Does it matter if Christmas is of pagan origin when we direct that holiday to the birth of Jesus?
Best time of the year in my opinion…My spirit is already up!
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I agree with you – just listening to the music (I tend to start in October 
) makes me happy.
Considering how many centuries Christmas has been celebrated, its origins before that are not all that important to me. I think most holidays are what we make of them, and so Christmas can be a wonderful time to set the tone for a year-long remembrance of the Incarnation.
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Haha, the music is one of the greatest things about Christmas!
Already listening too 
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Our pastor actually went over that in his sermon yesterday. Basically gave the history and affirmed that it was a pagan winter solstice celebration that was converted to Christmas. And then he emphasized that that was fine, because transformation is what Christianity is all about. Pagan temples were made churches under Constantine, pagan holidays made Christian. The gospel transforms lives and transforms cultures, and we should celebrate it.
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That is an awesome way of putting it. Kudos to the pastor!
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There is no textual evidence that the date for the birth of Jesus was co-opted from a pagan holiday, although that is a widely-held belief. So how did we get the date of Dec 25? : the Church first established the Feast of the Annunciation/Conception of Jesus as March 25. When the Church became interested in setting a date for the birth of Jesus, they counted forward 9 months.
(Learned about this in our theology of Christmas class.)
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As a non- it is a guilty pleasure but I like the music too. I used to start listening in November but my stepson shamed me out of it. Now I only listen early when I know we won’t be -ahem- disturbed.
Do you like old standard versions or ones remade by current artists and sometimes in a different style? I like some of both. I wonder if this calls for a new thread to share favorites?
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I like the older songs. Im really not a fan of the current music being made. Outside of christmas music too!
Thanks! My wife and I laughed over many of these funny science shirts last night. Our sons would like them, too.
I have to thank you, too, I immediately ordered something for my brother
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more book lists:
One quote from Marilynne Robinson’s book( that Moore recommends) alone makes me want to read it:
… she writes, “A society is moving toward dangerous ground when loyalty to the truth is seen as disloyalty to some supposedly higher interest.”
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I really like “a spaceman came travelling” from Chris De Burgh.
Ah I haven’t read it yet. Currently sticking to the bulky:
I think this serves as a nice broad book covering many areas of scientific inquiry and Christian theology. It is necessarily written to those without too much expertise in any of the areas since nobody except for likely Christian professors like me would have a job that requires them to be functional ‘experts’ in such a wide array of fields. I enjoy it but grabbing bits and pieces from here and there takes a lot of time. It’s much nicer to have a resource that helps get the reader caught up to speed and then some in the hottest science topics in the evangelical world.
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Ray Lewis was my biology professor during his first year at Wheaton. He could work algae into the most unlikely places.
I am happy to report that the word ‘Algae’ did not make it on to the General Index for the book despite being a good 600+ pages. Perhaps his colleagues were on to his old tricks and utilized the CTRL+F function to keep algae out of this one.
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Thanks! Very honored to be included in such stellar company.
And while we’re sharing Christmas suggestions for the young people in our lives, I’d suggest Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics. They are a charming mix of superheroics, empathy and computer science that gets not just my endorsement, but also that of my 12-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son (who sneaks and reads his sister’s books when he thinks no one is watching).
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Yes! I’ve seen these, but we don’t own any yet. But they do look like so much fun!
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The Squirrel Girl books sound good. Claudette in Beware Monsters trilogy
is another series like that and the Tintin and Asterix cartoon books that my kids read over again…sort of like the Uncle Scrooge series. Thanks for the suggestion @Andy_Walsh
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