This line is popular. “I’m personally opposed to abortion, but…” We all know what follows. This is also popular among politicians who are trying to appeal to this modified middle position. Let’s look at this a little more closely and then think of the implications. 

Why is the pro-life advocate against abortion? Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being. Others who oppose abortion think this too.

Repeat back the position to the person personally opposed to abortion. They oppose abortion because it takes the life of an innocent human being. They also don’t think it is right to tell a mom she can’t kill her child. Making this clear often changes the minds of those who try to hold the middle ground.  

One can also take a parallel type of reasoning from American history. Can you imagine someone saying, “I’m personally opposed to slavery, BUT… I shouldn’t tell other people not to own slaves?” Or, “I’m personally opposed to spousal abuse, BUT…I shouldn’t tell others not to abuse their spouse.” Although each of these is immoral, both are actually less evil than killing an unborn. We may recoil in horror from these examples, but don’t when speaking of the brutal ways of slaughtering the most innocent unborn.

This modified middle-position has another implication. Ask, “Should you tell a mom she shouldn’t kill her 6 or 7 year old child?” If so, why is the one right and the other wrong? The questions reveal the underlying assumption. The reason it is wrong to kill the older child is the same reason it is wrong to kill the unborn. Both are innocent, distinct, valuable human beings worthy of protection. 

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I recently heard someone express, “We shouldn’t believe the Bible because scientists have proven that there could not have been an eclipse during Jesus’s crucifixion.”

For those of us who believe in the Bible, we may wonder why there is any problem in believing in anything the Bible says. Many have grown up with, the Bible says it, so I believe it. Although it is true that we should believe it because the Bible says it, that does not mean we shouldn’t prepare to give an answer for those who don’t believe in the Bible. After all, Peter commands us to “always be ready to give a reason for the hope that you have with gentleness and respect.” (1 Pet. 3:15) Here are four reasons we can give for believing in the account about the darkness that covered the land during Jesus’s crucifixion.

First, there is the historical testimony. The first century historian Thallus said there was great darkness that happened at that time. The historian Edwin Yamauchi has attested to the authenticity of this account. This darkness was reported by the second century historian Julius Africanus as well. We should also recognize the Scripture serves as a historical testimony about this event that is not contradicted in any early critics of Christianity. This lends support to its testimony.

Second, there is the fact that if God exists, miracles are possible. One can’t rule out that God intervened with a miracle in causing darkness to cover the land unless one first can prove God does not exist. The fact is God does exist. Paul explains we all know it at some level (part of the theme of Romans 1). The philosophers have proven it in many ways in their arguments. Even the scientists, who showed up late to the party, discover overwhelming evidence for God’s existence. Robert Jastrow puts it this way in his work God and the Astronomers:

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” 

Third, there is evidence that God supernaturally raised many dead people that day and on the Sunday following the Lord’s death in raising Jesus from the dead. God also did many other miracles through Jesus over the course of his life. This was a testimony that Jesus was both the son of God, and the only one who could save us from our sins if we would only trust in Him. It would be nothing for God to cause darkness compared to all the other miracles people had witnessed during Jesus’s three year ministry.

Fourth, it is never mentioned that the darkness over the land was necessarily an eclipse. We know that God caused a plague of darkness to effect the entire land of Egypt for three days as described in Exodus 10:21-23 that didn’t occur where the Israelites lived. The three hour darkness would not be a normal eclipse if it was one as the longest these last is only a couple minutes. It is probably better to think of it as comparable to what God had done in Exodus 10.

These four reasons for this one event are just the tip of the iceberg for Biblical evidence. We have an abundance of testimony, evidence, and reasons to believe that Christianity is true. God invites us all to have confidence that we can indeed trust in Him for every good thing.

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This is a great question. The above quote, spuriously attributed to the founder of the Franciscans, captures the sentiment believed in many Christian circles. Bad theology and our own insecurities help to bolster the idea that we shouldn’t judge, push our faith on others, or share the gospel using words.

I’ve found three things convicting in my own life contrary to this view.

