Banned Christmas

A Christmas day in America: Crowds of Americans rioting in the streets. Two opposing groups shout loudly, vying to have their messages heard and heeded. The groups meet. Confrontation ensues. Fistfights break out. Church windows are smashed. What are these rioters fighting about? Christmas. One group favors celebrating Christmas, the other opposes all Christmas observances. This isn't an imaginary event, it is history. It happened in Boston on Christmas day in 1706.

In America's increasing love-affair with Christmas (both the Christian and commercial versions), we have forgotten that there was a time when much of European and American Christianity thought that Christmas should not be celebrated. In the riot described previously, the anti-Christmas group consisted largely of Congregationalists (Puritan descendants), Baptists, and Presbyterians, while the pro-Christmas group comprised mostly Anglicans (Episcopalians). The notion that Christians of any stripe should not want to celebrate Christmas is so foreign to our present concept of the holiday, that we need to review some history to understand it.

Prior to the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, Roman Catholicism celebrated the "Christ Mass." It was one of many special masses and feasts of the Catholic Church celebrating key events in Jesus' life or the birthdays of saints. The three main Protestant movements that ultimately came to America had three different reactions to this situation.

First, although the Anglican Church developed a Protestant theology, it kept much of Catholic liturgy, including festivals celebrating aspects of Christ's life and the feast days of many saints. It gave special emphasis to the celebration of Christmas.

Second, after Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517, special liturgical observances began to be frowned upon. The Lutherans thought that the celebrations of saints' days were too much and so cancelled them. But they still emphasized observing events in Jesus' life, and so continued with joyous Christmas festivities.

Third, the Calvinists in Switzerland banned all Christian holy days not mentioned in Scripture. That approach meant that the Sabbath was acceptable, but nothing else. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and other celebrations were to be treated as normal days with nothing special about them.

The Calvinist position came to be quite influential in Great Britain, even though it never altered the position of the Anglican Church. John Knox brought Calvinism to Scotland as Presbyterianism where Christmas was banned in 1583, while the Puritans brought Calvinism into England, where it became influential in circles both within and outside of the Anglican Church. During the Civil War in 1647, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan followers outlawed Christmas observance. It was brought back in 1660 at the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II.

From England, both sides brought their Christmas beliefs to America. The Puritans (later becoming the Congregationalists) were joined by Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists (despite their founders' pro-Christmas predilections), and Baptists on the anti-Christmas side, while the Anglicans dominated the pro-Christmas side, and were later joined by the Lutherans and the Dutch Reformed.

In Boston, the Puritans outlawed Christmas in 1659. Although the ban was lifted in 1681 when the British government took control of the colony, an armed guard had to protect the governor on his way to church on Christmas of 1686. When the colony reverted to local control in 1689, Christmas again fell out of favor.

The objection to Christmas by Americans was two-fold. First, for Calvinist theology, it reflected what they saw as the “pagan” character of Catholic worship. Christmas was not a biblical holiday and had not even become a Christian festival before the late 300s; it was a creation of the church, not of Christ. Second, the holiday was accompanied by extensive reveling. Celebrations were not primarily worshipful, but involved feasting, game playing, heavy drinking, shooting, and gambling. For the over-indulgers, it brought out the worst of their excesses. Since the holiday celebrated the Savior's birth, such immoral behavior was seen as sacrilegious.

During the 18th century, Christmas observance began to be more accepted. Church-goers turned their attention to purifying the holiday of its excesses, rather than rejecting it altogether. By the 1750s, even New England hymn books contained Christmas carols. By the early 1800s, Christmas was observed with an emphasis on family and children.

In 1836, Alabama became the first state to make Christmas a legal holiday. Other states followed suit; even Massachusetts legalized Christmas in 1856, almost 200 years after its ban. But the last state, Oklahoma, did not join in until 1907.
December 2016 

The Plain Cathedrals

I often visit religious buildings and sacred sites when I travel. On a recent trip to England, I toured the cathedrals at Canterbury and Durham. Canterbury Cathedral has been the premiere cathedral of the English church since the 12th century and the center of the Anglican Church since its founding in the 16th century. Durham may be the most picturesque cathedral in Britain; situated atop a hill in a bend on the river Wear, it dominates the surrounding countryside.

The exterior of each cathedral impresses the viewer with its majesty and the imperial character of its architecture. But upon entering, one is struck with a sense of emptiness. The interiors are quite plain, emphasizing the soaring architecture, but seemingly without further decoration. This is because the present decoration of these buildings results from the transformation of English Christianity from Catholic to Protestant.

The cathedrals of Canterbury and Durham were built about the same time. The present Canterbury cathedral was erected between 1067 and 1077. Durham’s cathedral was begun in 1093 and completed over the next 40 years. Both cathedrals formed the center of a monastery and both contain the tomb of a saint. They, thus, became important pilgrimage destinations. St. Thomas Beckett lies at Canterbury and St. Cuthbert at Durham.

As monastery, pilgrimage center, bishop’s seat and place of worship for the community, each cathedral received a great deal of decoration in the decades and centuries after their construction. Their current plainness is not reflective of their early history.

While we know little about these cathedrals’ furnishings, a comparison with cathedrals that still retain their medieval character is suggestive. The basilicas of Italy, for example, remain ornate. The walls and ceilings of the older basilicas in Rome, for example, are decorated with statuary, carvings and paintings; the Bergamo basilica is covered with paintings and woven tapestries, while the interior of Venice’s St. Mark’s Basilica is covered with gold mosaics from floor to ceiling. All of these cathedrals have extensive collections of silver and gold candlesticks, offering plates and other liturgical items --often encrusted with valuable jewels.

