believe (and some still do) whites are a superior race descended from Noah's son Shem, and other races are cursed. They believe British-Israelism (aka. Anglo-Israelism) which says God secretly preserved people of Israelite descent who populate western Europe, America, and Australia in this modern day, to be His only called people. They believe all Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and almost every other Christian tradition besides (sometimes including other Armstrongist churches) are all condemned, deceived followers of Satan the devil, who have all been purposefully relegated by God Himself into the system of "Babylon the Great and her Harlot daughters". They believe that grace is a very different thing than how mainstream Christians understand it, and grace is only for those who keep the things they keep and don't keep the things they don't keep. They believe if you do not join them in ALL of their beliefs, then you are doomed in this life, and only in your next life will you be given an opportunity to repent, and then you will live in eternity under their rulership and benevolent guidance.

This is not just about holidays, dear reader. Not by a long shot.

These people who accuse you of paganism are not calling you pagan just because of holidays, and they are not going to stop calling you a pagan just because you stop keeping holidays. Holidays are but the tip of the iceberg. This was never really about Christmas or Easter or birthdays. You don't keep Christmas? OK. But you're still a pagan to them for so many other reasons.
None of their annual messages about pagan holidays are to help you stop being a pagan. There are two very real reasons for it: 1) to accuse you of being a pagan, and 2) to reassure themselves of their superiority. They put you down to lift themselves up.

You cannot challenge them. You cannot reason with them. You cannot plead. This isn't about facts and truth, it's about reaffirmation. Do you understand now why the accuracy of their source material does not matter to them? Do you understand now why they will not listen to anyone no matter what evidence is offered? It was never about accuracy. It was always about affirmation. You need to be aware of this so you can truly be informed about what this message about pagan holidays really is. 

They might not post their content for your good, but I hope As Bereans Did does. That is my sincere hope in every post. That you are helped, and God is glorified.

Now, we go back to Paul's advice.

In I Corinthians, Paul said to be aware of your fellow Christian's weak conscience. But Paul also said to Timothy (in the context of bondservants, but I believe the lesson applies here):

(I TIM. 6: 3-5) 3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, 4 he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, 5 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.

This very same Paul who was very conciliatory in I Corinthians has clearly drawn a line in I Timothy. A line must be drawn at some point. We cannot infinitely give way to our brethren of weak conscience. We cannot treat them poorly, because that is uncharitable and un-Christian, but we cannot allow people of weak conscience to stay immature in the faith forever, and we cannot allow ourselves to be led by those who are immature in the faith.

If people will not listen to what the Bible unambiguously says in Esther and John, that celebrating man-made holidays is completely acceptable - something even Jesus Himself participated in - but instead continue to dispute and argue and accuse, from such withdraw yourself.
If people will not listen to what history says, that Saturnalia and Brumalia were not on December 25th - to name just one of many examples where the claims are false - but instead continue to intentionally promote incorrect information, from such withdraw yourself.
If people will not listen to Ralph Woodrow or countless other researches besides, that Alexander Hislop was wrong and his claims were unfounded and conjured from his own imagination, but instead falsely accuse their fellow Christians of Nimrod worship and paganism based on known lies, from such withdraw yourself.
If people will not learn what makes for good research even though the Internet has made good research not only possible but easily obtainable, but instead persist in quoting nonsense, misrepresenting their sources, and presenting confirmation bias and century-old encyclopedias as "God's truth", from such withdraw yourself.
If people are "Refusing To Understand", but are willfully ignorant, from such turn away.

Before you who are new to this blog get too upset with me, I wrote this post assuming most people who will read it are already familiar with this ABD's extensive catalog of material on holidays, "once pagan, always pagan", and etc. Please do read our posts. I cannot expand on them all here.

If you want to know what my own personal line is, knowing what I know and having experienced what I have experienced, I draw the line at well-informed conscience. Not scrupulosity, but scruples. If I feel guilty about it, I don't do it. Easy peasy.
But then I research it. I need to know if I feel guilty reasonably or unreasonably; rightfully or mistakenly.

Scrupulosity. Superstition. Bad information. Hidden motives. Fear. Pride. Willful ignorance. Legalism. I definitely feel guilty about those things, and I won't have anything to do with them.

