The Pook is correct. The addition of Christmas in the 1930s to the annual calendar of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the Southern Presbyterian Church), which merged with the Presbyterian Church in the USA (the Northern Presbyterian Church) in the early 1980s, was labeled by conservatives, who eventually founded the Presbyterian Church in America in the 1970s, as a move away from biblical Christianity. The commercialization of Christmas is not a fruit of Christianity. The additional item that I chose not to include in my first post is what separates strictly Reformed Christian denominations, such as the Pook referenced, from other Protestant denominations, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. It is a doctrine called the Regulative Principle of Worship and is based on an interpretation of the Second Commandment found in Exodus 20:4-6. Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. Since Christmas is not one such, it has not been observed by many Reformed (i.e., Presbyterian) Christians. Unfortunately, many Protestant Christians do observe Christmas; but to their credit decry the commercialization of the corporate world. Christians this side of heaven are not perfect. They are all sinners.
PastorVon (Vaughn Hathaway)
