Link of the Week #25

Hello readers! As you well know tonight is Christmas Eve. A night when millions of people will gather in churches around the world to remember the night that God's only Son, Jesus Christ, became incarnate to redeem His people from the world. For many believers, this night marks a high point in their year. But those of you who have spent some time in the world of Reformed Presbyterianism will know that these Christmas celebrations can often bring consternation as well. Although the vast majority of Presbyterians now celebrate holy days like Christmas and Easter, it wasn't too long ago that such a thing would have been unheard of. Allow me to explain.


When our forefathers penned the Westminster Standards (which have served as guides for Presbyterian doctrine and practice for hundreds of years) they attached to it what they called a"Directory for Publik Worship." This Directory gave guidance and direction for churches who were seeking to worship God according to Scripture. Many of these churches were emerging from the mass of man-made traditions found in both the Roman Catholic and in the Anglican communions, and they realized the pressing need to reexamine why things were done the way they were. This reevaluation led to a far simpler, more biblical, form of worship in many of these new Puritan and Presbyterian congregations. This new document called for many changes and one of these changes concerned the celebration of holy days like Christmas and Easter. As the Directory says:

"There is no day commanded in scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord's Day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued."

In essence, the Directory believed that celebrating these holy-days violates the law of God and the regulative principle of worship. (To gain a more thorough understanding of why they thought this was the case go here.)


Ever since that time Presbyterians have been faced with a choice. Will we stand with our forefathers against the church calender, or, will we stand with many other evangelicals with the church calender? This is a question that has been hotly debated for centuries and I doubt that any "quick fix" will emerge to solve our problem. But I do believe that the tension many Presbyterians feel is perhaps a false one. The question is often presented in rather stark terms. Either we buy into the entire Christmas package (like we see in so many churches today) or we will refuse to celebrate or recognize Christmas as some of our brothers do. However, I believe there is a third option, and that brings us (at last) to this week's link.

This week, we'd like to highlight a series of links from the Q & A section of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's website. These links help us understand how we can perhaps incorporate some of the good aspects of the Christmas season without adopting many of the un-biblical practices and requirements that it often brings. Although there are still many questions that these links don't answer, I believe that they can help us to find a middle ground between the wholehearted acceptance, or the wholesale rejection, of the church calender. Enjoy!

To read this week's links go here, and here.