I also said in my Peddlers of Paganism post:

"If you really feel that badly about a holiday or a decoration, don't do it!! There is freedom in Christ. Do, or do not - it's the same. So long as it is to Christ that you do or do not do. I am not here to convince you to keep holidays. I am merely telling you that you are being falsely accused and there is no valid reason for you to feel like a pagan. Yet, if you do feel badly about something, then don't violate your conscience.
But ask yourself - do you feel badly because it is bad, or because peddlers of paganism made you think it is bad, falsely? Our articles are here to help you decide that. Test the spirits."

So, where are you going to draw the line?

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Peddlers of Paganism

Is it that time of year already? Time for another "once pagan, always pagan" post.

The number-one subject I have been asked about over the years is in regards to holidays and can people be pagan for participating. Got an email just last week about it. People out there are truly concerned if they are still a good Christian, not because they've renounced their faith but because they celebrate Jesus Christ.

When a good Armstrongist friend of mine called me after many years of no contact, he just wanted to small talk. He told me he still thought I was a faithful Christian despite leaving the church (I like to think I am). He is a quality man. It was nice of him. But there was one and only one message of importance he wanted to convey: don't start keeping Christmas. He didn't call or write or anything for several years, and hasn't since, but he made a special effort to deliver me this one critical message. He could have said so many other things, like don't stop keeping the Sabbath, but he didn't. That's how important it is within that system.

Some of the messages I get are from people who are curious, some are concerned, but some are suffering. You wouldn't believe how many people from around the world live their lives in fear. I receive messages from God fearing Christians who get crippling anxiety because they had pleasant thoughts by looking at a billboard or having a passing conversation. Do we serve a God of fear? No. But fear is what they have.

Here is from one such message:

"xhwa, I am terrorized by guilt again today. Today, I was talking to receptionist and she brought up a small sentence on the Christmas tree."

Terrorized! By a conversation.
Here is from another:

"Ever since I have been made aware of pagan origin of certain traditions, my life has been a living hell. I wish I had never been exposed to such literature because it hasn't been profitable to my life. It has only given me guilt trips, moody feelings, sadness, depression. I cannot go about life without these thoughts and people infiltrating my head."

A living hell! Afraid of plants and wreaths and lights and sweets and colors and shapes. They feel happy, then guilty for feeling happy, then anxiety hits. My heart truly goes out.

Those are extreme examples, you might think. Maybe so, but they are real none the less, they are God's all the same, and they deserve dignity and truth. They feel terrible inside like they have betrayed their God all because of what they were told by media pumped out by peddlers of paganism year after year around this time.

You might wonder what I mean by "peddlers of paganism". I am referring to leaders from systems, like Armstrongism just for one example, who create media that tries to sell faithful Christians on the idea of being pagan for participating in mundane, non-salvational activities such as holidays or birthdays or for having certain decorations. They peddle the idea that sugar and wax and plants can defeat the God who ransomed you. They peddle the idea that you are a pagan. Even when you are not.
Bearing false witness.
What happened to "the TEN COMMANDMENTS, God's great SPIRITUAL LAW"? Apparently, that greatness ends at the 4th Commandment.

FORETHOUGHT AND INTENT

Let's answer the big question right up front. Are you, a God-fearing Christian, now a pagan for participating in mainstream Christian holidays? My answer is a qualified 'no'.

Merely participating in a Christian holiday, or having holiday decorations, does not - I repeat, does not - make you a pagan. Calendar dates and bits of paper and plastic and colors and shapes and flowers and candles and treats do not have the power to snatch you out of the hands of your Father in Heaven.
My "no" is qualified because it all depends on your heart and your intention. What makes you a pagan is actively, knowingly, intentionally worshipping another deity. Are you intentionally celebrating Christ? Then, no, you are not a pagan. Are you actively, knowingly, intentionally honoring some other deity, like the Gentiles of old? I am not talking about having a decoration or doing some pastime activity. I am not even talking about idols in our lives, like avarice or sex, that take your focus off your Christian walk. I am talking about actively, currently, knowingly dedicating your time and honor and hopes and worship to another deity. No? Then you have nothing to worry about. Yes? Then you are participating in something inadvisable and you really ought to rethink your path. There is no better way to utterly violate the New Covenant than that.

