Is the christmas tree evil?

[tabcom]

I think that you are miswording your post. DO you mean to say that a Catholic would have trouble explaining to a nonCatholic that the Eucharist is more then eating crackers and drinking Grape juice?

**
Yes, indeed. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.**

Am I right in that, for you, it (the tree) began to represent a sin that you were struggling with? Not the worship of the tree but the worship of our materialistic culture?

**
Yes. Also, the tree represented to me the idea that I had to get along with self-confessed heathen friends and family because they loved their christmas too. As a result, I would get dirty hanging around them.**

But you can’t suppose that because a certain item affects you personally in a negative way that it affects everyone in the same manner.

**Effect everyone? Perhaps not. However, I’m pretty confident that there are others lurking on this thread that are struggling with the same issue that I have with the tree.

Thank you kindly for your post.
**

 

[quasimodo]

Since I’m just an ignorant Okie I had to go and look up Haggis and suet pudding. I see from Wikipedia that Haggis is a “small four-legged Scottish Highland creature”. Not sure whether I could eat it or not. Pictures look interesting. The suet pudding I could not eat! Suet is for the birds. I don’t like animal fat as a rule so most likely would not care for that. I’d probably try a bite just to see.

Hmmm if the Christmas tree is idol worship because it is cut down and decorated than does that mean when we decorate our house for Christmas we are also worshipping it? After all houses are made of wood (cut trees) and most people do decorate them for Christmas.

Cur! Suet pudding is the nectar of the (pagan) gods. Fie on you.

 

[tabcom]

If they choose to pervert the goodness of God’s creation, why should Christians - who know (or should know!) that all matter is good and meant to glorify God - be afraid to decorate a tree as one means of remembering the birth of Our Savior?!

**
I think deb provided an eloquent response to this question in post#89.

With respects to 1 Cor the 10th chapter.
**

 

[deb1]

Yes, indeed. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Yes. Also, the tree represented to me the idea that I had to get along with self-confessed heathen friends and family because they loved their christmas too. As a result, I would get dirty hanging around them.
Effect everyone? Perhaps not. However, I’m pretty confident that there are others lurking on this thread that are struggling with the same issue that I have with the tree.

Thank you kindly for your post.

Certainly if there are people who have trouble with materialism, then they should do what they feel is necessary to overcome this. If that means not putting up a tree, then so be it.

But Christmas, itself, can be an opportunity to give to others and to practice both Christian charity and love. A person could visit and work at a homeless shelter over the holiday instead of receiving gifts themselves.

 

[deb1]

**I think deb provided an eloquent response to this question in post#89. **

With respects to 1 Cor the 10th chapter.

But continuing on with the story of my son and the cards. I didn’t tell him to stop playing cards or that they were sinful. I did tell him to be respectful of other Christians weaknesses.

That meant not asking their kids to play cards and not bringing them to that church. If one of these Christians had walked into my home though, I wouldn’t have run and hid my deck of cards.

There has to be a balance between respecting another Christian’s individual weaknesses and not letting that Christian’s weaknesses control you. Especially when it comes to issues that are not really sinful by themselves, such as playing cards.

 

[deb1]

.
Well, stated. **This is as good a point as any to discuss an issue that I had planned to from the begining. That is, the old pagan dieties are not gone at all. They have reshaped themselves into new and much powerful forms. Jeremiah lived right before Israel was carried into captivity in 586 BC. Pagan worship did not end with him. Paul was constantly teaching baby believers not to be sudducced by pagan gods in their various forms (That came after Christ). **

** . . **

The pagan gods and goddess were never alive and never had power. They don’t exist outside of their followers’ minds. It is tragic that instead of looking for the God who created nature, the early pagans chose to worship inanimate objects.

CHristmas trees have whatever symbolism and meaning that ***we ***wish to invest in them.

I support your desire to not have a Christmas tree as I understand that this is a stumbling block for you.

But Christmas trees have a different meaning for me. To me they are representative of the fact that the Light came into this world and that we are celebrating that fact. Therefore celebrating Christmas is a positive event for me in my walk with God.

 

[mercygate]

ya gotta try suet pudding - but only if your cholesterol is in single digits. Hmmm. Were I a pagan I would worship the stuff (that is to keep us on topic.)

We definitely worship our suet pudding every Christmas. It also goes by the name Plum Pudding and Christmas Pudding. We dig a crater in the top, over-fill it with heated brandy until there is a puddle in the dish around the pudding as well as in the crater, then we set the whole thing on fire, while singing “Adeste Fideles.” It burns fwith a clear blue flame for about 3 minutes.

