The Perennial Struggle

The Perennial Struggle 

Every year around this time there is the same list of questions circulating among Identity Christians, and many of us have the same inward struggle. What should we do about  Christmas? For many of us it is not a struggle at all. Rather, we simply alienate our families and friends by shunning their pagan holiday. However while it is good never to compromise the truths of our faith, we are also told to love our brethren above all but God Himself. There certainly are places where we should never cross the line, and we should not violate the commandments of God even in spite of our brethren. But it may be advantageous to see Christmas as an occasion to witness to the truth, rather than as an opportunity to somehow prove that we ourselves are more holy than our kith and kin.

Of course many of the people who adhere to the true Christian faith as it is found in Scripture, as those who associate ourselves with one form or another of Christian Identity see it, have come to understand the errors of our ancestors. Therefore it is natural for Identity Christians to despise Christmas as a pagan holiday. They have good reason to do so, because Christmas and many of the things associated with it clearly have pagan origins. But the winter festival has been a de facto part of our culture for thousands of years now - in spite of its complete absence from Scripture. And because of this, it is traditionally a principal gathering time for most White families. In fact, often it is the only time of the year in which many White families take an opportunity to gather at all! And if you are in the position that many in Christian Identity find themselves, the rest of your family celebrates Christmas with all of the usual holiday fervor.

It is fully evident from Scripture that Christ was born not in December, but sometime during the end of what is to us September – that time of the year at which the Old Testament Feast of Trumpets occurred, and a couple of years before the year in which our popular chronology places His birth. A few hundred years after Christ, the Roman church adopted the ancient pagan winter solstice festival for its own purposes. There is no doubt that the winter festival is a pagan holiday, celebrated among the Greeks as Bacchanalia, and in Rome as Saturnalia. It was a time of drunken revelry and sexual promiscuity.

Examining the pagan origins of what we now call Christmas, we find, for instance, the so-called Christmas tree described in Jeremiah chapter 10, written nearly 600 years before the birth of Christ, from verse 3: “ For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.” This is but one of the pagan customs which our Scythian-Israelite ancestors took out of Mesopotamia when they departed.

And in spite of all this, I find myself at times wanting to defend Christmas, but only because the jews and all the other enemies of Yahshua Christ are continually attacking it. And they do this even in spite of the fact that jewish merchants and bankers profit so handsomely from it! So this is the perennial struggle which I referred to at the opening of this discussion. Yet it need not be a struggle at all, once we attain the proper perspective.

1 John 4:21: “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”

We in Christian Identity should be well aware of the prophecies which Yahweh uttered of our people, that there are those who would slumber, and there are those whom He has called into awakening in His marvelous light: the truth of the Gospel and the Covenant. We who are called to understand His Word need not vaunt ourselves over our brethren who have not yet been blessed in that same manner. For God – and no man – decides which of us awaken, and which continue in that prophesied blindness.

Yet if one can use even a pagan holiday to do good, how can that ever be evil? Was that not the example of our Redeemer in the first place? While most Identity Christians certainly would not eat the ham, and most of them may also - as they should - shun the silly tree and the made-in-China decorations, we certainly should not shun our kin. We should reject the commercialism which the jews profit from so handsomely - but we should also reject that commercialism all the rest of the year! We should celebrate and cherish the little time that we get with our families all year long, but for many of us this is the only time we may actually get to spend with them. Therefore we should not despise them, even if they know nothing about those things which we esteem to be true. Rather, this is also an excellent time to testify to that truth.

At John 8:22-23 we find this: “Then there was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem – it was winter – and Yahshua walked about in the temple on the porch of Solomon.”

The feast of dedication was instituted by the Maccabees after the restoration of the temple about 150 years before the birth of Christ, after the temple had been spoiled by the Greeks of Syria. Like Christmas, it is a holiday instituted by man, and not by God. Christ was found in the temple during the feast of dedication, not necessarily because He was celebrating the feast, but because that is where His people were gathered! Yahshua was teaching in the temple at the feast of dedication, and although the religious authorities were opposed to Him, John tells us at 8:30 that: “Upon His saying these things many believed in Him.”

We can indeed go to our family gatherings on Christmas, and every other chance that we get. And while we certainly should not go into debt for those unnecessary things which the jews try to sell us, we can, and we should, use those times to testify to the truth of the gospel.

As Paul said speaking of his trial in Rome, albeit in a somewhat different context, at Philippians 1:15-18: “Some indeed even because of envy and strife, but some also by approval are proclaiming the Christ. Surely these out of love, knowing that I am set for a defense of the good message, but those out of contention are declaring the Christ not purely, supposing to stir up tribulation in my bonds. What then? That in every way, whether in pretext or in truth, Christ is declared, and in this I rejoice. And surely I will rejoice.”

Whether in pretext or in truth, if Christ our Redeemer is declared, we too should rejoice. Therefore we should not let the jews take the Christ out of Christmas. Rather, we should celebrate our Redeemer on that day and on every other day. However if the Christmas holiday is the day upon which we can be with our kin, and attest our love for them and for Christ too, then we must certainly take advantage of it as best we can.

So to hell with the antichrists! Transform the pagan winter holiday into a true celebration of Christ. And in the meantime pray for His return, that He may make all new things, and make gone His enemies.

- William Finck