Notice how you would be fully aware of this. It will come as no big surprise to you. You will not need a peddler of paganism to stop by and inform you of anything because you will be well aware already. A Christian cannot accidentally or unknowingly be a pagan.

You cannot bend down to slide a gift under a tree, with thankfulness to God in your heart, and accidentally be a pagan. You cannot see an old television show, get nostalgic feelings, and suddenly be a pagan. You cannot see a display at a store, get a sense of beauty from it, and suddenly be a pagan. You cannot eat a cookie, really enjoy it, and suddenly be a pagan. That just isn't how paganism works. Did you worship the cookie or the ballet or the decoration? No. Did you replace God in your heart and intent? No. Then that was neither idolatry nor paganism.

Part of the game these peddlers of paganism play is they use such a loose definition of idolatry and paganism (when it suits them) that it goes off the deep end into superstition. Their superstition. They say a Christmas Tree is the same as child sacrifice. They say you can overpower God even by the mere presence of a candy cane. Sugar is bad for you, but not that bad! They say once a thing is pagan, it is always pagan - no matter how many millennia pass by. But is that so?

PAUL'S TAKE

What did Paul say?

(I COR. 8: 1-7) Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. 2 And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him. 4 Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.
7 However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

An idol is nothing. How can the peddlers of paganism sell us the idea that so many things have dreadful power when Paul tells us the idol is nothing? Is Paul discounting idolatry here? No. Paul is simply saying that, to a mature Christian whose heart is solidly with God, the idol is nothing, because the idol has no power. As we saw in my post "Once and Future Kingdom - Part II", Jesus took that power away from the false gods. Idols have no power against you. How much less things that were never idols to begin with.

Then Paul continues to verse 7. He says not everyone understands that Jesus took all power away from the false gods and now those idols are nothing. For some, the idol is something, and it defiles their weak conscience. That is what the peddlers of paganism hope to get from you. They want your conscience defiled ...because their weak conscience is defiled.

(I COR. 10: 25-28) 25 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake; 26 for “the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness.” 27 If any of those who do not believe invites you to dinner, and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience’ sake. 28 But if anyone says to you, “This was offered to idols,” do not eat it for the sake of the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake; for “the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness.”

Paul, continuing the idea from chapter 8, addresses the notion that all things are lawful for us (v.24). He never denies that! But he exhorts us to remember not all things we do in our freedom are helpful or edifying for others. We should consider others in what we do. Then he gives an example.
Paul tells us we are free to go to a non-believer's house. Because we are free to! That they are pagan doesn't matter. Does their paganism make us pagan? No. We can eat whatever they set before us, asking nothing about it. Does eating and celebrating make us pagan? No. What if the meal were dedicated to pagan gods without our knowledge? Still no! That was the entire point in verse 25. Much of the meat sold in the market was openly dedicated to a pagan god within the past few days. Paul knew that. The people who asked Paul about it, prompting him to write about it, knew that. Still no. Here, Paul says that if anyone expresses concern that the food was offered to idols (he does not say the host expresses this, but anyone), then you stop and do not eat. Because it becomes pagan when someone brings it to your attention? No. You stop for their conscience, not for yours. Our conscience is clear, because our hearts belong to Jesus. But their conscience is weak.

Presumably there might be other Christians there, and those people might be put off that the food was offered to idols. Does this make the person claiming idolatry correct? No. For an idol is nothing. But it does make it a matter of good taste to treat them kindly. The question is - how far do we take this? Do we let people of weak conscience control our lives and our homes and our churches? No. Their weak conscience is not a license for manipulation. I feel this is more of a "when in Rome" sort of a thing.

Do you see how this relates to holidays and birthdays and treats and decorations?
It has to do with the notion of once pagan, always pagan. The peddlers of paganism build their entire case on it. Paul blows that up. Kindly.

Note how the dedication of the food was immediate, not thousands of years ago. And the dedication was real, not made up. Not false accusations. Paul knew that meat in the market was quite recently offered to idols within a functioning temple to a pagan god he could name by pagan priests he could see, and Paul still said to eat it. For “the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness.” If that food is not once pagan, always pagan, then how much less is a Christmas cookie? Christmas decorations are dedicated to Christ, and none besides - at least by Christians anyway. Similar decorations may or may not have been used in the distant past by a defunct religious system. What does that have to do with us? Nothing. Peddlers of paganism will protest that God hates those things forever, but Paul blows that up.

