BreakPoint Podcast: Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday?
Breakpoint
Colson Center
4.8 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2021
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Historian and long-time friend of the Colson Center, Dr. Glenn Sunshine joined Shane Morris to discuss if Christmas is a pagan holiday. During his conversation with Shane, Dr. Sunshine answered some of the core questions about Christmas.
For instance, Sunshine argued that December 25th was not chosen as the date for Christmas in order to co-opt a pagan solstice festival. More likely, it was based on an ancient Jewish belief that people are conceived on the date of their deaths. Since Christ died on or around March 25th, some Church Fathers believed that Christ must have been conceived on that day and born nine months later… December 25th.
For more on this topic, visit www.whatwouldyousay.org to find a special video to help guide conversation with your family.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Breakpoint podcast. I'm John Stone Street. Well, as they say, tis the season. |
| 0:06.0 | Folks are putting up Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Christmas decorations, you know, all the trimmings. |
| 0:11.3 | But why do we do this? Just last week at Breakpoint, we received a question from a listener. |
| 0:17.1 | It's a question that we often get, which is, is celebrating Christmas the same as celebrating |
| 0:22.2 | a pagan holiday? |
| 0:23.8 | Our Colson Center team tries to respond to every single question that we receive. |
| 0:28.1 | And so we responded to this questioner with a list of resources. |
| 0:31.5 | And I wanted to share one of those resources with you today on the podcast. |
| 0:35.5 | My colleague, Shane Morris and Dr. Glenn Sunshine took a look at Christmas |
| 0:39.0 | recently and asked, is Christmas a pagan holiday? Dr. Sunshine provided context and history to give us a sense |
| 0:46.9 | of where the Christmas traditions come from, and whether or not it's okay for Christians, too, |
| 0:52.5 | as St. Augustine put it, spoil the Egyptians. I hope you find |
| 0:56.2 | this particular podcast episode informative and helpful. And we also have a What Would You Say |
| 1:01.4 | video on this topic is Christmas, a pagan holiday, hosted by Shane Morris. You can find that at |
| 1:07.6 | what would you say.org. |
| 1:18.2 | We've just marked the first Sunday in Advent, the time of year when many Christians anticipate the feast of Christ's birth. |
| 1:22.0 | And of course, that holiday is popular even with non-Christians. |
| 1:29.7 | But there's a lingering accusation that hangs over Advent and Christmas, that these Christian celebrations either originated in pagan religions or are weighed down by pagan traditions, was Jesus really born on December |
| 1:35.9 | the 25th? Could the story of his birth have been copied from some other more ancient religion? |
| 1:41.6 | What about Santa Claus, Christmas trees, mistletoe, and |
| 1:45.2 | yule logs? Where did all this stuff come from? Well, here to help me answer these questions is |
| 1:50.5 | one of my favorite historians and a man with a truly awe-inspiring beard. Dr. Glenn Sunshine |
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