Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Is Christmas a pagan holiday? Tis the season for memes and skeptics and even some Christians who claim that it is,

that Christ is not the origin of Christmas, that the trappings of trees and presents and celebrations are

really incompatible with Christianity. A very helpful video in the What Would You Say series

tackles this question from a theological and historical perspective. Here's a clip from the video

is Christmas a pagan holiday. Here are three things to remember. Number one, Christmas is rooted in

scripture and it's always been about Christ. The accounts of Jesus' birth in Matthew and Luke

were written in the first century. No serious historian believes that Jesus' Jewish

disciples were copying some pagan tradition when they told this story.

Even before the church settled on the date or the word Christmas was invented, the reason

for the season was right there in the Gospels.

When we read the accounts of Jesus' birth in the Gospels, and sing carols about Him, and

show our gratitude to God for giving us his son by giving to others,

we are doing what the very earliest Christians would have done. In fact, the song that became

the very first Advent hymn is Mary's Magnificant. You can find it in Luke chapter 1. Number 2.

The date of Christmas probably has nothing to do with pagan festivals.

No one is exactly sure when Jesus was born.

Sometimes people claim that December 25th was chosen as the date of his birth

because it coincided with a Roman feast day.

But this theory has actually fallen out of favor with many historians. In fact, according to the

Biblical Archaeology Society, we don't have evidence of Christians adopting pagan festivals

...