Are you seriously going to tell me that I can put meat in my mouth that was dedicated to Aphrodite not 72 hours ago and it's perfectly fine, because “the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness”, but if I put up a wreath-shaped cookie in my mouth that I dedicate directly to the Lord, then I am a pagan because that shape was used 2,000 years ago for a pagan purpose? Nonsense!

BIBLICALLY UNBIBLICAL

If once pagan, always pagan is a genuine issue, as the peddlers would have us believe, then we all are in big trouble, them included. If people who preach once pagan always pagan understood how many things they do which have "pagan" connections, they would be unable to function. (I am putting “pagan” in quotes because these things aren’t actually pagan. They are just falsely accused of being pagan.) There is nothing that you do that does not have a "pagan" connection except actually having faith in the Living God. You name it, if it is in our world then it has "pagan" connections.

How many times have I gone over lists of things that are used by God in the Bible or by Christian churches today that were once pagan? Many times! Here I go again:

Priesthoods, ministers, elders, sermons, temples, sacrifices, prayer, rest days (sabbaths), holidays, religious rituals like baptisms, circumcision, instructions on morality, laws and codes of behavior, parables, special decorations, sacrifices, special meals, fires, candles, incense, hymns, psalms, choruses, ritual meals, religious texts, religious schools, religious heroes, marriage, honeymoons, wedding rings ... I could go on and on.

Many of the things in the list above, which qualify as once pagan always pagan, are things the peddlers of paganism do regularly. We all do. But they excuse themselves. They excuse themselves while condemning others. "Paganism for thee, but not for me." All of these things have exactly the same "pagan" connections as jack-o-lanterns. All of these can be found in pagan religions first before they were in the Bible or in Christian practice. All of them. I thought a pagan item was the same as child sacrifice? Funny how that story changes. All of those were pagan, yet they were all adopted in worship of God.

Don't get me wrong here. God is no fan of actual, genuine idolatry. But the peddlers use a definition of idolatry that they themselves don't meet, and that changes to suit their situation.
They will tell you that God is a believer in once pagan, always pagan. That is not what we see in reality. Almost every aspect of what God commanded Israel to do, right down to the Ark of the Covenant, had some counterpart in a pagan religion. You didn't know the Ark of the Covenant was patterned directly after an Egyptian box used in religious worship? It was! God used it anyway. (Biblical Archaeology Society blog has an article on it, titled "The Ark of the Covenant in its Egyptian Context") 
God did that?? YES!
God adopted "pagan" things into His worship. It's not just Paul that blows up once pagan, always pagan. God does, too!

I have been told, "Well, those things were used by God, so that makes them OK." Fine. Let's go with that. That is the standard now. If God did it, then it's OK.

In addition to novel holidays (EST. 9: 20-28; JON. 10: 22-23), and gift-giving (EST. 9: 22), God also lists the use of statues in His worship (EXO. 25: 17-19), garland, bells and fruit (EXO. 28: 33-34; 39: 25-26; II COR. 3: 16), lights, flowers and ornamentation (EXO. 25: 31-37), greenery (LEV. 23: 40; NEH. 8: 13-15), and evergreens and pine trees (ISA. 60: 13), to name a few. Miller Jones over at the God Cannot Be Contained blog reminds us the very crown God will place on our heads, "...is indicative of the wreath, garland, coronet which was worn by the Roman emperor or given as a prize to the victor in the public games of that time..." God is going to award us a pagan wreath to wear?! Scandal!
All of these "pagan" items are used in the Bible in the proper worship of God. All of them used at Christmas. All of them condemned by peddlers of paganism.

What happened to if God did it, then it's OK? That didn't age well. Do you see how their standards change?

What's more, they will claim if God did not directly command it then we shouldn't be doing it. In other words, God never commanded Christmas, so we shouldn't do it. But is that what the Bible says?