We are serious pudding worshipers in our house!

 

[corvidae]

I have been reading both your recent threads tabcom and I have a question.

You seem to say in your predestination thread that God created evil in order to teach man a lesson. Since you maintain that Satan was doing the will of God in tempting Adam and Eve, why would you care if we have Christmas trees or if they are signs of Pagan worship.

After all, if Paganism is simply a deception of Satan, then we are simply doing the will of God, being decieved in order for God to teach us a lesson.

It seems that your posts contradict eachother, since you believe that God created both good and evil, and wills that satan will tempt us to turn from God, because God has a lesson to teach.

Just wanting a little clarification.

A lone Raven

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Yes. Also, the tree represented to me the idea that I had to get along with self-confessed heathen friends and family because they loved their christmas too. As a result, I would get dirty hanging around them.

Ok, this rather bothers me. Jesus didn’t get “dirty” hanging around the tax collectors and prostitutes, or even from the so-called ‘good’ people who were still ‘dirty’ in sin in comparison with the Son of God. . .

but you are worried about getting ‘dirty’ just ‘hanging around’ your ‘heathen friends’ because they have a Christmas tree and, even though heathen, probably give each other gifts, wish each other well, and pretty much are doing nice things even if they don’t as yet know why, because they don’t yet know God?

Ouch.

If Peter, or Paul, or indeed any Christian from 33 A.D. to 2006 A.D. fostered that sort of “I can’t be bothered with heathens, with interacting with them, because I’ll get DIRTY”. . .well, I don’t think we’d have Christianity… .because the heart of the Christian message isn’t that those of us who are Christians are somehow cleaner or better than non Christians, and had better make sure that we keep ourselves that way with rigorous Pharisitical practices. . .

You might not even have thought of it that way, because of course we ARE to be ‘in’ the world and not ‘of’ the world. But the way to be “in” the world isn’t IMO by pointing my nose in the air and refusing to associate with ‘dirty heathens’ so that I’ll keep myself pure! In fact, by putting myself onto a pedestal like that I’m afraid that I’ve elevated my ‘purity’ into what I worship, instead of God! That often happens with good people; they find some one aspect of Christianity–be it faith, hope, charity–and then they put all their focus onto that one aspect until IT becomes more important than GOD. We know people who are so caught up with having the PERFECT FAITH that they never practice it! Or who are so concerned with being the first person to rush to give food to the poor while ignoring the needs of their own family. . .

 

[jmcrae]

Reprinted from earlier post . . . IMHO, if a catholic can quickly dismiss the suggestion that the tree represents pagan idolatry as non-sense; that person would have a difficult time explaining to a non-catholic that the eucharist is nothing more than eating crackers and drinking grape juice.

Why would a Catholic say that the Eucharist is nothing more than eating crackers and drinking grape juice? This is not what we believe.

I think that perhaps you have us confused with Methodists, since it is Methodists who have crackers and grape juice (Catholics use real unleavened bread and real grape wine) and it’s Methodists who believe that it is merely symbolic - Catholics believe that the Eucharist is really and truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, whole and entire, from the moment of the Consecration onward.

 

[tabcom]

. . If . . . any Christian . . . fostered that sort of “I can’t be bothered with heathens, with interacting with them, because I’ll get DIRTY”. .

I’m afraid I did not convey the context of my ‘get dirty’ post. The context is not that I’m better than them. The context is that if I hang around them, I’ll be persuaded to drop my cross and get wrapped up in all my old sinful lifestyle. In addition, I’d regret putting my approval on their bad behaviour. Both of which is a sin. Sorry about the misconception that could be interperted from my previous post.

 

[mercygate]

I’m afraid I did not convey the context of my ‘get dirty’ post. The context is not that I’m better than them. The context is that if I hang around them, I’ll be persuaded to drop my cross and get wrapped up in all my old sinful lifestyle. In addition, I’d regret putting my approval on their bad behaviour. Both of which is a sin. Sorry about the misconception that could be interperted from my previous post.

Tab – if your “bad behavior” was sitting around a Christmas tree, enjoying your friends, I can show you what REAL “bad behavior” is. I work cheek by jowl with one of the worst neigborhoods in the world. I can show you drug addiction, street violence, alcoholism, wife/child abuse . . .

I’m sensing a kind of scrupulosity in you that is a little troubling.

