Till recent times, hearing Christmas hymns on the street or in the shopping malls was a common experience. Then arguments arose from the people who were either indifferent or antagonistic against Christianity, and now in most places (I am not talking about communist or Islamic countries, but Western countries) we hardly hear such sacred music in public places. I do not mean that playing sacred Christmas hymns in shopping malls is a wonderful idea. What I want to point out is that people’s general conception of Christmas has changed, and now it has become a secular, worldly festivity. People enjoy Christmas even without relating it to Christ or Christianity at all. 

On the other hand, probably not many of you, Christians, know that reformers were not big fans of Christmas. Let me take an example from St. Andrews, Scotland, during mid-1500s. St. Andrews is known as a home of golf today, and the University of St Andrews is a well-known educational institute. It was a lively burgh with substantial maritime trade and population between 2500 and 3000 then. 

It was the hub of Scotland’s Catholic primate, and then it experienced a radical transformation to become Scotland’s foremost reformed community under the leadership of a person, none other than John Knox in 1559. He began “Reformation Day” by preaching on Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15-19) in his parish church of Holy Trinity. Then people forcibly removed all the “idols” and “images” from the burgh’s cathedral churches and destroyed two houses of friars, the Dominicans and Observant Franciscans (Jane E. A. Dawson, “ ‘The Face of Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk’: St. Andrews and the Early Scottish Reformation,” in Humanism and Reform: The Church in Europe, England, and Scotland, 1400- 1643, ed. James Kirk; SCH Subsidia 8; Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, 415–16). Led by Knox, the Scottish Parliament of 1560 began to work to break national ties to the Roman Church. This change ended the rule of the Pope, outlawed the Mass and Catholic baptism, repealed all statutes against heretics, and forbade “idolatries and superstition in the Kirk of God,” especially transubstantiation, salvation by works, pilgrimages, and prayers to saints, with death as the prescribed penalty for third-time offenders (The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 1124-1707, 12 vols.; London: HMSO, 1814–1875, 2:535; Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries, 3d ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, 313; Michael F. Graham, The Uses of Reform: ‘Godly Discipline’ and Popular Behavior in Scotland and Beyond, 1560–1610, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions: History, Culture, Religion, Ideas 58, Leiden: Brill, 1996, 46.). When the Scots Confession was drawn up by the “Six Johns” in 1560, Knox ensured that it recognized “ecclesiastical discipline, uprightly ministered as God’s word prescribes” as one of the three “notes, signs, and assured tokens” whereby the true church might be “known from that horrible harlot,” the church of Rome (The Scots Confession, 1560, Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1960, 44–45). Knox, following the example of Calvin, insisted that church discipline was to be administered by a special tribunal or morals court called the Kirk Session, the Scottish equivalent of the Genevan consistory, made up of all the salaried pastors of the city and twelve elected lay elders (Kirk R. MacGregor, “Religious Dissent and ‘Godly Discipline’ At St. Andrews in 1560 and 1574 and a Population, WTJ 69:1, Spring 2007, 40). “Kirk” is a term for the Church of Scotland. 

By 1574, the overwhelming majority of the city’s citizens manifested the earmarks of Reformed confessional identity, leading the Kirk Session to demand from them somewhat unrealistically to distance from all folk religious practices (many of which had been firmly entrenched in Scottish national identity for over a millennium) associated in the minds of Calvin and Knox with “popery.” The Kirk Session eventually cracked down on ostensibly Catholic practices, all traditional practices associated with the old religion. The Session feared that the laity would backslide in their faith and even revert to their former Catholic identity. Hence the story of Christmas comes in. The Session considered the celebration of Christmas as a practice associated with Catholicism. However, the Session was unable to eradicate folk religious practices, such as the celebration of Christmas. As a result, the Session was forced to rethink its strategy along more practical lines and to adopt a policy of integrating these practices into the fabric of Reformed life rather than insisting on their eradication.

Knox composed First Book of Discipline in 1561. In this book, he denounced several medieval Catholic practices as human inventions imposed by the papacy, and he included Christmas in the list (James K. Cameron, ed., The First Book of Discipline, Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1972, 88). He considered all such practices as abominations. To remove them all from Scotland, Knox demanded that all who maintained and taught them “ought not to escape the punishment of the civil Magistrate” (Ibid., 89). He even thought that if these practices were not suppressed, then God’s wrath would inescapably reign over the nation, not only upon “the blind and obstinate idolater, but also the negligent sufferers” since they chose not to employ the power God had given them to abolish such idolatry (Ibid., 94-95). By the way, in this Book he also prescribed that the members of the congregation should attend both the morning services and the catechizing on Sunday afternoons (Ibid. 181-182). Therefore, the congregation was expected to be well educated and nurtured with the Scriptures. On the other hand, the University of St. Andrews played an important role by training the next generation of Reformed ministers. Its faculty members preached the weekday sermons at Holy Trinity and provided a series of very highly qualified and renowned preachers for the local congregation (Jane E. A. Dawson, “ ‘The Face of Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk’: St. Andrews and the Early Scottish Reformation,” in Humanism and Reform: The Church in Europe, England, and Scotland, 1400- 1643, ed. James Kirk; SCH Subsidia 8; Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, 434). 

In 1575, the Kirk Session charged 24 men, mostly craftsmen, with superstition of celebrating Christmas. Three of them (cutler, blacksmith, and lawyer) were sentenced to repentance stool on Sunday, January 24. They acquiesced to the Session and became penitent before the church (Register of the Ministers, Elders, and Deacons of the Christian Congregation of St. Andrews, 1559–1600, ed. D. Hay Fleming; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: Scottish History Society 1889–1890, 1:388). Upon their confession, the Kirk Session commanded pastor Robert Hamilton to denounce Christmas publicly and to declare before the congregation anyone within the parish who superstitiously observed Christmas. Hamilton also warned that anyone who would not work or labour on Christmas to be dragged before the whole Kirk to make penance. He declared that and in accordance with the Decalogue, only Sunday should be kept holy and that recognizing the sanctity of any other day was a violation of the Sabbath (Ibid.).

Reformers feared that Christians stayed on superstitious celebration of Christmas like any other Catholic practices. Probably, today’s climate is radically different that Christmas is considered almost like a secular festival. Pleasure seeking, exchanging gifts, and fun related activities take over the superstitious Catholic practice. The celebration of Christmas is to celebrate the Incarnation of Christ, nothing else nothing more. John 1:14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” Truly, blessed Christmas to you all!

Pastor Ki

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