Does Christ belong in Christmas?

By Peter Gilmore - Posted at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Christmas bells hadn’t begun ringing this fall when the Christmas culture wars came to visit us again. Fighting back against a perceived “war on Christmas,” some Christians loudly insist that Christ be the center of Christmas as “the reason for the season.”

Many devout Christians who built the foundations of the Pittsburgh region we know today would have found the identification of the holiday with their faith baffling, even annoying. Presbyterians in early Western Pennsylvania steadfastly ignored Christmas because, to them, Christ was most certainly not the reason for a season of sinful indulgence.

Numerous Presbyterians arrived in the region during the early days of settlement toward the end of the 18th century. They organized Bethel Presbyterian Church in 1778, giving us Bethel Park. Their church on a hill, organized in 1784, became Churchill. The links between their world and ours are many.

These were eminently serious Christians, who scrupulously (and at times, querulously) professed their creed and policed their rituals. The sabbath was kept holy. All work ceased on days of thanksgiving and fasting. Those of suspect morals were kept from Communion.

But they did not observe Christmas. The season didn’t have a legitimate reason.

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