In the Bible, God never commanded most of the Old Covenant law to Gentiles. That doesn't seem to stop anyone from doing what God didn't command. In the Bible, God sanctioned the creation of novel holidays. The Jews made up Purim and Hanukkah - and God honored both. Matha wrote one of the best articles in the ABD catalogue, "Established and Imposed". It is biblical and acceptable to create a new holiday that honors God.
So, what God does not command, that they do. They do things God did not command and then they condemn those who do not follow them. And what God allows, that they do not do. They abstain from things God allows and then they condemn those who do not follow them. If it was never pagan, then it's pagan anyway, and if it is biblical, then it's still pagan. Unless it's something they like, then it's OK. Nonsense!

(ACT. 10: 15b) "What God has cleansed you must not call common.”

They tell you December 25 was an ancient pagan holiday. It wasn't. They tell you early Christians ignored Jesus' birth. They didn't. They tell you Christmas was Nimrod's birthday. It wasn't. They tell you Christmas Trees were pagan. They weren't. They tell you Jeremiah 10 condemns Christmas trees. It doesn't. They tell you all trees are pagan. They're not. They tell you Santa is an anagram for Satan. It's not. They tell you gift-giving is wrong. It's not. They tell you Easter was an ancient pagan day. It wasn't. They tell you Easter means Ishtar. It doesn't. They tell you Jesus wasn't resurrected on Sunday. He was. They tell you it's wrong to have a holiday God didn't command. It's not. They tell you birthdays are pagan. They aren't.
I could keep going and going like this, but I don't need to. We have articles for that. Go to our Categories page and look for Christmas or Easter or whatever. There it all is! I recommend starting at the Easter FAQ and the Christmas FAQ. All of the questions you have will be addressed there. If not, write me.

We can see the real story is quite the opposite of the one they peddle.

When God does it, it is redeemed and becomes clean. Unless you're a peddler of paganism. In which case you will continue to condemn those things as unredeemed and unclean. When God does it, it points to Him and is contrasted with paganism. Unless you're a peddler of paganism. In which case you will continue to condemn those things as idolatry and paganism. When God does it, the items find their proper use, as all things should be used to glorify God. Unless you're a peddler of paganism. In which case you will continue to say those items are abominations.

RIDICULOUSNESS

Does it surprise you to learn the peddlers of paganism have not been straight with you about holidays and what their history is? Their source material is garbage. They will quote anything that says what they want to hear. It doesn't matter how low the quality of the source. And if their source doesn't say what they want, they selectively quote it so it comes out how they want, or they just misrepresent it altogether. Or else they just make things up out of thin air. I can show you examples of this. I have a whole section on the Categories page just for false history, but check out these three articles, just for example. As you read them, pay attention to their sloppy research methods.

A Pattern of Dishonest Documentation
Review of COGWA's Origins of Easter
Quartodecimens - Were They Law Keepers?

Over the years , the authors at As Bereans Did have dedicated countless hours to studying the truth, and sometimes we study holidays. We have dug down deep into the dusty annals of history to bring you the facts about the origins of holidays and dates and traditions. Because we hate ourselves? It might seem that way, but no. Because they lied to us, too! Now we want the truth. And we want you to have it, too. We have investigated if holidays make us pagan. They don't. We have investigated whether or not attempting to keep "biblical" holy days is a better option. It isn't. We have deeply investigated this notion of once pagan, always pagan. It's bunk.

Debate with the peddlers all you like. It won't help. Read Dillon's article "A Dialogue on Jeremiah 10". Research and write blog posts for decades. It won't do any good. The peddlers of paganism do not change when exposed to facts and reason. There is nothing you can tell them they haven't already been exposed to. They just don't care. Do you think the people who write the books and make the videos misunderstood? Maybe they didn't read the same things as the authors here at ABD? Of course they have! I started reading the things I read because I read about them in Herman Hoeh's material. (Herman Hoeh was once the top official Armstrongist historian. "The most accurately informed man in the world.") I thought he was trustworthy. To my surprise, Hoeh selectively quoted, misrepresented, outright changed parts he didn't like, and even made things up as he went along. I know this because I went to his sources and read them (if he bothered to cite sources). I was shocked! So, I wrote blog posts (plural) about this. I quoted Hoeh, I quoted his sources, I pointed out how they were not the same, I even gave links so the reader could verify on their own ... and for my efforts I was called a liar. No, seriously. They called me the liar. Hoeh said he accurately quoted a source, I demonstrated he did not, and I am the liar for it.