First, I never knew the gospel or evidence for Christianity being true even though I was raised in a church-going environment. When I discovered the truth in my early 20s, I wondered why no one ever told me. I’d gone to church multiple times a week for twenty years and was very active in the church, but had never heard the gospel.

Second, Jesus commands us to make right judgments in John 7:24 and not to avoid judging all together. Some who act like they know the truth don’t, and some whose lives are a mess do. We have to have relationships and conversations with others to discover what they believe to assess whether they know the gospel. After we ask them questions getting to know them we can share the truth. The difficulties in that come from our own fears in sharing the gospel effectively or being afraid we won’t be able to answer questions they may have. However, these can be overcome with preparation. For sharing the gospel, memorize the Scriptures of the Romans road, practice your own testimony for how you came to faith, or equip yourself with resources that teach you how to share. For answering difficult questions about Christianity, avail yourself of the treasure trove of resources available through different apologetics ministries. By the way, the word apologetics comes from the apostle Peter’s admonition to always be ready to give a reason- or apologia in Greek- for the hope that you have.

Third, the Scriptures explain Jesus’ command to go and share the good news (that is the gospel) requires that we use words. Matt. 28 contains the great commission, which in many circles is the great omission. They stay away from the challenge of sharing the truth with others. Personally, when I first read the following in Romans 10:8-17, I believed and was saved:

“But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

Let me encourage all who read these words to believe this message and to share it with others. Practice sharing your testimony and include the good news of our salvation. The famous unbelieving magician Penn Jillette says it well: “How much to you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?” Go Christian, love your neighbor.

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By Donald Robert McConnell, J.D.

The current Insurgency in our cities has started to make more people aware of the greater crisis in education. With a handful of exceptions our colleges and Universities have become political indoctrination and revolutionary training centers spreading neo-Marxist and radically post-modern ideology to the malleable, and failing to provide true information, education, or critical thinking skills to the scholarly. Many of us, conservative Christians in higher education, have seen this coming for decades; but few listened. Call me Casandra. Just a few years ago I was asking candidates for governor of a red state what they would do about the problem of the radical takeover of public education. They all looked confused and denied there was any real problem. Either they had all attended unusually conservative private schools, paid no real attention in school to anything but hard science, business, and sports, or they had unknowingly absorbed the false worldview propagated by their professors. This is one root of our problems: many of our “conservative” leaders never really learned or believed the deep truths that support and explain conservative moral practices and policies. They just want change to be slow and structured. They have no idea why any change is good or bad. When push comes to shove, they give in to the worst sorts of changes.

Other causes of our troubles come from our American character that emphasizes the pragmatic, the quick buck, and athletic life over things like theology and philosophy. Because we tend to be an anti-intellectual people where the humanities are concerned there will be some resistance to undertaking the effort needed to reform education. But to stop the revolutionaries, we must reform education. This will be an undertaking that makes the second world war look like a game of capture the flag. It is too complicated for a simple solution. But I have five points of action for the realm of higher education.

1. We need to reject the current accreditation system. Accreditation is supposed to make certain schools are real schools instead of fly by night confidence schemes. Instead, it has accomplished several bad things:
a. Intuitions have been forced to hire only professors with narrow degrees from the major universities. In other words, if you want a Western Civilization professor, the accreditors will frown on you if you hire a lawyer or an architect, even though these people may know more than enough about western civilization. Instead, you will need to hire someone with a PhD in Western Civilization (which will be hard to find. The graduates will all be studying third world culture or world culture or African culture etc.) or a specific related humanity. Nearly all of them will come from major universities. To get their PhD they had to be chosen and approved by most of the faculty in their department. This faculty almost certainly held worldviews contrary to Christianity. Some of them may have been tolerant. Many will not have been. Getting conservative Christians through this eye of a needle without conscious or unconscious conformity is a long shot. In the end the requirement of specific PhD’s means you tend to hire more left-wing faculty.

