A Quaker Christmas?

In 1977 the Twenty Fifth of Twelfth Month fell on a First Day. A Friend stood up and
shared with the meeting her joy at being able to meet for worship on Christmas Day like
all her Christian friends. There was a tangible, near-audible stiffening of Elders’ spines,
and the temperature in Lewes Meeting House dipped several degrees.

From its earliest days Quakers have rejected celebrating any religious festivals, dismissing
them as either pagan or Hebrew, or both. Chapter two of George Fox’s Autobiography
recounts how:
“I was to bring people off from Jewish ceremonies, and from heathenish fables… in
the dread and authority of which power I was moved to declare against them all,
and against all that preached and not freely, as being such as had not received
freely from Christ.”

Christmas is a festival that incorporates both of these characteristics, and numerous other
facets which place it at odds with Quaker values.

Christians first started celebrating the anniversary of Jesus’ birth in the second century
CE, though what the date was is not recorded. A record dating from 336 CE tells of the
celebration of Christ’s birth eight days before the start (Calends)of January, during the
reign of that arch-conformist Emperor Constantine who tried to enforce uniform religious
practice across his empire.

It’s worth noting that even today there is no single agreed date to celebrate Christ’s birth:
• December 25 celebrated by Western Christianity and some Eastern churches
• January 6 celebrated by the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian
Evangelical Church amongst other Eastern churches
• January 7 (Old style Dec. 25) celebrated by most Oriental Orthodox and some of
the Eastern Orthodox churches
• January 19 (Old style Jan. 6) celebrated by the Armenian Patriarchate of
Jerusalem.

I remember vitriolic arguments between two friends: one a Copt, the other an Assyrian
Christian. It ran “There is only one Christ and only one Christmas, and that is December
25th/ January 7th!” (delete as appropriate). Since they both plied me with Middle Eastern
delicacies at Christmas I had no incentive to resolve the argument.

What is certain is that there is no Biblical evidence with which to assign a date for Jesus’
birth.

(Obliquely, it was Constantine who decreed that First Day or Sunday should be a day of
rest across the Empire, which became then known as the Sabbath in a superb piece of
theological appropriation by early Christians.)

Neo Pagans have claimed a correspondence with the Roman deity Mithras, the Persian
deity Mithra, and Jesus. Sadly the evidence for such claims is insubstantial or ambiguous.
It is clear that the celebration of Christmas has adopted and adapted a lot of the
iconography of pagan mid-winter festivals such as Yule, combining evergreen trees such as
holly, ivy and mistletoe – promising life at the darkest time of the year, in leaf when most
trees are bare of foliage.
The Roman deity Sol Invictus was celebrated on the 25th December from 274 CE, until his
worship was abolished by Constantine in favour of Christianity. Another piece of
synchronicity is that the first night of the Jewish mid-winter festival of Hanukkah falls on
the 25th Kislev, the lunar month of Kislev is roughly equivalent to December. Amongst US
Jewish congregation it is common for families to have a Hanukkah ‘bush’ in their home to
decorate so Jewish children don’t miss out.

Essentially the Christian festival of Christmas is a tangled mess of wishful aspirations and
cultural accretions, with only the most tenuous association with a single event in Israel-
Palestine two thousand years ago.

When I first began to attend Quaker worship one of its major attraction was its plainness
and simplicity. Every First Day meeting stood equal with its fellows, none was more
special than any other. In Quakerism there is no Holy Week, for every week is holy.
Similarly every day holds within itself the potential for the birth of redeeming hope in the
world; the agony of the crucifixion, the descent into Hell and a resurrection of hope for
eternity. I felt ( and still feel) that this testimony is a precious gift to the Universal
Church, a revelation which we hold in trust for all people of faith.

And yet now Quaker meetings have carol services, and the Friend has a special Christmas
issue! How on earth did we get here? I do not recall any deliberation at Yearly Meeting,
any considered corporate decision to abandon our testimony on times and seasons.

Now I do celebrate Hanukkah, it is massively significant in the history of monotheism and

it’s a religious obligation to eat fried food. So what’s not to like? But I doit as a Jew - I
would be devastated if Quakers started celebrating Hanukkah: firstly it feels like cultural
appropriation, Hanukkah doesn’t belong to Quakers; and secondly neither Christmas nor
Hanukkah are part of Quakers’ testimony.

If you want to sing cheesy hymns that are completely without historical, theological or
scriptural context then go to any one of Christian churches that surround our meeting
houses. If you want to thank God for the intervention that enabled Judaism (and so
Christianity and Islam) to survive the suppression of monotheism by pagan tyrants, while
gorging on doughnuts and latkes, then come to a Liberal, Reform or Progressive synagogue
– you will be welcome.

Please, no striving to be on the right side of history, indulging in gesture politics, trying to
be politically correct (especially when that puts women and girls at risk). Let’s stick to
being ‘a peculiar people – a community of priests and a holy nation.’ (paraphrase of
Exodus 19:6) In this world, but not of it…

Let’s keep Quakers plain and simple. Let that be our testimony.

Ol Rappaport