Christmas With Special Reference To The Puritans

Black Friday. The War on Christmas. Miracle on 34th Street and Elf. From shopping malls and Fox News to movie theaters, Christmas no longer solely celebrates to the birth of Christ. Considering the holiday in its global context, Christmas journeys from its historical origins to its modern incarnation as a global commercial event, stopping along the way to look at the controversies and traditions of the celebratory day. Delving into the long story of this unifying but also divisive holiday, Tara Moore describes the evolution of Christmas and the deep traditions that bind a culture to its version of it. She probes the debates that have long accompanied the season—from questions of the actual date of Christ’s birth to frictions between the sacred and the secular—and discusses the characters associated with the holiday’s celebration, including Saint Nicholas, the Magi, Scrooge, and Krampus. She also explores how customs such as Christmas trees, feasting, and gift giving first emerged and became central facets of the holiday, while also examining how Christmas has been portrayed in culture—from the literary works of Charles Dickens to the yearly bout of holiday films, television specials, traditional carols, and modern tracks. Ultimately, Moore reveals, Christmas’s longevity has depended on its ability to evolve. Packed with illustrations, Christmas is a fascinating look at the holiday we only think we know.

The Culture of English Puritanism is a major contribution to the debate on the nature and extent of early modern Puritanism. In their introduction the editors provide an up-to-date survey of the long-standing debate on Puritanism, before proceeding to outline their own definition of the movement. They argue that Puritanism should be defined as a unique and vibrant religious culture, which was grounded in a distinctive psychological outlook and which manifested itself in a set of highly characteristic religious practices. In the subsequent essays, a distinguished group of contributors consider in detail some of the most important aspects of this culture, in particular sermon-gadding, collective fasting, strict observance of Sunday, iconoclasm, and puritan attempts to reform alternative popular culture of their ungodly neighbours. Other contributions chart the channels through which puritan culture was sustained in the 80-year period proceding the English Civil War, the failure of attempts by the puritan government of Interregnum England to impose this puritan culture on the English people, the subsequent emergence of Dissent after 1600.

Mockett’s argument in this work is directed to well-meaning Christians who are defiling the Regulative Principle – that God alone determines the manner and time in which sinners are to approach him. Writing against the, “observation of Christ’s nativity,” Mockett shows the Christian how he is to reject, whole-heartily, adding Christ into Christmas as a religious or worship observance. Mr. Mockett is not going to deal with taking Christ out of Christmas. Instead, he is going to painstakingly demonstrate the ill-use of trying to reclaim Christ for Christmas as an unholy venture. He will show that it is a detestable, sinful practice to put Christ back into Christmas since men have no warrant from God to do so. Though they do this in pretense of honoring Christ in a day of worship, and do so with a sincere heart, as Mockett shows, “Good intentions and well meanings cannot justify any unwarrantable practice.” Mockett’s treatment of this issue is clear and well documented. The student of Scripture and historical theology cannot but come away with believing that reclaiming Christ in Christmas is truly a violation of God’s word, and a sinful practice which has harmed the church throughout its history.

The manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society. In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture. Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.