b. Institutions have been forced to waste time and money on endless “assessment.” The idea is supposed to be that your institution is always improving. But the whole assessment regime is based on the false Hegelian notions that endless improvement is possible, and the old ways are not best. I am sorry, but making students listen to lectures, watch audio-visual presentations, read books, write about the ideas they are studying, and discuss what they are studying works well. Messing with it endlessly with goals upon goals and assessments on assessments is a waste of time and effort. In fact it rewards those who are bad teachers but are good at bureaucracy – a deadly academic sin in my book. It also encourages dumbing the program down because small goals are easier to reach and record thorough simple means like quizzes. Assessment also requires the use of “rubrics” to evaluate everything. I have lost track of how many papers and essays I have written. I have read far more than I have written. When I read something, I consider a thousand tangible and intangible qualities evident in the work. I cannot quantify and explain them all. But I know an “85” from a “96” when I see them. Trying to lay out all the factors in a paper helps the students who want to check the boxes, but it does not encourage the writing of “good” papers, let alone great ones. Return to the old ways. Set the professors free from assessment.

c. Assessment intimidates institutions into adopting whatever the current fads are in higher education. I remember attending conventions of a regional accreditor. Seeing all the colleges scramble to change their missions to incorporate the latest and most trendy phrases announced in the convention breakout sessions was heartbreaking. If you are a student trying to find an institution in tune with your own goals it is no doubt frustrating when they all seek to “empower leaders for life-long learning in a global and culturally aware high tech milieu” – or the same thing in the same words reshuffled in a new order. I think the group-think focus on “promoting diversity” is a similar product of the accreditation regime. The law school I ran had many minorities – far better numbers than the state schools. We never sought them or hired special staff, we just tried to produce lawyers who understood the law and kept our doors open to all. If you do not want colleges to follow the spirit of the age like sheep, free them from the current accreditation regime.

2. Run our own PhD programs in all the arts of free peoples. If you want faculty that will teach the truth and not turn your students into unforgiving Molotov cocktail makers you are going to need PhD programs run by conservative faculty who turn out conservative teachers for the future for every liberal arts discipline. Today it is almost impossible to find a PhD program in Philosophy, English Literature, Sociology or History at theologically and politically conservative Evangelical protestant institution. There are some, but not many. By contrast it is easy to find nursing or “leadership” graduate degrees. This deficit must be corrected to recapture education from the so-called progressives.

3. Stop using the German model of higher education. In the 1800’s America admired the Universities of Germany. Thankfully we never picked up the dueling with sharp sabers. But the beer drinking and the “research university” model took over by storm. Under the research university model, the primary goal of a professor is not to teach well, it is to do “cutting edge” research and get it published in a “peer reviewed journal.” If faculty fail to do such research or fail to get it published in the appropriate places, they are fired. It takes five to six years, but excellent teaching is never enough to keep your job. In the world of physics or computer design, this sort of makes sense. You want students to learn how to do research, To stay on top of things, faculty need to model cutting edge thought and action. But what if you are teaching “English Literature in the Romantic Period” or “The Philosophy of the Good”, well, then the trouble starts. To do “cutting edge research” a professor must come up with some new and different idea about her subject. To get published in a peer reviewed journal it must be acceptable to the faculty peers from less conservative universities who run those journals, and it needs to fit in with the direction of the academic fads currently in vogue. This is how mild-mannered Christian professors end up writing articles on things like “A Post-Structuralist Interpretation of Bardic Instruments in Dark Age Welsh Literature: Harps as the divine feminine and horns as misogynist/racist oppression” or “A Critical Theory Approach to Queer thought in Plato’s Republic.” If you are forced to devote your effort to such things in order to keep your job, it prevents you from using your time for other, more edifying studies. It also leads to you and your students beginning to think that Post Structural analysis of meaning, Critical Theory, and LGBTQ based categories are in some way useful and worth knowing how to apply – more useful than just trying to figure out the boring old knowledge of what the dialogues of Plato or the legends of Myrddin are really trying to say. In the end, these writing expectations drive faculty to the left and reward radicalism. The more extreme and sillier your views are, the more “original” and “cutting edge” your research. Dump the German model. Once humanities faculty are judged by the quality of their teaching you will slowly have better faculty teaching better things. Academics will always want to write. By the way, I am not saying everything Critical Theory, or any other philosophy, says is false. Even Stalin ate breakfast, arrested bank robbers, and promoted childbearing. No human is wrong all the time. What I am saying is we need to focus more on the good, the true, and the beautiful and less on applying anti-Christian world views.

