January/February 2003

A Year Without Christ

by Dyanne Smith

As Christians, our lives are centered on Jesus. We cannot imagine life without him or a future without the salvation and eternal life made possible by him. But what about the world at large?

Atheists and agnostics will most likely tell us they would not notice a difference had Jesus never come. Jews, Hindus and the Islamic people may also claim there would be no difference to their lives had Jesus never been born. Try and imagine the landscape of the world today had Christ never graced this earth.

Imagine the face of a clock, each number representing a month of our calendar year, January at 1 o'clock, etc., and finishing with December at 12 o'clock. Next to each of the months let us fill in those dates and events which are associated with that particular month; events we celebrate or commemorate. Next we need to determine if that event or date is associated in any way with Jesus, and if so, we will remove it from our Christ-free calendar-clock.

January 1st, also known as New Year's Day.

First observed in ancient Babylon some 4,000 years ago, the New Year was celebrated on the first new moon after the first day of spring. The Romans continued to celebrate the new year in late March, but their calendar was continually being changed by various Roman emperors.

Some believe that when the Julian calendar was finally and permanently installed in 46 B.C., January 1st was declared New Year's Day. Others believe the change came in 1562 when Pope Gregory announced a new calendar for Christians. Either way, the early Catholic church condemned the related celebrations as paganism.

As Christianity grew, however, the church began to have more of its celebrations in concurrence with calendrical pagan rituals, and New Year's Day was no different. It is still observed as the Feast of Christ's Circumcision by some denominations. The popularity of the baby as a symbol of rebirth forced the church to allow its members to celebrate the New Year with a baby, which was to symbolize the birth of the baby Jesus. So, would New Year's Day still be commemorated if Christ had not existed? Yes, it probably would, but in a very different context, particularly affecting today's Christians.

January 17th marks the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Named for Martin Luther, Dr. King was a crusader for equality based on the teachings of Jesus. His views became popular first among Christians, so although Dr. King was a good and just man, it is doubtful that he would have been a crusader without his foundation in Christ. Therefore we will remove Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as well as all the works done by him in the name of Jesus. In terms of racial equality within the United States alone, the implications of removing this celebration from the calendar are profound and far-reaching.

February 14 is St. Valentine's Day. In third-century Rome, the emperor Claudius II had determined that married men made poor soldiers, so he banned marriage from his empire. Valentine, feeling this decree to be unjust, continued to secretly marry couples who came to him. Claudius found out and tried to convert Valentine to paganism. Valentine, in turn, tried to convert Claudius to Christianity. When he failed, he was first imprisoned, then stoned and beheaded. During his imprisonment, Valentine met and fell in love with his jailer's daughter. It is said he sent her a letter and signed it "From Your Valentine," a signature still used today. If we take all connections to Christianity out of our calendar, because of Valentine's Christianity, this holiday would not exist today.

March 17th is St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick was born a pagan and was captured and sold at the age of 16 by a group of marauders who raided his village. He escaped after six years and went to Gaul, where he studied in a monastery for the next twelve years under St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre. At that time, he became aware of his calling, which he felt was to convert pagans to Christianity. He died on March 17, 461. St. Patrick's Day is still another celebration of Christianity, and in order to remove all vestiges of Christianity from our calendar, we must set aside this day and all traditions associated with it.

Easter is a very old celebration, but not as we know it. The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring by holding a giant celebration in honor of the goddess of springtime, Eastre. When Christian missionaries encountered these pagan celebrations in the second century, they tried to convert the celebrants to Christianity by incorporating the fact that Jesus was resurrected in the spring into the pagan festival. The converts were slowly won over, and now we have the modern practice of Easter as the resurrection of Christ's body from the tomb. Today, if we removed Christ from Easter, we have to conclude this holiday would not exist. We may have some celebration of springtime, but it would bear no resemblance to the Easter of today. So we lose another event on our calendar.