You want another example? They condemn birthdays. Show me the place in the Bible where birthdays are condemned. You can't. It's not there! They condemn you based on their own opinions, not commands from the Bible. What happened to not doing things that aren't commanded? Oh, they say, "The only birthdays recorded in the Bible were celebrated by pagans," but 1) birthdays aren't religious celebrations. 2) Job's children were not pagans and neither was Herod Antipas. He was a practicing Jew, just not a good one. So, it is not true that only pagans had birthdays. And 3) there is one more birthday in the Bible they prefer to leave out: Jesus' own birthday.

(LUK. 2: 9-14) 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” 

If that isn't celebrating, I don't know what is. I've heard of cowboys and I've heard of princesses, but I have never heard of any other time when a multitude of angels showed up and shouted for joy at a birthday.
Let us not forget that the angels, shepherds, Magi, Anna the prophetess, John the Baptist, Zecharias and Elizabeth the parents of John the Baptist, and Mary and Joseph all rejoiced to see His first coming. All of the angels and heroes of old eagerly awaited that time. Abraham rejoiced and was glad to know He was coming. There is nothing wrong with being overjoyed that the Lord was born. It remains the second-greatest miracle in the history of mankind. He couldn't die if He wasn't born.

Alas. Once again, if God does it it's still wrong, and they aren't above leaving things out they don't like.

WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON

They peddle paganism, not because the things actually are pagan, but because they need them to be pagan. They need to differentiate their product from the mainstream, or why would you send your money to them? Think about it. If church 1 is exactly like church 2, why do we even need church 2? But if church 2 can scare you into believing church 1 is pagan, then you might send them your money. That's the real game, ladies and gentlemen: money. The peddlers aren't here to help you. They are only here to help themselves ...to you and your cash. (We don't take donations here. Only prayers. Our services are completely free. You couldn't pay us even if you wanted to. Praise God!) The very same people who tell you it does not honor God to give gifts to your loved ones and the poor (like the Bible says in Esther 9: 22), will tell you it honors God to give your money to them. That's the reason why I am calling them "peddlers". They are selling a product. The product is fear.

You're a pagan Nimrod worshipper, and Jesus can't save you if you sing those carols and find joy in colored lights. But if you take up Old Covenant legalism and send them your money, they might put in a good word with God for you.

They accuse you. That makes you feel bad, doesn't it?

Let me ask you this. In centuries past, when the fundamentalists Protestants were - in the name of God - accusing people of witchcraft and burning them at the stake (or various other tortures), do you think those accused people were real witches? No, they weren't. Those weren't witches at all. Those were Christians! Do you think those accusing them were correct? No, they weren't. Do you think those accusations were based in truth and well-researched fact? They did have the handbook "Malleus Malifecarum", after all! No, not really. Do you think those who accused their fellows in order to avoid torture were being honest and altruistic? No, they weren't. Fear makes people do strange things. Oh, how they professed they were doing God's good justice, up to an including murdering people, yet they were wrong all the same. Their victims were innocent of the charges, yet they did what they did all the same. They were killing their own brothers and sisters in the faith, all the while saying they were honoring God. Did that honor God? Even the fundamentalists themselves later admitted it did not.
How are these modern peddlers any different than those past fundamentalists? Only in that they do not burn people at the stake. Otherwise, it's the same. They still falsely accuse you. They still condemn you. They just can't kill you. No, they say God is going to do that. You are judged and condemned on false witness by people who are making up fake histories and who believe God cannot overcome a candy cane.

It reminds me of what Jesus said to the Apostles:

(JON. 16: 2) They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.

Of all people on earth, the Apostles were put out of the synagogues and killed. How are these modern peddlers any different than those past Jews? Only in that they don't have letters from the Sanhedrin permitting them to stone you. Otherwise, it's the same. Remember, Jesus Himself was - in the name of God - falsely accused and tried and sentenced for blasphemy.