Frankly, if your “sinful lifestyle” involved worship of trees, I would be highly surprised.

 

[tabcom]

After all, if Paganism is simply a deception of Satan, then we are simply doing the will of God, being decieved in order for God to teach us a lesson.

**God never reveals Himself to pagans or to be specific, the vessels of wrath fitted for distruction. There are dozens if not over one hundred verses in the Hebrew Bible inwhich God orders the Israelites not to have fellowship with the pagans.

Besides that, if you are not agonizing over your sin, you are not a disciple of Christ.

Lu 13:23:24 -
And someone said to Him, “Lord, are there {just} a few who are being saved?” And He said to them,

"Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

The orginal greek text word for strive is Agonizomai. We get our English word agonize from it.
**

 

[tabcom]

I think that perhaps you have us confused with Methodists, since it is Methodists who have crackers and grape juice

**I’m afraid you are looking at my simple analogy through the wrong lens. From a Methodists point-of-view, the Euchrist is nothing more than crackers and grape juice. **

 

[jmcrae]

**I’m afraid you are looking at my simple analogy through the wrong lens. From a Methodists point-of-view, the Euchrist is nothing more than crackers and grape juice. **

No kidding. You do realize that we’re Catholics, right?

 

[tabcom]

Tab – if your “bad behavior” was sitting around a Christmas tree . . . if your “sinful lifestyle” involved worship of trees, I would be highly surprised.

**Once again, it is not the literal tree that is being worshipped.
It is what it represents to the non-believer (present day pagans), and to some believers (speaking for myself).

The Tree represents the god of SELF! **

 

[GandalfTheWhite]

Is the christmas tree evil?

No - how can items be evil?

 

[mercygate]

**Once again, it is not the literal tree that is being worshipped. **
It is what it represents to the non-believer (present day pagans), and to some believers (speaking for myself).

**The Tree represents the god of SELF! **

To you. You are focusing on one thing among many: how about shopping malls? SUVs? Major League Baseball? There are any number of things that can reprepresent self-indulgence, self-centeredness. Actually, because of its connection with the celebration of the birth of the Savior of the World, it is one of the least amenable to being co-opted as a sign of self indulgence.

Certainly to non-believers, the Christmas tree is not a symbol of idolatry. Non-believers aren’t worshiping ANYTHING – much less a decorated tree.

Christmas trees came onto the Anglo-American scene in the 1840s when Prince Albert imported the custom to England and it spread to the U.S. (assuming that the large German population here enjoyed their Christmas trees before that). IT is certainly not mandatory to the celebration of the season.

So be Italian: celebrate Christmas with a manger scene. Put a light in your window to show the world that yours is a home that witnesses to the Light of the World.

Your concern goes deeper than Christmas trees: deeper than your personal reading of Jeremiah: something that is probably none of our business, and undoubtedly something that does not center on the Catholic Church or on the subject of the pagan idolatry of trees.

 

[Church_Militant]

To you.

You are focusing on one thing among many: how about shopping malls? SUVs? Major League Baseball? There are any number of things that can reprepresent self-indulgence, self-centeredness. Actually, because of its connection with the celebration of the birth of the Savior of the World, it is one of the least amenable to being co-opted as a sign of self indulgence.

Certainly to non-believers, the Christmas tree is not a symbol of idolatry. Non-believers aren’t worshiping ANYTHING – much less a decorated tree.This is exactly what I was thinking. This sounds a great deal like someone suffering a bad case of scruples. If he were Catholic I’d say go see your priest for some good counseling, but he’s not.

To him, it symbolizes all the things he condemns, but there is nothing in the Word of God that supports his issues. It seems like he has problems with materialism and has attached it all to the symbol (in his mind) of the Christmas tree.

Since no one I have ever met worships their Christmas tree as a god, and since the New Testament says that we should not allow anyone to put us under a legalism like he seems to wish us to embrace, the scripturally informed person will wisely say, “no thank you.” and walk away.

Tabcom, if you come across a real issue that you open a thread on, maybe people will engage you in a discussion or debate concerning it, but this…is just not right.
Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum.

 

[runandsew]

Again, I will point out if you follow the liturgical calendar, and really reflect on Advent, you will be prepairing youself for Christ. It is hard in today’s society to not get into the “Holiday madness”, but hold off on Christmas until it is Christmas season. I would recommend that Tabcom get a hold of an Advent reflection book, and spend the season the way his old church practices, and not get caught up with the commercialism. You can have a tree, wreath, ect. but your main focus is on what the season is all about.