4. Be sure you teach the truth as well as falsehood. I remember going to a lecture by a faculty member at a “conservative evangelical Christian college.” The lecture was about what the professor taught about epistemology (the study of knowledge and knowing). In the lecture he covered the dangers of modernist and post-modernist epistemologies rather well. Afterward I approached the professor and asked what resources he used to explain Augustinian epistemology (one of the three great distinctively Christian approaches to the problem of how we know things and what we can know) to his students. His response shocked me: “Oh I don’t bother with that, the students get that at church.” I don’t know where the professor attended church, but I am not aware of any that effectively teaches an academic level Christian philosophy of knowledge. This man taught his students views that were wrong but left them to find the truth in the dark. All students who attend college need to be taught why truth is knowable; give them the Augustinian, Thomistic, and Common Sense realism views without saying one is better than the others – but let them know the ideas that support their faith and their civilization. Students need to learn the things that equip them to be free people. They need to understand why they have rights and what real rights are. They need to know the roots of the law. They need to be able to give an answer for the faith that is in them or at least know why Christians say that faith should be in them. They need to know why Socialism and Communism don’t work and why Marx and Gramsci and the Frankfurt School are wrong and free markets, Natural law, and objective faith based rational critical thinking are right. They need to know why living is hard and why it is worthwhile. They need to know the arts of free peoples as they really are; not as they are distorted by the spirits of our age.

5. Doing point three requires point four: End public education and re-create private education. The way the courts have mis-interpreted the first amendment public schools are never going to teach the real truth; they are never going to equip students in the arts of free peoples, nor will they explain any other discipline truthfully because they leave God out of the equation. God, the real one from the Bible, not all the fake ones from Islam or therapeutic deism, is the most central and important reality in the Universe. Without him you cannot really understand anything else. I know this is hard for pragmatic tolerant Americans to accept, but it is an unavoidable truth. So to teach the truth, you are going to need private education for everyone. School choice, with no public run choice. I know some people will try to force public educators to teach the truth. But this will not work. Just look at England: For the whole history of England Christianity has been taught in the government schools. But they have not communicated the truth. As I recall a chapel speaker noting in my own college days “British students get an inoculation against Christianity. They are exposed to a weak or dead version of Christianity, so they never catch the real thing.” Public schools run by socialists and post-modernists, but forced to teach a good curriculum, will only be inoculation centers.

I know, you are thinking this is going to be expensive and difficult. It will be. But can we afford the alternative? Students educated as they are today will eventually vote out our republic and persecute Christianity. They will pull down the wrath of God on their heads and harm their neighbors. Life is never easy, and truth is never cheap – even when it is a gift. So let us gird up our loins and join the battle like happy warriors till truth is taught throughout our land.

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Let’s examine what James says as it relates to sin in his second chapter:

⁸ If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. ⁹ But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. ¹¹ For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

What James is talking about is the unity of the law, not the equality of sin. Let’s not confuse the two. If you sin in any way, you are a sinner in need of a savior.We should strive to purge all sin from our lives and to live in a holy way. At the same time, there are good reasons to believe that not all sins are equal.

Here are several examples. There are different types of sin listed in Scripture. Some of these are more serious than others. For example, we know every sin will be forgiven men except the sin of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 12 we find the following:

³⁰ “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. ³¹ And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. ³² Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Jesus makes the point here that even those who sin against him, the Son of God, can be forgiven. But those who reject the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. There is clearly some sin that is more serious here.

We also know that some sins lead to death, and other don’t. John writes in the fifth chapter of his first letter,

¹⁶ If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. ¹⁷ All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

Whatever these sins are that lead to death, they are clearly more serious than those that do not.

On the other side, we also have an illustration from Jesus in Matthew 25 of the parable of the talents. Each person receives a reward based on his faithful work. For the one unfaithful in his work, that person receives no reward. This contributes to the understanding that God is a just judge, giving each person his due. Those who are faithful with much will be given more. Those who are unfaithful, lose their reward.

