Season: 10 Episode: 150
Listen to episode 146 in Spanish:
Summary:
It’s easy to see that Christmas is commercialized in our culture, but does that mean Christians shouldn’t celebrate it? What about the Christians who celebrate Christmas and do Santa with their kids? Is that a sin? Shanda talks about Christmas myths and legends and the importance of a Christian’s abiliity to explain why the virgin birth doesn’t fall into either of these genres. Finally, Shanda touches on the “Christmas is pagan” debate and how to respond.
Quotables:
Recommended Resources:
Cross Examined Article: Is Teaching Your Kids About God Child Abuse?
Website: shandafulbright.com
Instagram and Facebook: @shandafulbright
Email: hello@shandafulbright.com
YouTube: Shanda Fulbright
Merry Christmas and Happy holidays! We are continuing with our Christmas episodes and today we’re talking about Christmas myths and legends.
Before we get into today’s episode, I want to let you know about a few things coming up in 2024. First, Baseline Apologetics is available in both hard copy and in a live class. The live class begins on January 18th and is from 8:00pm EST/5:00pm PST and is every Thursday for 6 weeks. You get the book with the class as well. Go to shandafulbright.com/shop to get either the book or the class. This course lays the biblical foundation for truth and morality while integrating apologetics concepts.
Sign your kids up for Let’s Get Real: Examining the Evidence for God in January!
Second, I have several conferences booked for 2024 already, so if you’re hosting a conference and like me to come and speak on how to love God with your mind, meology vs theology, and even how to teach kids apologetics, or any of the topics I usually cover in my podcast, shoot me an email at hello@shandafulbright.com to discus details. My first conference is in GA in February and I will be speaking 3 times that weekend. The conference theme is anchored in truth. How great is that?
Ok, so what are some Christmas myths and legends?
In order for us to understand that this even means, let’s first discuss:
- What is a myth and what is a legend?
- What are some Christmas myths and legends?
- How should you respond when people say Christmas is pagan? Because that is all over social media like the Halloween debate was.
Myths and Legends
If you look up the word myth by doing a simple google search, you’ll find two definitions. It’s a noun. Definition one says: a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
Definition two says: a widely held but false belief or idea. I definitely do not like this definition. It doesn’t go far enough and can cause us to apply this term to things we don’t want to believe without backing up those claims.
In Let’s Get Real: Examining the Evidence For God, we go through the characteristics of myths and legends and why some will say the Biblical account is one of the two. So I think it’s important that we understand what these are so when we talk about Christmas, Santa Claus, Elf on the Shelf (if you do that) you know how to distinguish between these fun and silly things some might incorporate into their Christmas traditions but why the story of Jesus is not related.
So people automatically thing the Bible is a myth because of the supernatural events it records.
But that means they also believe Jesus is a myth.
The virgin birth is a myth. When people call something a myth, that means they don’t believe it is a fact.
But is the virgin birth a myth? How do we know it isn’t? It does sound mythical in some way, right? This man named Jesus, who is both God and man coming down to earth. But we must first understand that Jesus is not part God – he is fully God and fully man. He is sinless and all knowing. He is tempted, gets tired, and feels pain like humans. That is why the virgin birth eliminated the sin nature since sin came through one mad, Adam. Notice here that God used a woman to carry the Son of God and this is first prophesied in Genesis, ch 3. That is a brief description as to why the virgin birth is not a myth. Myths don’t have eyewitness testimony. Myths don’t have early testimony. They don’t have extra sources that confirm the original writings.
What is a legend?
A legend is a traditional story told throughout the generations and is regarded as historical but it can’t be proven. Since it is a traditional story, it has the potential to be altered because it is told again and again. This is where people will say that the Bible is like a game of telephone, told so many times the story gets distorted. But we can easily destroy that argument by the manuscript evidence we have for the biblical accounts. It’s thousands of manuscript copies that confirm the documents.
Now that we’ve talked about what a myth and legend are, let’s talk about some Christmas myths and legends.
I already mentioned why people believe the virgin birth is a myth. And why some believe Jesus is a legend – a traditional story told so many times, it has no historical significance and has been altered too much. By the way, this is something you learn in apologetics – how to defend the reliability of the New Testament documents against arguments such as these.
If you understand what myths and legends are, you’ll be better able to explain why Santa Clause is different than Jesus. So here’s the deal – we did Santa with our kids. They always got a Santa gift, we left milk and cookies out for him, my husband put ash on the ground as if he came down the chimney. And around 6th grade or so, my kids just found out he wasn’t real. In the back of my mind, I used to wonder if I was going to confuse them about Jesus being real if they were upset that Santa wasn’t real. And to be honest, my kids did get bummed out when they realized Santa wasn’t real. But what I did was explain to them that there is a legend of Santa Claus.
Now, here’s my disclaimer – you can do Santa with your kids or not.
Every family is different. But I do think it is the responsibility of every parent to understand how to differentiate between the legend of St. Nicholas and the historical narrative of Jesus and the virgin birth and be prepared to explain that to your kids. It is so necessary and is a great example to use in supporting what we believe and why.
