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O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!
Thou tree most fair and lovely!
(O Tannenbaum)
For all their impermanence, Christmas trees cause quite a lot of controversy among Christians. Some cannot stand them, others see nothing wrong with them. As ever, my opinion is that there is nothing wrong per se with Christmas trees, but that if you feel it is wrong, do not have one, and if you feel it is fine, have one. In btoh cases do so and glorify God.
My only issue with the Christmas tree controversy is when others try to persuade me that having a Christmas tree is pagan, and against the Bible. My source for such views for this essay comes largely from an article by Pastor Steve Harmon, to be found here.
The objection to Christmas trees is because of the use of trees in pre-Christian worship. A swift perusal through any volume on folk beliefs and ancient religions, even one so dated as James Frazer's "Golden Bough" will swiftly prove this to be so. Our ancestors often worshipped trees - probably because of their height and depth. The story of Ygdrasil, the world-tree is well-known; with its roots in the Underworld, its trunk in our world and its uppermost branches in the upperworld it is easy to see why trees became symbols of great power. (A look at the story of Jack and the Beanstalk also shows this idea.) Trees were both worshipped as gods and as spirits with the power to bless or curse crops and people. They were fertility gods - alawys highly associated with vegetation. Trees were also associated with thunder - because of lightning so often striking trees, no doubt. To our ancestors trees were magical, and most cultures have had episodes of tree-worship in their past.
This I readily admit, but I have a few comments to make against the idea that the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol. Firstly, it should be noted that ritual tree-worship is largely a spring or summer phenomenon, with most festivals ocurring at May Day, Midsummer, Whitsun or during the Lenten/Easter period. This is for the logical reason that the time to propriate a fertility god is not during Winter, when fertility (and, usually, the god - eg in Persephone's mythos) is dormant, but during Spring and Summer - planting and harvesting seasons. To worship a tree in the depths of Winter is unusual, and I have been unable to find any record of such. The pagan festivals of the winter-time generally involved fires (e.g. Samhain Hallowe'en is a fire festival, which in Britain survives as Guy Fawkes' Night). The reason for this is generally in order to replicate the Sun by the fire, and encourage him to come back from the darkness. The Yule log (which is burnt) may be a survival of this. I am not at all sure that the Christmas tree is a revival of a pagan custom, it being in the wrong season. There may be certain aspects of the Christmas tree which are vaguely pagan in nature - primarily the use of an evergreen, but in general I would not classify a Christmas tree as a direct survival of pagan beliefs.
Much of the symbolism behind a Christmas tree is very general - and could be classified as a general folk belief. The idea of using an evergreen is readily comprehensible - because it is still green in winter, in terms of symbolism it represents life-in-death and, on a more practical note, looks a lot prettier than a tree without foliage. This, of course, makes it especially relevant to Christianity - while pagan religions were lighting bonfires to call the Sun back from Winter at this season, we celebrate the Light of the World, the Sun of Righteousness who never dies. Certain symbols are universal, things which call to man's mind and make concepts much easier for him to understand. This, of course, is the reason why Jesus used readily accessible symbols in His sayings - fishing; planting; wine making and so on. These symbols in fact have been used by atheists to claim Christianity as a pagan religion, as fish, wine, bread and so on are essential symbolic parts of pre-Christian religions. That is the trouble with the line of argument that says that because a symbol has been used in another religion, it therefore may not be used in Christianity. The fact that things like communion and baptism are replicated in pre-Christian religions does not, in our eyes, make them false. It merely denotes that Christ used readily understood symbolism when He taught. The same, to my mind, applies to the symbolism of the Christmas tree - a form of it (in another season) was used in pagan religions, but that does not debar us from using it for Christ anymore than Jesus was prohibited from using His symbolism.
Now for the scriptural argument. All the above falls by the wayside if Christmas trees are specifically prohibited in scripture. The trouble is that they are not. The passage in question is Jeremiah 10:1-5:
"Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good." (KJV)
Now Pastor Harmon describes this passage as referring to Ba'al worship, with which I slightly disagree. Among the Semitic races, there were many gods, of whom the two most familiar to us are Tammuz and Astarte. Tammuz is almost certainly one of the deities referred to as Ba'al (or Ba'alim) in the Old Testament. Ba'al means 'lord. With Semitic immigration, the Greeks adopted the mythic cycle of Tammuz and Astarte (an agricultural cycle of death and rebirth) into their own pantheon as the myth of Adonis and Aphrodite. Adon(ai) is the Semitic word for "Lord", as we know from our own faith, so it is easy to see how he got his name. Tammuz was also known as Dumuzi. While Tammuz/Ba'al was worshipped extensively, his most prominent rite of worship involved the annual mourning of his death (see Ezekiel 8:14) and possibly the shedding of blood in reference to the slaying of the god, from whose blood red anaenome's grew (see 1 Kings 18:28). Tammuz was essentially a corn god, worshipped with sacrifice (sometimes human) and amongst the corn. His consort Astarte (or, Innana, Ashtart, Ishtar or Ashtoreth) was a goddess of trees, however. The name we know her under in the Bible is Ashtoreth or Asherah and there are many examples of descriptions of the worship of trees as idols of this goddess, indeed they were so much a part of her worship that the Bible actually refers to the trees as "asherah" as well: "You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make." (Deuteronomy 16:21 RSV) Thus I think Jeremiah is here speaking of the rites of Asherah. This passage is a solemn warning to Israel not to adopt this rite, nor to be frightened of it. (I would assume they were frightened to cut down those asherah poles.)
Now, back to the point. Is this passage speaking of Christmas trees? It seems unlikely. It is unusual - and undocumented, for such worship of trees to take place in winter - especially not for fertility gods. It is more likely these trees were used in around March-September. Unlike our use of Christmas trees, these trees were decorated not to make them look pretty, but in honour of the goddess and the gold and silver was an offering to her. They were classic idols, worshipped not as a picture of the goddess, not as a place she might visit, but as the goddess - as shown by the phrase "They...speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go." (Whether the worshippers of Ashtoreth believed these poles walked or spoke is an interesting question.)
To what purpose do we put up a Christmas tree? Is it so that we can dedicate it to Astarte, and pray to it? Do you do that? I certainly do not. Is it, then, that we may, by injudicious decoration be drawn to worship a dead goddess who never existed in the first place? I fail to see how you can be drawn to worship a god/dess without knowing it or that such unknown worship could possibly mean anything. If I recite, say for a class, the words of an ancient prayer to Astarte, does that make me one of her worshippers? No - they are merely words, without belief to back them up. (I would refer you to my other essay.) So it is with the Christmas tree - I do not worship Astarte in my tree, and putting up a tree cannot mean I unconsciously worship her - I do not believe in Astarte. Neither is my tree a representation of Christ. Symbolically, its colour represents our belief in light in the darkness - but the tree isn't God, and for me is essentially a decoration. The icthus fish is a symbol of Christ - as is a lamb, but none of us worship fish or sheep. They are just symbols, guides to our understanding of God.
I am no pagan - I do not worship a tree, under any deity's name. It is a symbol, and a decoration, and only that. It does not trouble my conscience to have such a tree in my home - I celebrate my Redeemer, not a piece of wood. If it troubles your conscience, then forebear to have a tree, and God's blessings. As for me, I shall keep mine.
"I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean." (Romans 14:14 KJV)
© Dubhóc MacEògainn, 2005.