We also catch a glimpse of this in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. In the second chapter Paul writes,

¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. ¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

We see again a picture of those whose work for the Lord was valuable receiving rewards. Those whose life was built upon wood, hay, or straw, which can be burnt in the fires of testing, will be saved, but will have nothing more than their salvation when they are with the Lord forever. They will not receive rewards. God wants us to live faithful lives devoted to Him and serving others. We are called to these divine rewards in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal.

Admittedly, every Christian, indeed every human being, is a sinner. Some of us sin a lot and some don’t sin too much. However, the judge of all our souls will try the quality of every persons work. He will judge rightly just as we are to judge (John 7:24). 

Equipped with this knowledge, let each one of us strive to that higher calling of those rewards we can store up in heaven by loving God and others with a living faith.

Bernard James Mauser, Ph.D.

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President Trump is being criticized for hoping the great quarantine can end by Easter. People are saying lives are more important than money. It is true that lives are more important than money. But this criticism shows a lack of understanding about economics. The question of when to end the quarantine is really a question of lives versus lives; what kind of a risk of death and suffering we would rather face.

The United States has been blessed with a high standard of living and a low death rate compared to most nations in the world. We have so much wealth that even the poor in the USA are better off than the middle class of many other nations. This wealth is not an accident. It is here because Americans are more productive. We use our God given minds, time, and resources to produce more goods and services per person than most other countries in the history of the mankind. More goods and services don’t just mean a more comfortable life: they mean no one needs to starve to death in the USA; they mean more healthy and nourishing food is available; they mean medical services unavailable in much of the world are available to even the poor in America; they mean we can travel to get medical help; they mean we can travel to help others in need; they mean we can access emergency first aid services; they mean we have more access to friendship, relatives, neighbors, and opportunities to exchange the love and social interaction humans need to thrive. All these blessings mean people who would otherwise die earlier will live longer. And the longer the quarantine continues, the less of them we will have.

Fewer resources do not just mean a lower standard of living. In practice they mean more people die sooner. Lonely people lose their will to live or have no one to be sure they are taking their medication. People in remote areas die because they cannot get to medical care in the city soon enough. The quality of diets decline, and more people die of ailments sooner because they lack proper nutrition. Less sanitation is available, and more contamination occurs. With less abundance, there is less charity available to the poor.

As resources diminish, socialists in America will claim the solution is more government control and rationing of every aspect of life. If they get their way, we will have even fewer goods and services. Central planning is inferior to the market in making allocating resources, so misallocations occur more often, resulting in shortages of desired goods and services and surpluses of what no one wants. Incentives to produce are reduced, sometimes savings and production are even penalized, so productivity declines. More government regulation means more obstacles to the efficient production of goods and serves and the free flow of people and material, so more declines in production occur. Socialists always try to overcome diminished resources and to punish the wealthy by inflating currency. This in turn makes the elderly (who live on savings) poorer. When people resist these results, powerful governments use force to suppress decent. In the end, socialism kills indirectly as well as directly.

At present, it may well be that the medical benefits of the quarantine outweigh the cost in human lives. But make no mistake, keeping the economy in lock down will have its own cost in human lives. At some point that cost will be greater than letting the virus run its natural course. In a fallen world it is never a question of if we will die, it is always a question of when and how.

By Donald R. McConnell

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Every December we find the same claims circulating the internet. Critics say we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas for one reason or another. Some say it is a pagan tradition, and others that Christians borrowed it from mystery religions. Atheists, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even some Christians propound this claim. This was made more popular by Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (p. 232). As the Watchtower declares in their Awake! Magazine of December 8, 1988 (p. 19), “those who celebrate Christmas do not honor God or Christ, but honor pagan celebrations and pagan gods.”

Those who claim that we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas because it is pagan do so in many ways. Each also misses the mark.