Per the History Chanel, the legend of St. Nicholas (a monk), goes all the way to AD 280. Supposedly, he was born in Turkey. I’ve heard the first Santa was from Germany. So as you can see, the legend is very descriptive of a legend because the details are all over the place. Apparently, St. Nicolas traveled around and gave his wealth to the poor and sick.
Per the History Channel, St. Nicholas became popular in American in the 1700’s.
St. Nick’s Dutch name was Sinter Klaas, and that’s how we know him today as Santa Claus. The story has evolved over the years, from naughty kids getting coal in their stockings and good kids getting presents. My husband’s grandma is from Germany and she said the Santa Claus they knew was very mean and he would also spank the kids besides give them coal.
The story of Santa Claus is a fun story, but one thing I wanted my boys to know is that sometimes people give Santa god-like attributes. For example, the song, “He sees you when you’re sleeping he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake,” that is making Santa omniscient and omnipresent.
The story of St. Nicholas, Kris Kringle, or Santa Claus, is based off a man who did good deeds.
It is not based off a man’s claim to be God. Jesus claimed to be God and He backed up His claims with miracles. There is historical reliability that confirms the claims of Jesus being God. That is the difference and it’s a great way to help our kids understand that difference.
You can also say the modern day representation of Santa Claus is a myth because there are magical elements. So the story of St. Nich is a legend. The story of the modern day Santa is a myth. The historical narrative of Jesus is fact.
The rest of the Christmas things that people do, such as Christmas trees, Elf on the Shelf, caroling, presents, etc, are not myths. They’re not legends. Christmas has evolved into something very materialistic to many people. And that brings me to the last point.
How should you respond when people say Christmas is pagan?
Short answer – no, it isn’t. Yet some Christians will say it is. Who cares what non-believers say about it. They aren’t celebrating Christmas for the same reasons, which means they don’t celebrate in the same way.
I wrote a blog post about this a year ago and someone messaged me a really long explanation about why Christmas is a pagan holiday. I told her she can celebrate it or not, but don’t make the claim that it’s pagan and tell other Christians not to celebrate it.
Here’s what Christians understand:
Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25th.
Christmas isn’t about gift giving. It’s about the greatest gift of all: Immanuel, God with us. Jesus is prophecy fulfilled.
Even thought we might put a tree up in our house, that doesn’t mean we worship it and it doesn’t mean it takes away from celebrating Christ’s birth.
The Christmas celebration can be traced back to Constantine, where it originated. Some say that Christmas is related to Saturnalia, which is a festival attributed to the sun god Saturn. Per Got Questions, they say this about Christmas and Saturnalia: “So, Christians readily and comfortably acknowledge that the date and some of the history of Christmas might have a connection to the pagan holidays of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus.
But the meaning of any cultural custom, including a Christmas celebration, is determined by current usage, not origin. Like a family celebrating a Bible costume party on October 31, it’s the people celebrating who decide what the celebration means. Christians of centuries past chose December 25 as the day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the true “Unconquered King.” The use of this date continues today. Christmas and Saturnalia could be historical neighbors with indirect connections, but they are not the same holiday, and they never were.”
The major point here is that it depends on how you celebrate it that makes it pagan.
Not that you celebrate it.
So what do you do when some want to claim that Christmas is pagan? Ignore it. You’re going to see these posts on social media. People are going to have an opinion. Who cares.
If you celebrate Christmas and do the “pagan” things like Santa, tree decorating, Elf on the Shelf, those things are not sinful. Just like wearing a fun costume on Halloween is not a sin. But they are distractions when they take away the focus from Christ. Santa is not on par with Christ.
One of my boys said he heard someone say that Santa is a way to get kids to behave and God is a way to get adults to behave. This person obviously thinks Jesus is just as much a mythical character as Jesus. This is where we come in to explain the difference, as we did in section two of this episode.
So let me summarize a few things that I want you to take away from this episode:
- There is a difference between myths and legends. We should know what those differences are. Always define terms in conversations when discussing myths and legends with others.
- If someone tries to put Santa and Jesus on par with each other by equating them to either a myth or legend, you knowing the difference between the two, and knowing the historical reliability of the New Testament documents, will make this a conversation that will give you an opportunity to tell others why the Bible does not fit the description of either a myth or legend.
- Although there might be some connection between the timing of pagan holidays such as Saturnalia and Christmas, that doesn’t mean Christmas is a pagan holiday. Constantine declared December 25th as the time to celebrate Christ’s birth even though we all know this is not His actual birth date.
- If someone claims Christmas is pagan, walk away and ignore. Who cares. Celebrate Christmas and proclaim that Jesus is the reason for the season.
Close:
In the next episode we’re going to talk about Christmas traditions and why they’re important. We’ll also discuss the appeal to tradition fallacy and make sure you are aware of it so you can spot it this year. I mean, if some families are stuck to doing something a certain way because it’s always been done that way, knowing this fallacy will come in handy.
Alright, that’s it for today. Tis the season for joy and family. If you have any questions for me, email me at hello@shandafulbright.com and I’ll catch you on the next one.
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