Mother's Day can be traced back to Greece where spring celebrations were held in honor of Rhea, mother of the gods. Then, from the 1600s in England came a commemorative holiday called "Mothering Day;" a day set aside during Lent, the fourth Sunday of Lent, for servants to go home and honor their mothers. In Christianity the celebration changed to honor the mother church. In 1907, Ana Jarvis of Philadelphia campaigned to adopt a formal holiday in honor of mothers. Mother's Day celebrations are now held throughout the world. So, if we are removing all days that have some direct association with Christianity, it is very likely Mother's Day, or some variation thereof, would stay on our calendar.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. It was set aside to honor the Civil War dead. By the late 1800s, many communities observed a day in honor of those who gave their lives. After World War I, observances began to include those who lost their lives in that War. In 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday to honor those who died in all wars. However, America would probably not exist today without Christianity (see "Independence Day"). Had the Civil War never been fought, this observance would probably not have been introduced, so Memorial Day would be another deletion from our calendar.

Father's Day came about because of a Mother's Day sermon Sonora Dodd listened to in 1909. We can only assume that if Mother's Day in some shape or form existed, it would follow that eventually some way of commemorating fathers would have come into being. We'll keep this on our calendar that is devoid of direct connections to Christianity.

Independence Day is tied to Christianity in spite of the constitutional policy of separating church and state. The original purpose of that separation was always to allow religious freedom without interference from the government, not to squelch it. The settlers who composed America's original colonies were Christians and came to America to avoid persecution regarding the methods of their worship.

A quote from the Mayflower Compact states: "Having undertaken for the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Christian Faith and the Honour of Our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern part of Virginia." Christianity was the core reason for the settlers coming to the new world.

While we realistically recognize that North America would have been fully settled eventually, history suggests it would have been a far different country from the United States of America had it been a random settling. The fight for independence, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would most likely be nonexistent without the driving force of Christianity behind them. What a far different world this would be!

This observance of Independence Day would surely not exist, nor would the America of today and all it encompasses, without Christ. The implications of this void are enormous and carry worldwide consequences.

And what about Halloween at the end of October? In the fifth century the Celtic summer ended on October 31 and was called Samhain (summer's end). Allegedly the spirits of all that died that year would come back in search of a body to possess for the coming year. Those still alive had no wish to be possessed, so they would dress up in horrible costumes in hopes of scaring the spirits away from them. Somewhere in history -- and there are many theories available -- this practice became linked with Halloween, the evening before All Saints Day, a Christian day celebrated on November 1st in honor of the saints.

All Saints Day is one of the most important days in the Catholic church calendar. One theory is that in 835 A.D. Pope Gregory IV tried to put an end to the pagan festival of Samhain by offering All Saints Day as a substitute. Secular sources then came to believe that the forces of Satan would come out on All Hallows Eve to make a mockery of the celebration of Christian Saints on the following day. So if we deleted all observances associated with Christianity from our calendar, the pagan ritual of Halloween would probably survive, although All Saints Day would not.

Thanksgiving Day, as first celebrated by the Pilgrims, has its roots in Christianity as well. We have already discussed that the early settlers came to America to advance Christianity, so had they not been here to celebrate, Thanksgiving would not have come to be.

Christmas Day would definitely be abolished on a Christ-less calendar. The birth of Christ, as well as every pagan tradition associated with the celebration itself, would be gone.

Let's presume that all traces of Christianity would be successfully removed from our calendar. Here we are in a very different world -- a North America that is vastly changed. Not only would all these observances be deleted from our lives, but consider the loss of all the Christian outreach efforts and good works that would go with them.

America surely would not exist on the foundations this country has been built on. There would be people living here, of course, but what would North America look like without the Christian calendar? What freedoms would we enjoy and what traditions would we celebrate?

Give it some thought. Allow yourself to imagine our culture without Christ. 

Dyanne Smith lives in Rhode Island.

Return to Plain Truth Ministries Home Page