The first way is that there are pagan elements associated with Christmas and it is even celebrated by pagans. Many can recognize there are some ignoble things that certain groups may promote at Christmas. Highlights include commercialism, drunkenness, and illicit merry-making. Others make it all about Santa Claus.  Those who promote Santa usually know nothing of the historical figure of Saint Nicholas. The Saint Nicholas of history was the bishop of Myra, a city in Asia Minor. Most famously Nicholas was so upset about the claim of the heretic Arius, who said Jesus was not God, that he punched him in the face at the Council of Nicea. The irony is that modern day Arians are Jehovah’s Witnesses, who also oppose all things Christmas including Santa (not that Santa is intrinsically related to Christmas).

None doubt that people do have different things they celebrate. Not all celebrate things that are immoral or endorse sinful behavior. It is always wrong to sin. The main thing Christians emphasize in their celebration is the incarnation and birth of Jesus. So, in discussing this with people, keep in mind there are at least two different celebrations taking place on this day. Some have in mind the non-Christian elements and traditions. Christians, however, celebrate the birth of Jesus and all that it represents.

Let’s look at those who celebrated the birth of Jesus in Scripture. Before he was born, John the Baptist celebrated Jesus while in his mother’s womb (Lk 1:44). Angels also praised God for Jesus as did the shepherds (Lk 2:9-20). The magi also came to worship Jesus and presented him with gifts (Matt. 2:10-11).  The messiah was worshipped early on by the magi. This is an indication of his deity from birth as only God is worthy of worship. This is appropriate as what we celebrate is the incarnation, i.e., the fact that God became man (Phil. 2:6).

What of the two instances of birthday celebrations in the Bible of pagan rulers. In the first account it is Pharoah.  In the second account it is King Herod. At both birthday parties the ruler orders someone put to death.  One thing to note is that these rulers put people to death all the time. It wasn’t just because it was their birthday that they put people to death, any more than you can say they ate food just because it was their birthday. We can note that murdering people at any time is immoral. We can also note, especially as those who celebrated the birth of Christ were from God, that celebrating the birth of Christ is morally good. If John the Baptist and the heavenly host (among others) thought it was good, we too can be morally justified in celebrating the birth of Jesus.

To dismiss celebrating Jesus’ birthday due to the fact pagans also celebrated their birthdays is to commit the genetic fallacy. It points to the source of something as determining that it is good or evil. We know that even evil people know how to give good gifts to their children (Matt. 7:11). Following this reasoning, we shouldn’t give gifts to our children because that is what evil people do!

What about all the alleged problems with the date that Christmas is celebrated? Problems abound with this criticism.

Consider first the alleged parallel with the pagan festival Saturnalia. It is claimed that Christians celebrate on December 25 to replace this pagan Roman festival. The history shows that this can’t possibly be true. The reason is Saturnalia was celebrated on December 17.[1] If they really wanted to replace this pagan festival then they should have gotten the date correct. It would be similar to saying that in order to get rid of people celebrating evil things on Halloween, which is October 31, we should replace it with a festival to celebrate what God has done on November 10, which also happens to be my birthday. This would be a terrible strategy. People would just end up celebrating both (I won’t object to those who want to send me gifts on my birthday).

What about the feast Invictus Sol? This was a feast certain Romans celebrated to the unconquered Sun. There are multiple problems with the claim that we celebrate Christmas to replace this feast. The most significant is that the Christian accounts that list December 25 as the birth of Christ are much earlier than the accounts of the pagan festival. The earliest date mentioned in history for a feast day for Invictus Sol on December 25 was late in the 4^th century by the Roman historian Macrobius.[2]  Macrobius Theodosius wrote Saturnalia, and is associated with either the praetorian guard of Italy in 430 AD or the proconsul of Africa in 410 AD. We have many Christian sources over a century earlier than this that have December 25^th as the date for the birth of Jesus. For example, Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 AD) argued before 235 AD that Jesus was born on December 25. This means, at least according to the known historical record, that these references to a December 25^th date for Jesus’ birth are over a hundred years earlier than the pagan festival. If there is any borrowing it is more probable that the pagans were borrowing from the Christians.

