A Christmas Polemic
By Scout
The Armstrongist view on Christmas is really about self-righteousness. It is not about whether there is a pagan taint to some popular observation. Armstrongists, for instance, have never examined Thanksgiving. One could make a superficially plausible argument that Thanksgiving is contaminated by paganism. The Native Americans who met with the pilgrims were throughgoing pagans. By Armstrongist standards, so were the pilgrims. The pilgrims believed in the Trinity. In addition, Thanksgiving is rooted in sin. Armstrongists used to believe, and maybe still do, that Native Americans were Canaanites. And Israel was not supposed to make treaties with Canaanites but was supposed to exterminate them. So, the first Thanksgiving celebration was a sinful rebellion against God. So, we have two rebellious, pagan peoples inaugurating an observance in early America that Armstrongists everywhere now cheerfully celebrate.
Armstrongists do not have a methodology that is applied even-handedly to ferreting out contaminated observances or Thanksgiving, along with Christmas, would not stand. Hence, the decision against Christmas is not the result of a carefully considered measure that is then applied without bias. One gets the impression that while Armstrongists are serious about the paganism of holidays, they are also selective, for some reason, about which holidays they evaluate. This supports the idea that not observing Christmas is ulterior and just a convenient badge of self-righteousness for Armstrongists. And leveraging Christmas does have value for Armstrongists. Taking a contrarian stand on Christmas also produces a sense of bonding and separateness from the great unwashed masses. In addition, HWA used to rail about co-workers spending money on Christmas gifts instead of sending the money to the WCG. This was a simply a means of capitalizing on the generosity of the season. And, of course, there are the pre- and post-Christmas sales.
The fallacy in the Armstrongist reasoning concerning Christmas has a name – it’s a thing. It is called in the discipline of logic the Genetic Fallacy. This is what Wikipedia says about it:
“The genetic fallacy (also known as the fallacy of origins or fallacy of virtue) is a fallacy of irrelevance in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other words, a claim is ignored or given credibility based on its source rather than the claim itself.”
While one can debate such issues as how much paganism is too much and what condemning pagan historical connections can be found, we lose sight of the fact that the rejection of Christmas is simply an idiosyncratic assertion of self-righteousness in the odd denomination.
And let me state further. Garrison Keillor once said that in Minnesota even the atheists are Lutheran – it’s the Lutheran God they don’t believe in. Armstrongists have been known to celebrate on December 25th. I recall that we in this region used to go to the WCG District Family Weekend on Christmas Day. It was on a distant college campus. We would eat in restaurants, stay in hotels, have sports tournaments, sometimes a talent show, listen to a special sermonette and sermon, socialize bigly – a kind of custom liturgy all on December 25th. In this celebration of self-righteousness, it was the pervasive influence of mainstream Christianity that we were acknowledging. It wasn’t that we WCG members weren’t attending the Christmas party. Rather, we were the bad kids at the Christmas party.
Scout
13 comments:
Putting a spotlight on the toxic trait of self righteousness can never be a bad thing, even on this blog. But I fear you've not put enough emphasis on explaining the long lasting and destructiveness such a trait of self-righteousness can have on others. Especially in religious settings of religious leaders towards mere brethren.
Here let Ai help:
Self righteousness is a toxic trait that involves many differing toxic aspects:
Judging others: Self righteous people scrutinise others. They concentrate on the external appearances while ignoring their inner character.
Self righteous people refuse to admit mistakes, flaws or shortcomings. Perhaps accusing others of "pretense" and "falseness"and "acting".
Self righteous people are very vocal about their opinion and need to tell others. Unfortunately right in another's face, behind their back and whilst not in the room. Using physical expressions of punching the air, kicking chair legs, using loud speech and shouting to dominate and lecture others.
Self righteous people are known for sanctimonious sententiousness and a holier than thou attitudes.
Thank the Lord this blog is here to make sure Self righteousness is dealt with because hypocrisy is also a trait.
You might be right that certain people are or have historically been self-righteous. However, to dismiss a claim they made on that basis is a fallacy of "Bulverism" or perhaps "poisoning the well".
I think there are people who have been attracted to certain doctrines, such as Sabbath-keeping and holy days, and avoiding Christmas etc, because they are genuinely attempting to worship God on God's terms. Christ himself warned against trying to worship God with human-devised traditions. Decorating a tree, doing secret Santa, having a family lunch, getting drunk at a work party, decorating eggs and eating chocolate rabbits, etc, seems to fall short of the rich meaning of the Biblically ordained holy days. 25th December does seem suspiciously rooted in… non-Christian traditions.
There are some of us who rest on the Sabbath and try to make it a day of communion with God, not because we're enamoured of Herbert Armstrong, but because we want to try to come to God on his terms.
Let me see if I have this straight. If I observe Thanksgiving Day I should also observe Christmas Day, otherwise I'm being self righteous?
Maybe I should also shoplift a few things from Walmart just to be safe.
I don't celebrate a birthday on a non-birth-day.
Anonymous 4:19 wrote, “You might be right that certain people are or have historically been self-righteous.”
I believe people can sincerely believe that physical Sabbath observance can be valuable. That rejecting Christmas is self-righteous is more of a theory based on empirical evidence from my years of being an Armstrongist. The line in the sand on the issue of physical Sabbath observance is whether or not you believe that keeping the Sabbath is a requirement for salvation. You must be careful with this. The Circumcision Party believed that keeping the Sabbath was required for salvation and Armstrongists believe that it is. And Paul said that people that do such are fallen from grace. I tend to think that anybody I ever knew who kept the Sabbath and Holy Days also believed they were a requirement for salvation. It was never much of a topic of discussion but it was what we were taught. Keeping the Sabbath in the wrong way can definitely be a detriment. You are way better off observing Christmas even though historically it has had some pagan associations, associations now irrelevant.
Scout
This is why I tend to avoid "Winter Family Weekends."
COGWA admits it uses some tithe money for it, and promotes it almost like an alternative holy day season.
Jon Brisby investigated Thanksgiving, his conclusion: Pagan!
.Scout, I see an awful lot of self-righteousness in your post and comment. It might be good to look in the mirror on occasion. Basically, to me your post shows a great deal of misunderstanding the mindset of the early years of the RCG/WCG era.
Hebrews 5:9
And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
No reasonable person can any longer deny that the "fulfilled prophecies" in Matt 24 were written after they happened.
Xmas is a mixture of paganism and Christianity (i.e. more paganism).
In my opinion, I don't agree with the self-righteous angle with the topic of Christmas. I totally agree with the self righteousness in Armstrongism. In scripture the religious leaders could have been doing the right thing, but their attitude or spirit was totally off. Such as the pharisee and the tax collector in (Luke 18:10-14). "At least I'm not like those other people."
Now the self righteousness does kick in when you have cogs that declare extra holy day convocations, like the 2nd, 3rd, 4th.......... of the feast, or two services in one day. In my opinion , the ACOGs still haven't learned the lessons of Job. Perhaps a younger generation will learn, as Jon would say "time will tell."
Great write up Scout!
Anonymous 5:11 wrote, "Let me see if I have this straight. If I observe Thanksgiving Day I should also observe Christmas Day, otherwise I'm being self righteous?"
No, you didn't get it right. It goes like thiis, "If you observe Thanksgiving but reject Christmas, then you need to examine yourself because you just might be a redneck, oops, I mean self-righteous.
And stealing something from Walmart won't be helpful. Lots of uppity people steal things. They feel they have a right to whatever they want. What you need to do is observe the spiritual meaning of Christmas in humility. That will work.
Scout
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