Look. Let's get something straight.
If you really feel that badly about a holiday or a decoration, don't do it!! There is freedom in Christ. Do, or do not - it's the same. So long as it is to Christ that you do or do not do. I am not here to convince you to keep holidays. I am merely telling you that you are being falsely accused and there is no valid reason for you to feel like a pagan. Yet, if you do feel badly about something, then don't violate your conscience.
But ask yourself - do you feel badly because it is bad, or because peddlers of paganism made you think it is bad, falsely? Our articles are here to help you decide that. Test the spirits.

In absolutely no way should this article be understood as excusing actual idolatry or paganism. The message at ABD has been consistent over the years - there are many false gods but only one true God, our New Covenant duty is faith in and loyalty to God through Jesus Christ, our Christian calling is to follow the Holy Spirit into service and charitable works, our freedom in Christ is not a license to sin. Pretty standard, really. If something is genuinely pagan or idolatrous, we highly recommend having nothing to do with it. Knowingly, willfully, intentionally turning away from God to idolatry is a salvational issue and it is genuinely dangerous. Again, we just disagree with the peddlers of paganism on what real idolatry is. They use a shifting definition and shifting standards, and we call them out for it.

CONCLUSION

If you knowingly and intentionally devote your worship and honor to Jesus Christ, trusting in Him for your salvation, then an idol is nothing. He has taken all power and authority, and you are a citizen in His Kingdom now. Believe that. Rejoice in it! "Once pagan, always pagan" is an unbiblical and broken line of reasoning that no one really follows. Paul didn't preach it. God didn't heed it. Neither should you. How much less pagan is an item that was never an idol in the first place?
And no, you cannot accidentally or unknowingly become a pagan. As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you cannot accidentally be a pagan while worshipping Jesus Christ. The peddlers' accusations have no power over you.

You just want to be a good Christian. Your heart is in the right place. It's the peddlers that are the problem, not you. They have taken your eyes off the righteousness that comes from faith (ROM. 3: 21) and put your eyes on efforts that can never bring righteousness. Not even the law could bring righteousness (GAL. 2: 21), how much less can avoiding poinsettias? Mundane things do not overpower God. Avoiding them cannot bring you righteousness. So, stop looking there.

The peddlers want to be good Christians, too, but they have terrible information and were trained by people with less than honorable motives. Don't listen to them. Don't give them power over your life. Have faith and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Look at the fruits! Do the peddlers bring you peace and truth? Or, do the peddlers bring you torment and fear, based on false claims? (You will know the claims are false when you read our articles and pray about it.) You know it's torment and fear. Do they bring you the Gospel of Jesus Christ or accusations? You know it's accusations. So don't heed them. Just walk away.

At what point do we look ourselves in the mirror and in all seriousness tell ourselves, "I will, from this moment forward, stop believing in once pagan, always pagan, because it is a thoroughly un-biblical notion, and I will stop listening to these peddlers of paganism who lie to me and themselves, and who only seek to enrich themselves at my expense" ?

I am bashing people pretty hard in this article. I don't usually do that. It is normally my way to go light and try to build bridges. I prefer to ease people toward the truth. The issue is, a light touch isn't always called for. Sometimes Paul writes Titus, and sometimes Paul withstands Peter to his face. When I get letters from good, God-fearing Christians who doubt themselves and their families and their faith - over demonstrably false nonsense peddled by fundamentalists - I get upset. I believe I am justified in getting upset. That's why I'm in a snit today and ranting on.

I would like to give you a short list of some recommended articles to get you going in the right direction. If you still have questions in your mind, like may we celebrate birthdays, or may we celebrate holidays God did not command, or should I be keeping "biblical" holy days, or even questions about "learn not the way of the heathen" - we hope we can be of some help.

• Established and Imposed
• Jeremiah 10 and Christmas Trees
  
• Falsely Accused? Christmas Trees and Germanic Paganism
• Why Not Keep Biblical Days?
• On Nimrod and Christmas Trees Part I
• Nimrod's Birthday Was January 6?
• Two Sabbaths of Matthew 28
• Easter History Part I
• Three Days and Three Nights

Keep in mind we have a Categories page with abundantly more than just this. Scroll on down to the Holidays section.

May the Living God, in whose hands you are held, guide you and teach you, strengthen your faith, uplift you, assure you, bring you to a better understanding of who you are in His eyes, and keep you safe in the sure salvation obtained for you by our Lord Jesus Christ.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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