The methods Christians throughout history used to calculate the birth of Jesus has differed. Hippolytus’s calculation involved Jesus’s conception on the Passover, which according to early tradition was calculated as March 25. Some early sources think this was the day of Jesus’ birth, and others his conception. If it is when he was conceived, given a 9 month gestational period, this puts Jesus’s birth at December 25. Others use dates given in what is known from Zechariah’s service in the temple. They then calculate when he was there, when Elizabeth conceived John, and when unborn John (who was 6 months at the time) leapt in the womb at the sound of Mary’s voice to calculate this December 25^th date.[3] The calculations of both ways of reasoning are quite advanced and neither relies on a pagan festival.[4]

What about the claim that Mithra, Adonis, Osirus, and Dionysus were also born on this day? The facts are otherwise. Just do about 5 minutes of research and you’ll see that it just is not so. There is also the problem that none of these figures were real people in history. That is completely different from the real figure of Jesus. The accounts of Jesus’ life are recorded in Christian and non-Christian sources (including Roman and Jewish sources). With very little research you can discover for yourself the historical accounts of Jesus differ greatly from the mythological nature of these others. [5]

Let us finally put to death all those claims that Christianity borrowed from pagans.  This Christmas focus on the fact that God loves us, added a human nature at the conception, was born of a virgin, testified to the truth, and died for our sins so that we may have an abundant life through Him. O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

[1] This is given to us by the Roman Macrobius. Thomas C. Schmidt provides this account and the problems with drawing this parallel between the two. T.C. Schmidt, “The dates of Saturnalia (and Sigillaria!) and Christmas.”: https://web.archive.org/web/20140721073230/http:/chronicon.net/blog/christmas/the-dates-of-saturnalia-and-sigillaria-and-christmas/

[2]The widely accepted date given by Alan Cameron of Macrobius’ work Saturnalia is 394 AD by Alan Cameron, “The Date and Identity of Macrobius,” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 56, (1966), 25.

[3] This is not to say there is consensus as to when Jesus was born among those who calculate the dates. However, what can be shown that the December 25 date for the birth of Jesus is much earlier in the historical record than the pagan feast Invictus Sol.

[4] There are many works that analyze these calculations. Thomas C. Schmidt explains the advanced calculation of Hippolytus in “Calculating December 25 as the Birth of Jesus in Hippolytus’ Canon and Chronicon,” Vigiliae Christianae 69 (2015) 542-563. Though when this date falls is hotly debated, few doubt he was born. The real debate is among two different theories. The one group whose views seem supported in considering these texts espouses the Calculation theory which is the approach of Hippolytus.

[5] Not only is there no real comparison with the birth narratives, but even the alleged parallels with the resurrection is linked to crop cycles in paganism and with a substitutionary atonement for Jesus. Tryggve Mettinger summarizes, “For the disciples and for Paul, the resurrection of Jesus was a one-time, historical event that took place at one specific point in the earth’s topography. The empty tomb was seen as a historical datum. The dying and rising gods were closely related to the seasonal cycle. Their death and return were seen as reflected in the changes of plant life…there is no evidence for the death of the dying and rising gods as vicarious suffering for sins.” The Riddle of Resurrection, 221.

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For those given to a certain reading of history, Thanksgiving marked that early time when Europeans began their colonization of the Americas and a massive genocidal insurgency.[1] Indians were portrayed as a bunch of friendly, peace-loving folk that help the Pilgrims survive. Pilgrims were simply “oppressive colonizers.”[2] The Pilgrims, and those after them, got all their land from the Indians either through deception or force, as Indians allegedly had no view of property rights and so were duped into various transactions with Europeans.

This popular narrative is completely wrong.

First, the background of the colonists in the New World was diverse. For the most part, those who came here had a common Christian background, but those who settled in the different parts of America had various denominational differences. To say those from each of these denominations didn’t like each other is an understatement. Those in Virginia were predominantly Presbyterian and royalist supporters. Pilgrims, who landed at Plymouth Rock, were separatists (from the Church of England) who were fleeing religious persecution. Those in the rest of New England tended to be Puritans. These Puritans were Anglicans who wanted to purify the Anglican Church from within. They ended up eventually absorbing the Pilgrims. Those who settled in Pennsylvania were Quakers and those in Rhode Island were Baptists.

