A story is told of Warren, the brother of the well-known writer C. S. Lewis. He was travelling on a bus when they passed a church which had a Christmas crib in front. He overheard a woman exclaim, “Oh Lor’! They bring religion into everything. Look—they’re even dragging it into Christmas now!”

For the majority of our Western population Christmas is little more than a secular holiday. No doubt look some forward to the partying and the excuse for a booze-up. For some it is little different from any other day in the year. As someone declared, “So why’s Christmas just like a normal day in the office? You do all the work and that fat bloke in the suit gets all the credit.” Some would relate to the Austrian lass of sixteen who wrote, as reported in a leaflet of the European Christian Mission:

Christmas always brings fear to my heart. For a few minutes we watched the lighted candles on the tree. We open our presents, we have a holiday and better things to eat. We live peaceably together. But afterwards the days are no different than they were before. The already dirty snow lies banked up on either side of the road. There just remains a great emptiness.

One sophisticated magazine published the following greeting to its readers:

From most of us to some of you, then, a very very alienated Christmas, a disenchanted New Year; some degree, if you insist, of peace on earth; and whatever you may find to your advantage in good will toward men.

Others can appreciate a time of celebration, even if they are unsure of what it is they are celebrating. If they think Christianity has something to do with it, though not usually church attenders, they may well attend a service or a carol singing event. After all, for those who watch television, there does not seem to be much in the world to celebrate. The emphasis given by Christians to the birth of Jesus may have its appeal to many, even though they interpret Christmas in basically secular terms. There is, after all, something special about babies. The emphasis on children always has its appeal. We were all young once and the world’s great thinkers often had lowly origins.

I suspect that the majority of Westerners who know something of history would acknowledge the religious origins of traditions associated with Christmas, whether Christian or pagan. Pagan religions of the Northern Hemisphere held the celebrations of their gods as the cold and darkness of winter began to be replaced by the warmth and light of spring and the sun reached its turning point. For the Romans, it was the feast of Saturnalia (not surprisingly described by historians as “an orgy”) that began on December 17 and lasted up to seven days. The worshippers of Mithras celebrated the birthday of their god on December 25, the date then accepted as the winter solstice. Sometime around A.D. 336 the church in Rome capitalised on these pagan festivals and made the occasion an opportunity to celebrate the coming of Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2). A third-century theologian said it well: “We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of Him who made it.” None would claim that Jesus was actually born on this date, as we don’t have enough information to know that.

However, not everything is clear here. The Roman Emperor Aurelian passed an edict in A.D. 274 establishing the festival of Natalis Solis Invicti (Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun) while dedicating a temple. Notable church fathers Tertullian and Augustine were convinced that Christmas preceded this pagan holiday. Alvin J. Schmidt, in his scholarly work Under the Influence, states that in northern Africa, Christians were already celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25 in A.D. 243, thirty years before Aurelian’s edict. If this is true, it wasn’t Christianity that Christianised a pagan festival, but a pagan emperor attempting to paganise a Christian festival that predated it by thirty years. Alfred Edersheim, one of the foremost scholars on ancient Jewish culture and sacred writings, says, “There is no adequate reason for questioning the historical accuracy of this date.”

There is also the interesting suggestion that the early Christians may have taken the Jewish Festival of Lights, or Hannukah, the essential elements of which have many similarities to those we celebrate at Christmas, and adapted it to the celebration of the birth of Christ. This would be similar to the ways they took the Jewish festivals of Passover, First Fruits and Pentecost to celebrate significant events from the life of Jesus. Hanukkah last for eight days, beginning on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev (Novermber-December), so it usually falls in December. This feast is mentioned in John 10:22 , in a passage where Jesus’ relationship with God is discussed. It could be that, from the very beginning, the Church has celebrated the coming of Jesus into the world during December.

Some, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, will not celebrate Christmas because of pagan associations. However, what could be more true to the message of the New Testament than taking some aspect of culture that has been taken over by the “elemental spiritual forces of this world” (Colossians 2:20), whether Mithras or Mammon, and transforming it into a celebration of the One who came to renew all things?

Of course, this does not mean that the truth or flourishing of Christianity depends on the celebration of Christmas. After all, Christianity spread at a rapid rate through the Roman Empire and beyond well before, as far as we know, Christians celebrated Jesus’ birth as an annual event. It is significant that the early preachers and teachers of the gospel did not even mention Jesus’ birth. It is not mentioned in the early sermons that are recorded in the book of Acts. Paul does not mention it at all in his letters. He does say that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4), but the point of this is simply to underline his true humanity and the fact that he was accountable to moral constraints as are the rest of us. It does not appear in the earliest Christian confessions that are found in the New Testament letters. When the Gospels came to be written later, only two of the four mention the event. In the next chapter I will suggest why this was so.

Several times in history the celebration of Christmas has been banned. In 1643 the British Parliament officially abolished the celebration of Christmas, and between 1649 and 1660 Christmas carols were banned in Oliver Cromwell’s austere new republic. The pilgrims to the New World in the seventeenth century invented a new festival called Thanksgiving, hoping it would enjoy greater importance than Christmas. For a time, observing Christmas could result in imprisonment in Massachusetts, and for nearly two centuries it was largely ignored in the New England states. When Mobuto Sese Seko was President of Zaire it ceased to be a public holiday as it was not “authentically African”. But Christianity is not dependent on this particular celebration on this particular day, however much the birth of Jesus may mean to believers. The Armenian Church celebrates the birth of Jesus on January 6. In A.D. 303 the Roman Emperor Diocletian “celebrated” the Nativity by having nearly 20,000 Christians burned to death!

The real issue for Christians is not the timing of the event, but who it was that was born, why he came and his significance for all of humanity. Christians regard the coming of Christ, including his birth, teaching, death and resurrection, as the most important event of human history. If the Christian view of these things is true, then we can rightly agree with the expressive statement of Ralph W. Sockman: “The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.” The influential Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, declared in Religious Experience:

As we think of the baby in the manger to whom this Christmas Day the worship of a world is offered, let us remember that his childhood tells us something of the eternal truth of God. It is this which gives Christmas its significance. [Our} belief depends for its value primarily upon its truth. If it is a beautiful fiction, its power is gone. The claim of the Christian Gospel is not chiefly that it is uplifting or comforting but that it is true.

One of the issues I will explore in this book is the evidence for the fact that these things are indeed true. Tolkein said, “There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true.”

According to Luke’s account, the angel announced to the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people (Luke 2:10).” If Christian beliefs about Jesus are indeed true, then it is certainly good news, but only, of course, if they are understood. Kenneth Kantzer declared:

Christmas is good news—the best of all good news. It tells us what God is like, it tells us what man is like, and it tells us what the Christian life is like. This is all man needs to know to live and die by—but he needs to know all of it.

I would certainly not claim to know all of it, but hopefully this book will help to clarify the important issues, issues that are as relevant to us in the twenty-first century as they were in the period when Jesus was born.

And what about the virgin birth, or what would be more accurately described as the virgin conception, the idea that Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit without the aid of a human father? Recent surveys have shown that more Americans believe in the virgin birth than believe in evolution, whereas half of Church of England clergy doubt or disbelieve it! One of my aims is to show that the Virgin Birth not only makes more sense than any other view that has been suggested as to how Jesus entered this world of ours, but also points to truths that have great significance and encouragement for all of humanity.

So let’s begin by exploring what the real issues are as we consider these questions.