A few responses to critiques of the Sunday, December 25 Shutdown.

What is most intriguing is that while some of us brought up the the traditional Calvinist-rooted suspicion of Christmas, others snorted, saying that was in the past and not a factor. Well, looky at what the pastor of the Lexington church at the heart of much of this had to say a Sunday or so ago:

"Christmas began as a pagan holiday to the Roman gods, and if we were to really celebrate the historical birth of Jesus, it would either be in early January or mid-April. I’m only pointing out the historical technicalities not out of intellectual arrogance, but again because of the illogical, ill-informed and even hypocritical arguments that were aimed at me this past week."

(On that point: William Tighe’s interesting hypothesis on "Calculating Christmas")

Ben Witherington is aggrieved by the misuses of Scripture in this discussion:

The text they are using to justify their behavior is Col. 2.16-17– "Therefore do not let anyone judge you in regard to what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival– new moon festival or a sabbath. These are a shadow of the things that are to come; the reality however is found in Christ."

Having just written a commentary on Colossians, I suppose the use of this text to justify closing on Christmas was likely to rile me up. Paul is talking about Christians not going to synagogues in Colossae or Hierapolis and being part of Jewish celebrations. He is not talking about Christian worship services or festivals at all!

Furthermore, what he is concerned about is Christians in Colossae who would suggest that other Christians, even Gentile Christians, were required to go and take part in such syagogue celebrations. I can’t imagine a church today requiring their parishioners to go and celebrate Hannukah during Christmastide, although they might encourage them to go if their Jewish neighbors invited them.

But in any case Col. 2.16-17 cannot provide any rationale at all for closing church on a given Sunday, much less Christmas Sunday. That would be to take this text completely out of context. I can only assume that no one checked the commentaries before making this pronouncment.

But notice in the very verses cited that Paul says that these festivals are shadows of things to come, the reality of which is in Christ. Paul does not mean that Christ himself is the substitute for all previous rituals, as if having a relationship with Jesus was all that is required. The phrase ‘in Christ’ here refers not only to what goes on in Christ himself, but is likely (as elsewhere in Paul see 1 Cor. 12) to refer to the celebrations that go on in the body of Christ.

If one reads the book of Hebrews closely enough one will find this very sort of hermeneutic applied as well. Christian celebrations are seen as the fulfillment of the OT ones which are seen as foreshadowings, and so the Christian celebrations are the replacement of those Jewish celebrations for Christians.

I’m thinking, given the audience, that the horse is well out of the barn on this one.  The vast majority of commentary I’ve read on this in defense of the megachurches’ decisions takes a decidedly dim view of corporate worship, for reasons that seem completely logical in the context of this tradition.