Here is the time line for when each group moved to the nation that would come to be known as the United States:

1607- First English colony established at Jamestown (although briefly abandoned for the year 1610)

1620- Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth

1629-1640- Puritans moved to Massachusetts

1642-1675- a few English aristocrats and large number of their servants moved to Virginia

1675-1725- English from the North Midlands and Wales settled in Delaware

1718-1775-   Immigrants from Yorkshire, Scotland, and Northern Ireland moved inland to the Appalachian backcountry[3]

Those who arrived in the American colonies arrived with political charters. They did not think they had a property right to America, but they had political rights. This meant they would have the opportunity to negotiate with the natives for land. Over time, and for different reasons, they’d find many Indians willing to do just that.

Note that prior to the American Revolution, the vast number of Europeans in the Colonies were east of the Appalachians. Native Americans occupied most of what we call America today.

Colonists traded metal weapons and instruments, unknown in America prior to the Europeans (contrary to the Mormon narrative), to Indians in exchange for tobacco, food, and land. The American Indians were happy to do so as they had an abundance of land, and had no metal-ware at all. Moreover, some Indians were savvy enough to know that the European settlers could form a barrier against aggressive Indian tribes that started moving into their areas. This was a strategic advantage for many tribes, and caused a loss of many Colonial lives.

Secondly, many who made the crossing to the new world died either on the journey or soon after arriving. Of those on the Mayflower, five died during the crossing and forty-five of the one hundred and two died the following winter. They had lost half those who had come across from their number.

The dangers were numerous. Of these dangers, William Bradford writes of the Indians after their crossing, “but these savage barbarians, when they met with them (as after will appear) were readier to fill their sides full of arrows than other wise.”[4]

The area around where the Pilgrims landed was inhabited by a tribe known as the Wampanoag. There was another fierce and war-like tribe in the area known as the Pequots. The Wampanoag, led by Massasoit, decided to make a treaty with the Pilgrims to aid them if they were attacked and in exchange the Pilgrims would aid them in case of an attack. As we know from history, the Pequots eventually warred against the Colonists. Contrary to the popular understanding, the Pequots were not wiped out in a genocidal massacre, though they were defeated.

Third, notwithstanding the threat of Indians, there were also problems related to shelter and food. Those initially arriving in the colonies had agreed to a type of contract expressed later by Karl Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

This is how Bradford describes it:

“The experience that was had in this common course and condition…may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s…the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For his community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men that were most able and fit for labour and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense. The strong…had no more division of victuals [i.e., food] and clothes, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was though injustice.”

Bradford’s description is typical of socialist states today. Everyone receives an equal amount regardless of whether or how hard they work. Many among the colonists thought this was unjust. This experience in the Plymouth Plantation was not unique. Jamestown also had a similar social organization in the beginning and saw its population reduced from around five-hundred to sixty in 1609-1610.

Those in Plymouth faced many challenges their first summer of 1621. Historian Richard Maybury records that they suffered not only from a famine, but also had among them many thieves. He explained Bradford’s point that these were men who were not working that took to stealing food from the crops at night when they were barely able to be eaten. The first Thanksgiving meal was, in his words, “the last meal of condemned men.”

Bradford then explains that “God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”[5] This came through giving to “every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end…and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than other ways would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly, into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”[6]

The incentives that came from the property caused people to freely produce more than could have been had from the tyranny of coercion. This motivated women, who claimed beforehand to be too weak or unable, to work the fields along with the men. As a result, not only did those in the colony have plenty, they made enough to begin to export their goods.

Those who founded our nation suffered many trials. They have left us some important lessons that should not be forgotten. Along the way they learned that peace, property, and freedom caused everyone to prosper. The first Europeans give us yet another historical reminder against the claim that socialism, redistribution, and war can bring utopia. Let us make sure to educate each new generation about history, human nature, and economics to ensure that never again will hundreds of millions of lives to be lost to socialist planners.

[1] The ABC sitcom Single Parents highlighted this recently with a teacher who greets students with “Happy Genocide Day.”

[2] This mischaracterization is seen in an episode of The Simpsons.

[3] Adapted from Tom Woods, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, 1.

[4] William Bradford, History of the Plymouth Plantation: http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/14-bra.html

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

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