While it is unlikely there was much gold artwork at Canterbury and Durham, it is likely that they had many paintings, statuary and tapestries, along with many valuable liturgical utensils. In Durham, there are a few shadowy remains of artistic scenes on the wall, indicating it was once covered with large, colorful murals. So, rather than being plain and empty in their early centuries, the Cathedrals of Canterbury and Durham were crowded with artistic and religious items serving the needs of the cathedrals’ varied constituencies.

So, how did these cathedrals become so plain?

In the 1520s, King Henry VIII could not get an heir, and so he asked the Pope to annul his marriage so that he could (hopefully) marry a more fertile woman. The Pope refused. In response, Henry withdrew his country from the Catholic Church in 1534 and created the Church of England, with himself as head. By 1536, Henry realized the enormous wealth the church controlled and began to appropriate it for the crown. In 1538, he ordered St. Thomas’ shrine in Canterbury destroyed and its vast hoard of treasure and gifts confiscated. In 1539, both Canterbury and Durham monasteries, and their cathedrals, were closed. The cathedrals were reestablished in 1541.

Henry’s actions began the despoliation of the two cathedrals and, by the end of the 16th century, most of their medieval furnishings were gone. Anything that remained at Durham into the 17th century was destroyed in 1650 when the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell used the cathedral as a prison for 3,000 Scottish soldiers. Other cathedrals and monasteries across England and Wales were treated similarly.

Although the treatment of these monasteries and cathedrals in Henry’s time, and afterward, was essentially looting, the resulting plain look of the cathedrals fit well with the growing influence of Puritan theology in the now-Protestant Church of England. Puritans desired to “purify” the English church of what they considered to be the mistakes inherited from the Catholic Church. One of these mistakes was the widespread use of art in places of worship, which made them seem “idolatrous,” the Puritans believed. So, once the cathedrals and churches became plain, they were left that way until modern times.

Who Was Against Christmas?

Picture the following scenario: Crowds of Americans rioting in the streets. Two opposing groups shout loudly, vying to have their messages heard and heeded. The groups meet. Confrontation ensues. Fistfights break out. Church windows are smashed.

What are these rioters fighting about? Christmas. One group favors celebrating Christmas. The other opposes all Christmas observances. Is this an imaginary future event? No, it is history. It happened in Boston on Christmas day in 1706.

In America’s increasing love-affair with Christmas (both the Christian and commercial versions), we have forgotten that there was a time when much of European and American Christianity thought that Christmas should not be celebrated.

Who thought this? In the riot described above, the anti-Christmas group consisted largely of Congregationalists (Puritan descendants), Baptists and Presbyterians, while the pro-Christmas group comprised mostly Anglicans (Episcopalians). The notion that Christians of any stripe should not want to celebrate Christmas is so foreign to our present concept of the holiday that we need to review some history to understand it.

Before the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, Roman Catholicism celebrated the “Christ Mass.” It was one of many special masses and feasts of the Catholic Church that celebrated key events in Jesus’ life or the birthdays of saints. The three main Protestant movements that ultimately came to America had three different reactions to this situation.

First, although the Anglican Church developed a Protestant theology, it kept much of Catholic liturgy, including festivals that celebrated aspects of Christ’s life and the feast days of many saints. It gave special emphasis to the celebration of Christmas.

Second, after Martin Luther nailed his “95 Theses” to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517, special liturgical observances began to be frowned upon. The Lutherans thought that the celebrations of saints’ days were too much and cancelled them. But they still emphasized observing events in Jesus’ life, and so continued with joyous Christmas festivities.

Third, the Calvinists in Switzerland banned all Christian holy days not mentioned in Scripture. That approach meant that the Sabbath was acceptable, but nothing else. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and other celebrations were to be treated as normal days with nothing special about them.

The Calvinist position became quite influential in Great Britain, even though it never altered the position of the Anglican Church. John Knox brought Calvinism as Presbyterianism to Scotland, where Christmas was banned in 1583. The Puritans brought Calvinism into England, where it became influential in circles both within and outside of the Anglican Church. During the Civil War in 1647, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan followers outlawed Christmas observance. It was brought back at the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660.

From England, both sides brought their Christmas beliefs to America. The Puritans (who later became the Congregationalists) were joined by Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists (despite their founders’ pro-Christmas predilections), and Baptists on the anti-Christmas side, while the Anglicans dominated the pro-Christmas side. The Baptists were later joined by the Lutherans and the Dutch Reformed.

In Boston, the Puritans outlawed Christmas in 1659. Although the ban was lifted in 1681 when the British government took over the colony, the governor still had to be protected by an armed guard on his way to church on Christmas 1686. When the colony reverted to local control in 1689, Christmas again fell out of favor.

The objection to Christmas by Americans was two-fold. First, for Calvinist theology, it reflected the “pagan character” of Catholic worship. Christmas was not a biblical holiday and had not even become a Christian festival before the late 300s. It was a creation of the church, not of Christ.

Second, the holiday was accompanied by extensive revelry. Celebrations were not primarily worshipful, but involved feasting, game playing, heavy drinking, shooting and gambling. For the over-indulgers, it brought out the worst of their excesses. Since the holiday celebrated the Savior’s birth, such immoral behavior was seen as sacrilegious.

During the 18th century, Christmas observance began to be more accepted. Church-goers turned their attention to purifying the holiday of its excesses, rather than rejecting it altogether. By the 1750s, even New England hymnbooks contained Christmas carols. By the early 1800s, Christmas was observed with an emphasis on family and children.

In 1836, Alabama became the first state to make Christmas a legal holiday. Other states followed suit; even Massachusetts legalized Christmas in 1856, almost 200 years after its ban. But the last state, Oklahoma, did not join in until 1907. In this way, Christmas became the first religious holiday in which its celebration is sanctioned by law across the United States