Mustafa Akyol’s column on Christmas in Turkey revealed that paleo-Calvinists share much in common with conservative Muslims and Jews during the holiday season:
Islamists in Turkey, every year, come out on the streets or in their media with the slogan, “Muslims do not do Christmas.” Of course, they have every right to not to celebrate a religious feast that is not a part of their religion. But they not only refrain from Christmas; they also protest it.
In fact, those Islamists of Turkey, and other likeminded Christmas-despisers, often “do not know what they are doing,” to quote the noble words of the very person whose birthday is at question here. They typically condemn Santa Claus costumes and Christmas trees as signs of “Western cultural imperialism.” But Christianity is not merely Western; it is also African, Asian and, in fact, global.
Hmm. Christmas as a global solvent of local Reformed Protestant teachings and practices. Go figure.
Jews — ya think? — have similar problems with Christmas.
Israel, too, seems to have a similar problem.
I read about this in an Al-Jazeera English story titled, “Israeli rabbis launch war on Christmas tree.” It reported how the Jerusalem rabbinate issued a letter warning hotels in the city that “it is ‘forbidden’ by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage New Year’s parties.” In Haifa, a rabbi, Elad Dokow, went even further, called the Christmas tree “idolatry,” and warned that it was a “pagan” symbol that violated the kosher status buildings.
At a time when New Calvinists heighten their sensitivity to Muslims and Jews, when will they show a little concern for Old Calvinists?
Then how come Christmas is a sign of secularization (for good!)
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Keep the holy in sanctification of the Lord’s Day:
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Putting the antithesis in Christmas:
So putting Christ in Christmas isn’t good enough. Why not simply leave Christ out of Christmas? Be a Reformed Protestant.
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Old school evolves along with new school—“at least we don’t do that yet.”
“John Knox had the rare opportunity to preach before Edward VI, King of England, and attacked the practice of kneeling during communion. The context around this sermon was a fresh PROTESTANT INFLUENCE in the church’s liturgy. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had just published a new prayer book, the Second Book of Common Prayer, because the first book was rejected for seeming too Roman Catholic. The Second Book, which further distanced Protestant practice from Roman Catholicism, was the only legal manual of worship in the Church of England, but Knox hated it for instructing people to receive the bread and wine from their knees. He insisted that no case could be made for it in Scripture. He had the audience of the king, mind you, and he preached on kneeling.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/learning-from-a-hard-knox-life
The sacrament is not about you kneeling or not kneeling, nor about your taking or remembering. The sacrament is God’s grace, and there is no salvation inside Romanism or Donatism. So co-exist along side the New School Reformed and stop complaining about their influence on the true church.
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