“…no other Christian festival has so intimately wedded itself with the family life and the life of the people as Christmas. Nevertheless, for more than three hundred years the Church got along entirely without it.”

In the book review that follows, B. B. Warfield summarizes the development of Christmas practices over the centuries and their prominence in his day. Even though his concluding comments are forceful, Warfield was not against Christmas as a seasonal celebration. He believed the Bible’s pattern established the ecclesiastical calendar with cycles of seven days one of which (Saturday then Sunday) was the Sabbath for restful worship. I have seen a Christmas card expressing seasonal sentiments of greeting and good will sent by him to his Princeton Seminary colleague, J. Gresham Machen, so it is clear that he participated in the season to some degree. The illustration on the cover of the card is a lovely snow-covered village. In 1870 President Grant signed into law five federal holidays including December 25 for federal employees working within Washington, and then in 1885 President Cleveland extended it to the whole payroll of federal employees in the nation. Then, as now, when federal holidays increased, the private sector often adopted the new holidays for their employees. Warfield likely viewed December 25 as a national seasonal celebration of good will and a time to remember national blessings in conjunction with gatherings of friends and family. The closing lines of Warfield’s review show that marketing and gift giving were as common in his day as they are now. He compares Christmas to the Roman holiday held in December called Saturnalia which he believed merged its practices over the centuries into the flow that developed into Christmas. The source for Federal Holiday information is “CRS Report for Congress, Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application,” by Stephen W. Stathis, last updated 1999.

The source for Warfield’s review of Georg Rietschel’s German language book titled in English translation Christmas in Church, Art and Popular Life. With 4 Art Inserts and 152 Illustrations is The Princeton Theological Review, 1:3 (October 1903), 489-90. Rietschel (1842-1914) was a professor of theology at Leipzig University who wrote books on liturgy and the history of organ use in worship. B. B. Warfield studied at Leipzig, so possibly they were acquainted; maybe Rietschel gave him the book. Warfield often made comments about the quality and aesthetics of books under review, and he does so with the present title. The Germans had developed technology that produced magnificent color prints and their postcards of the era were exceptionally vivid as seen in the “Merry Christmas” card in the header.  The portrait of Warfield as a boy is used courtesy of Wayne Sparkman from the collection of the PCA Historical Center. A tabulation of Warfield’s reviews by the author of this site is available from Reformed Forum, “A Record of B. B. Warfield’s Book Reviews.”

I found the review interesting and thought provoking, but I think Christmas can be remembered conservatively and carefully as do my family and church. However, it is increasingly difficult to think of Christmas as remembrance of Jesus’ birth amidst the ubiquitous marketing of gifts. The day involves fusing the sacred and secular and such efforts immediately or eventually simply do not work out because Scripture comes in conflict with the world. I think the world has turned Christians from he who was “veiled in flesh, the Godhead see” to a cute baby that is nothing more than that. If we are to continue Christmas, the emphasis should be the supernatural work of God in the incarnation, God and man in two distinct natures and one person. I suggest you read the Creed of Chalcedon of AD 451 to see a historic confession descriptive of the miracle of the incarnation. You may not understand all the terminology but what you do understand is sufficient to induce awe. Chalcedon is available in Philip Schaff’s second volume of The Creeds of Christendom.

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