To the Hinderers, too

Merry Christmas All, Considering Its Pagan Origins!

Hinderer: I like the sound of that, which is a synonym for killjoy, spoilsport. You can be sure it’s the liberal-minded, the ones who claim being free of bigotry, that are the hinderers when it comes to celebrating Christmas.

The Hinderers point to the pagan origins of Christmas rituals, now established as parts of Christian tradition, and they are correct. But when they point angrily and call us crazy, those of us who believe in Christmas and accept in belief all those rituals, they are wrong.

First, they are wrong because they are angry with sin in their hearts:

If you are angry, let it be without sin. The sun must not go down on your wrath; do not give the devil a chance to work on you.’ Ephesians 4: 26-27

When they are angry with sin, they are (or they become) self-righteous, which is never right. They don’t want to listen to others; they don’t want to think they’re wrong, honest but wrong.

Second, they are wrong because those Christmas rituals do not in any way negate the one and only importance of Christmas – which is that it is a celebration of a life that would save the world from sin.

Of course, if you put the commercial Christmas over and above the Christian Christmas, if you downgrade the real meaning of Christmas, whether you celebrate Christmas with a non-pagan ritual or with a pagan ritual, you are not celebrating Christmas at all. You are a Hinderer.

Third, because it all becomes ridiculous. I will show you what I mean. So: The Hinderers will tell you that Christmas has these pagan origins:

Ø Pagan: The pagan Romans celebrated Saturnalia, in honor of the Roman god Saturn, during the winter solstice. Christmas is celebrated during the winter solstice. It’s pagan.

Ø Pagan: In celebrating Saturnalia, the Romans engaged in feasting, gift-giving, dancing, playing and relaxing (paganwiccam.about.com/). So you see that thoroughly Christmas has pagan origins. The Hinderers would not want us feasting, dancing, playing, relaxing because those are all pagan practices.

Christmas is pagan is correct, 100% correct, except that part that it is celebrated in honor of the birth of Jesus. Now, don’t be a pagan and fail to consider the perspective of time: think of those times, think of these times.

Two examples: Fire is pagan, and lighting a fire is pagan. Apt image from CAndrews who captions it ‘Natural Fire Light 1’ and explains below the image how the image came to be: ‘When I really was just playing with the fire’ (flickr.com/). Fire is lovely, bright and deep. Now, even playing with fire is with us, and that of course is pagan.

Now then, if we listen to those know-it-alls, the Hinderers, we must now condemn Prometheus, who stole from the gods fire – fire has pagan origins. We will now remove from civilization lighting a fire, then we have to go on and just eat raw vegetables and raw meat. A tough world that would be, methinks. I don’t bite that. And we will have to be content with magic acts that do not involve playing with fire. A dull word that would be, especially for children. Give back the magic!

So, if you ask me, all those pagan practices are welcome to my crazy world. I live with some other pagan rituals everyday, like shouting to be heard, which is okay;  like competing against somebody, which is not okay; like hurting people, which is bad,  unChristian, unChristmassy. So, thinking of all those pagan practices embedded in Christmas, I wish you all Merry Christmas!