Answer: Dear Louis,

Thank you for your note and for allowing us to be of service. We have walked through the darkness that you describe, and will be happy to be of help.

Here are a few thoughts – keeping in mind that I cannot give you a complete answer via this medium.

1. Many teachers have, over time, branded Christmas and Easter as pagan.
2. However, theses teachers simply poured new meaning into the word "pagan" while many of them, at the same time, promoted the most fundamental/foundational definition of paganism -- for example, the idea that it is the destiny of man is to become god. Polytheists really should not be branding others as pagan, or defining what pagan practices are.
3. The "sources" used to brand these holidays as pagan often use Hyslop’s "Two Babylons" and other such works – which have been discredited as spurious, and without authentic grounding in history. Hyslop, and those who have used him, are seriously flawed.
4. The attempt to rid the Christian world of celebrating the birth and resurrection of our Lord ought to be examined. What motives undergird the efforts of those who seek to discredit, or at the very least, fail to emphasize, these two important events in the earthly life of our Lord? We can all be deceived, and our intentions may be pure, we may be sincere, while we are absolutely in error.
5. Most of these teachings play upon anti-Catholic feeling among Protestants. Fact is, of course, that no Protestant church can claim an independent history before the Reformation. We all came from the early, pre-Reformation church, and it is upon its creeds and councils that God built the body of Christ. That church was not without its own errors – but then, we Protestants surely must admit that we have made a few in the past 500 years ourselves. Christmas and Easter celebrations have nothing to do with Roman teachings about "Maryology," prayer to idols, a legalistic view of justification, etc. These are among the issues that cause Protestants to go their separate ways.
6. Dealing with the feelings that you describe is extremely difficult, because they involve a "stand" that you took in the past. If we have gone on record as condemning Christmas as pagan, and if we have alienated/lost friends and family because of what we have "proven" – then we are dealing with our own pride. Change on such an issue can be extremely painful and humiliating – to be proven wrong is not easy – admitting it, without the indwelling power of the One who humbled himself for us, is humanly impossible.
7. I often offer the testimony of Ralph Woodrow. Ralph Woodrow is an evangelist who taught that many/most of the beliefs and customs of Christianity come from paganism. This teaching, as noted above, came from a variety of sources, Alexander Hyslop being one, Jehovah’s Witnesses being another. And, of course, Christmas and Easter are not the only things that such a position eventually labels as "pagan" and "heretical." Denying the historic and orthodox history of the Christian church leads one into revising history, and into a theological wasteland.

Woodrow himself eventually wrote his own version of Hyslop’s "two Babylon’s" – called Babylon, Mystery Religion." The book was enormously popular among many groups who exist(ed) on the fringe of Christianity.

Several years ago Woodrow went back to re-study his position on Christmas and Easter – and as a result has written new books explaining that he was wrong. He has suffered incredible loss of support in his constituency because he has embraced the truth.

May God be with you as you wrestle with these issues. I have walked that path, and it is a "journey through the valley of the shadow of death" – but the Lord our Shepherd will be with you.

In Jesus’ name,

Greg Albrecht