Upshot: Trying to justify that Dec 25 was in no way pagan fails; it was syncretist from the start (I believe it was Ambrose that admitted this).
I agree about the calendar thing. But still it doesn't follow it's syncretist. As mentioned in the video Christians did adopt the symbolism of the Sun dying and being born again but this has nothing to do with the initial reason for celebrating Christmas. The Church co-opted and baptized pagan rituals and this helped with the adoption of Christianity among the pagans. In the case with Christmas, the nativity was a purely Christian feast and it had to compete with the pagan celebrations of Sun worship.
That's what proves they were working from the equinoxes and not the actual date of Passover (2 weeks after the calculated new moon of the equinox, e.g. 1 Apr 33 AD Julian or 3 Apr Gregorian). Since they worked from the equinox, they got the solstice, open and shut. (They also assumed Christ's conception was the same day as his birth, which was symbolic but also not justified, especially because shepherds didn't watch their flocks by night in winter.)
No, Hippolytus used the jewish Temple calendar from Luke 1:5 and determined John the Baptist was conceived late September and Jesus was conceived 6 months later getting 24th Match + 9 months = Christmas.
The reason people are afraid to say Merry Christmas is the opposite of Protestantism, namely rabbinical Judaism and Islam. If you merely meant Orthodox and Catholics are not afraid to say Merry Christmas, that would have a bit of correlation considering the whole world, but the fight against Christ being celebrated proceeds apace in Catholic and Orthodox countries too in its own way, so I don't know that Protestant policy is the only reason for its advances.
It doesn't matter because the reason why the West is in this state is ultimately secularism, materialism and liberalism which was brought about by the Reformation.
That's your evidence? I might just as well say that Tolkien's extremely colorful Catholic retellings of Father Christmas's adventures (and Dickens's Anglican carol, and Lewis's Anglican Father Christmas in Narnia) were just as responsible. Lewis even wrote an essay on how there were two different celebrations of the same date already, a pagan and a Christian, and he put forward his Father Christmas to direct people back to the Christian side, but it's been amalgamated into the pagan side too. So, yeah, it's syncretist and it's not the Protestants' fault.
The evidence is that during the middle ages the figure known as Santa Claus was St. Nicholas who was a real person. Eventually his attributes and characteristics were modified which led to the Coca-Cola token fairy tale figure living in the North Pole. The reason why this happened is because Protestants weren't keen on veneration of the saints but also because of rising secularism that inevitably accompanies Protestant nations.
Y'know, I should be very cautious here, because somewhere in the notes I have the justification for the Mar 25 that frames the Dec 25, and there may be enough leeway there to say it wasn't directly the equinox/solstice link. The problem is that Jesus didn't say to celebrate his conception and birth and the Bible is generally against birthdays anyway. He said celebrate his death (because it's Passover, an established date), and he celebrated both the Levitical feasts and the added feast of Hanukkah. And Sabbath. When the Gentiles lost the original OT context of the feast calendar they started making their own (naturally inventing a date for Christ's birth), and Augustine put forward all kinds of the new feasts as if properly supplanting the old ones, with Sunday supplanting the Sabbath. But these are all by God's permission and by magisterial authority, and not by Biblical command (not even Sunday) or by actual commemoration of any Biblical event. So I'll back out the claim that Dec 25 is always syncretist, because I wasn't remembering all the details; but there is so much larded over onto the Biblical data that when I discovered it (Lev. 23) and realized that it covered the whole Bible period I wondered at how far we've strayed from its didactic symbolism.
But I learned to enjoy both Sabbath and Lord's Day, and to celebrate Christ's birth both at Tabernacles and with underinformed Christians at Christmas.
I hadn't heard of Hippolytus using the Abijah calendar to get that date. Here, among other things, are three readings that put John's conception in midsummer based on Abijah. John Parsons is a reliable source and lays out all the evidence he can find on both sides, and doesn't find Hippolytus using the Abijah calculation, jibing with my memory that he only had the solar calendar and the concept of putting the conception on the same date as the crucifixion (which wasn't necessarily indicated and ultimately cuts against Josephus). So I'm not convinced the early church fathers used Abijah; Chrysostom instead argued that Zechariah served for Day of Atonement, which is an understandable assumption but not in the text and not consonant with the Abijah evidence.
