Puritans on Christmas

For the past few years I have ‘dabbled’ in the Puritans. In the last few months I have been intensely researching this movement (particularly its 17^th century British expressions). The more I discover these men and women in their writings, the greater my appreciation of them grows. I have written elsewhere why I warmly recommend contemporary Christians read the Puritan writings. They were men of faith, conviction, intelligence, true piety, and were marked by the fruits of the spirit.

But, they also had feet of clay. They were prone to judgmentalism, legalism, and excessiveness. They tended to imagine sin where no sin existed (such as believing “whittling on Sunday” to be a heinous, blasphemous sin). One such example is their discomfort with the observation of Christmas. In New England, where Puritanism had free-reign for a time, Christmas was banned in several areas. This picture above shows a Public Notice from 1660 of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which banned the observation of the holiday. We should note that most Puritans didn’t mind personal observance of Christmas in one’s own home. However, they severely reacted to any public observance of the day. To them, it was simply a tool of Satan to lead one’s mind away from Christ.

The Puritan’s were not completely wrong in this. Just walk through the mall this Christmas season, or look at the light display at your neighbor’s (or your own) house, and you can easily see a culture that has succumbed to a secular-oriented materialism. That form of Christmas most certainly is a tool of the Deceiver.

True to their characteristic excessiveness, the Puritan’s thought they could control the heart by making a law. The great “Puritan Experiment” in New England failed. They sought to set up a “city on a hill”. Indeed, they thought they were such a city. Now, just 175 years after the pinnacle of their movement, New England is one of the most spiritually-bankrupt geographical areas in the country (yes, I was a New Englander for a period of time). The Puritans controlled the culture, the courts, the churches, and the laws—but they found they couldn’t control the human heart.

The Puritan’s were certainly wrong is refusing to see any redeemable qualities in Christmas. But, I wonder how wrong contemporary Christians are for refusing to really take seriously the dangers of Christmas. Yes, we give these dangers lip service, yet every year we give our children dozens of presents (even to the point of racking up credit card debt). We spend weeks prior gathering “wish lists” and let our families engage in endless discussions of “what we want for Christmas”. Of course, we spend a few moments reading the Nativity Story from the Gospel of Luke, but seconds after ribbons and wrapping paper are flying around the room. The birth of Jesus becomes the warm-up act to the main show.

This Christmas we made a big change. First and foremost, we gave the children far fewer presents. The presents were non-expensive gifts. Instead, we gave a few trinkets to each child. Second, we decided we would open our gifts on Christmas-eve morning. This way, we could dedicate all of Christmas morning for worship, fellowship, and celebration. Christmas is Christ’s mas, and we will dedicate the day totally to Him.

My wife I and will not live like the Puritans, but we will learn from them.