One of the blogs i follow shared an interesting article.
Within my lifetime, i've seen various religions elevate previously minor holidays to compete with Christmas, and even an entirely new cultural holiday during the same time of year.
Please understand me carefully: i do not object to this completely. In many respects, the American Christmas is a cultural celebration, not a celebration of Christ. i had this brought home to me in watching the first-season Andy Griffiths episode, Christmas Story. Throughout the series, the people of Mayberry will unabashedly sing hymns and carols, but it seems to be just what's done, with no sign of actual love of God.
It is appropriate that other cultures fit in too.
Anyway, back to this article.
Theophilus on Dover Beach shared from a Touchstone Magazine article. It seems that, while yes, the Romans did indeed invent their solstice holiday as a response to what the Christians held significant, this didn't work as we've been thinking.
The earliest Christians had attempted to calculate the date of Christ's birth. As people will, they got it wrong. They did not make a holiday or holyday of the date, but it was still significant to them.
And at this point the emperor stepped in and invented the holiday celebrating pagan gods. Not just any pagan gods - the ones of Rome. He also wanted to bring people away from other religions, not only Christianity, but also the popular Mithras cult from Persia, supposedly elevating the solstice also. This was in the mid to late 200s AD.
http://masstraveljournal.com/places/boston-cambridge/when-christmas-was-banned-boston
http://theweek.com/article/index/222676/when-americans-banned-christmas
http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/christmas/ban.shtml
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1544080/posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus
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