I understand if my quibbling attempt to put a little braking on a rampant charge might not sound like the most supportive. Yes, the Protestants lost the original Nicholas and let his character be heavily reworked; and we suffer for this, and are trying to work our way out of the hole. I guess my concern is that if we're both against the consumerist idol then we shouldn't regard blame for each other's camps as any more than a friendly tease, instead of using words that make it more belligerent. I'll seek to work on that myself.
I agree about the calendar thing. But still it doesn't follow it's syncretist. As mentioned in the video Christians did adopt the symbolism of the Sun dying and being born again but this has nothing to do with the initial reason for celebrating Christmas. The Church co-opted and baptized pagan rituals and this helped with the adoption of Christianity among the pagans. In the case with Christmas, the nativity was a purely Christian feast and it had to compete with the pagan celebrations of Sun worship.
No, Hippolytus used the jewish Temple calendar from Luke 1:5 and determined John the Baptist was conceived late September and Jesus was conceived 6 months later getting 24th Match + 9 months = Christmas.
It doesn't matter because the reason why the West is in this state is ultimately secularism, materialism and liberalism which was brought about by the Reformation.
The evidence is that during the middle ages the figure known as Santa Claus was St. Nicholas who was a real person. Eventually his attributes and characteristics were modified which led to the Coca-Cola token fairy tale figure living in the North Pole. The reason why this happened is because Protestants weren't keen on veneration of the saints but also because of rising secularism that inevitably accompanies Protestant nations.
Y'know, I should be very cautious here, because somewhere in the notes I have the justification for the Mar 25 that frames the Dec 25, and there may be enough leeway there to say it wasn't directly the equinox/solstice link. The problem is that Jesus didn't say to celebrate his conception and birth and the Bible is generally against birthdays anyway. He said celebrate his death (because it's Passover, an established date), and he celebrated both the Levitical feasts and the added feast of Hanukkah. And Sabbath. When the Gentiles lost the original OT context of the feast calendar they started making their own (naturally inventing a date for Christ's birth), and Augustine put forward all kinds of the new feasts as if properly supplanting the old ones, with Sunday supplanting the Sabbath. But these are all by God's permission and by magisterial authority, and not by Biblical command (not even Sunday) or by actual commemoration of any Biblical event. So I'll back out the claim that Dec 25 is always syncretist, because I wasn't remembering all the details; but there is so much larded over onto the Biblical data that when I discovered it (Lev. 23) and realized that it covered the whole Bible period I wondered at how far we've strayed from its didactic symbolism.
But I learned to enjoy both Sabbath and Lord's Day, and to celebrate Christ's birth both at Tabernacles and with underinformed Christians at Christmas.
I hadn't heard of Hippolytus using the Abijah calendar to get that date. Here, among other things, are three readings that put John's conception in midsummer based on Abijah. John Parsons is a reliable source and lays out all the evidence he can find on both sides, and doesn't find Hippolytus using the Abijah calculation, jibing with my memory that he only had the solar calendar and the concept of putting the conception on the same date as the crucifixion (which wasn't necessarily indicated and ultimately cuts against Josephus). So I'm not convinced the early church fathers used Abijah; Chrysostom instead argued that Zechariah served for Day of Atonement, which is an understandable assumption but not in the text and not consonant with the Abijah evidence.
I understand if my quibbling attempt to put a little braking on a rampant charge might not sound like the most supportive. Yes, the Protestants lost the original Nicholas and let his character be heavily reworked; and we suffer for this, and are trying to work our way out of the hole. I guess my concern is that if we're both against the consumerist idol then we shouldn't regard blame for each other's camps as any more than a friendly tease, instead of using words that make it more belligerent. I'll seek to work on that myself.