Allan J. Macdonald

A Jolly Folly?

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and received by many Reformed churches, did not disapprove of Christmas, leaving it as a matter of liberty of conscience for churches to decide.

      Theodore Beza (Calvin’s successor in Geneva who visited Zurich to liaise with Bullinger in compiling the Confession) wrote to Knox, requesting Scottish approval for the Confession. The General Assembly in Scotland replied with a letter of “general” approval. Nevertheless, the

      The Dutch Reformed churches had been in the habit of keeping Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide (Pentecost) as days of religious worship. The Provincial Synod of Dort, 1574, enjoined the churches to do this no longer, but to be satisfied with Sundays only for divine service. One common factor that the Reformers constantly had to address was the attitude of the populace and the secular governments, who desired and stipulated respectively that certain feast days such as Christmas had to be observed. This often was not the preference of the church, but the church had to accommodate itself to the secular authority (another upshot of the unnatural relationship between church and state created by Rome).

      This tension over holy days is evidenced by the following quote from the Dutch Calvinist theologian, Gisbert Voetius (1589–1676), in 1659 on Christmas and Good Friday:

      Such articles are not characteristic or intrinsic or voluntary impulses proceeding from the heart of the church; but occasional, extrinsic (just as an eclipse is a characteristic phenomenon of the moon), imposed from the outside, burdensome to the churches, in and of themselves and in an absolute sense unwelcome. Synods were summoned, compelled and coerced to receive, bring in and admit these articles, as in the manner of a transaction, in order to prevent worse disagreeable and bad situations. . . .

      Francis Turretin (1623–1687), the acclaimed Reformed theologian in Geneva did not oppose Christmas, adopting a similar view to Bullinger. Both on the continent and in Britain, a struggle was emerging in Protestantism between those who viewed holy days as positively unscriptural and those who viewed them as convenient. The Anglican Church (in large part an artificial creation by Henry VIII to facilitate the success of his marital aspirations) also retained Christmas. As we noted in the Lutheran excursus above, although it developed a Protestant theology, the Anglican Church kept much of Roman 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. In a subsequent chapter, we focus more closely on the attitude to Christmas in the church in Britain. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced many Christmas hymns in German. Among the most famous is, “Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen” (“All My Heart This Night Rejoices”), which was written by Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676). In addition, music by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), and Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) was adapted and used in Christmas carols. As an aside, the term “carol” is derived from Latin and from the old French “carole” meaning a circle-dance. In the Middle Ages, the use of these dance songs expanded in the religious realm as processional songs at Roman Catholic festivals. Their use fell into sharp decline following the Reformation, until being revived again in the nineteenth century by prominent composers.

      In colonial America, the practice of Christmas all depended on the origin of the settlers. Those from Puritan England banned it and so it was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was only revoked in 1681 by an English governor and it was not until the 1850s that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. In contrast, other parts such as New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, that were predominantly Moravian, openly kept the festival.

      Rev. Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 the metamorphoses of the pagan holiday into a Christian one, in a pamphlet he published criticizing Christmas in his own day, A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs Now Practiced by Some in New England. During the seventeenth and well into the eighteenth century, most New England congregations used the so-called Bay Psalm Book, a rhymed version of the Old Testament Psalms, with additional hymns taken from various biblical sources (this was the first book published in New England). None of these hymns dealt with the Christmas story. By the 1750s, however, the Bay Psalm Book had largely been replaced in New England churches by a pair of new verse translations of the Psalms, both of which contained Christmas hymns. Between 1760 and 1799, at least thirty different Christmas songs were published in New England. Yet Christmas was still not that popular in colonial America in comparison to parts of Europe, especially Germany and Bohemia/Moravia (modern Czech Republic). This was illustrated during the American Revolution of 1765–1783. The British had hired thirty thousand troops from the Hesse region of Germany to increase their military might. On December 26, 1776, George Washington launched a major offensive against Hessian troops in New Jersey. Central to the choice of the date to attack was the belief that the German troops would be intoxicated and drowsy after their zealous celebrations of the previous day!

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