Following his protest in 1517 and with that the initializing of the Reformation, Luther in subsequent years saw little problem with Christmas and very much encouraged the celebration. Luther appeared initially to take a unified stance with Calvinists against holy days, writing in 1520 in his “Address to the Nobility of the German Nation:”
One should abolish all festivals, retaining only the Lord’s Day.
But if it were desired to keep the festivals of Our Lady and the greater saints, they should all be held on Sundays, or only in the morning with the mass; the rest of the day being a working day. My reason is this: with our present abuses of drinking, gambling, idling, and all manner of sin, we vex God more on holy days than on others. And the matter is just reversed; we have made holy days unholy, and working days holy, and do no service; but great dishonor, to God and his saints will all our holy days. There are some foolish prelates that think they have done a good deed, if they establish a festival to St. Otilia or St. Barbara, and the like, each in his own blind fashion, whilst he would be doing a much better work to turn a saint’s day into a working day in honor of a saint.29
However, Luther’s reasoning appears to have been motivated by pragmatism in order to counter “the present abuses” he identified.
Excursus on Lutheranism
Standing on the doctrine of sola Scriptura, Martin Luther (1483–1546) was very successful at eliminating many of the perverse teachings of Romanism (e.g., the Roman Catholic mass, auricular confession, pilgrimages, the saints as mediators, the sacerdotal priesthood, etc.). As Brian Schwertley suggests, unfortunately, perhaps as a result of his conservative personality, or his comfort with medieval style worship, or even a simple error in logic, he never made the connection between Scripture alone and the need of Divine warrant for worship ordinances, in the way that Calvin and others did. Luther held that human traditions in worship are valuable and should be respected as long as they do not contradict the Bible. In other words, only rites and ceremonies that are expressly forbidden by Scripture should be disallowed. As a result of the inconsistent application of sola Scriptura to only some matters relating to worship, the Lutherans retained many ceremonies, rites, and practices that were not derived from the Bible. It is then hardly surprising that a large portion of the ceremonial, ritualistic, and governmental structures of the Roman Catholic Church manifested themselves in Lutheranism. For whatever reason, Luther and his successors seem not to have realized that the very structures they were retaining, were the original causes of the historical corruption in the church against which Luther had rebelled in the first place!30
The Anglican or Episcopal Church also gave the church the power to decide and establish ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies not derived from Scripture. While in many ways the Lutheran and Anglican churches became a vast improvement over Rome (e.g., regarding justification by faith alone), they both denied the absolute authority of Scripture in the area of worship.
Fifty years before Luther, the first ever Protestant Church (the Moravians), led by Jan Hus (John Huss, 1370–1415) also tolerated Christmas. Der Haus-Christ, meaning “the House Christ,” was a term used in sixteenth century Germany for the gift-bringer. German Protestants, who wished to abolish the Catholic cult of saints, needed a replacement for St. Nicholas as the traditional bearer of presents at Christmas. Clergymen chose to speak of Christ himself as the bringer of good things at Christmas and his collection of gifts as the “Christ-bundle.” This shows how Protestants recognized the pagan roots of the gift-giving practice during the Reformation. However, rather than abandoning the pagan practice, some chose to attempt to “Christianize” it. Ironically, this is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church had done twelve centuries earlier. The Reformers were condemning the Roman church for incorporating paganism into the church, but some of the Reformers themselves were unwilling to completely walk away from the cult-like behavior.
In Zurich, Zwingli abolished the vast majority of the Roman Catholic holy days but several, including Christmas, were retained. William Farel (1489–1585) arrived in Geneva (pictured) in 1532 and ministered there as a Reformed pastor with Peter Viret (1511–1571). Calvin joined Farel in 1536 and both sought to move the city toward a more biblical lifestyle.
Farel instigated a ban on all holy days, including Christmas, which caused uproar in the city. In so doing, he followed the example of Martin Bucer in Strasbourg, two hundred miles to the north. Bucer had assumed leadership of the Reformation there in 1529, and in 1535 he eliminated all holy days from the church calendar, except the weekly Lord’s Day.31
Calvin supported Farel but adopted a more conciliatory approach to the matter, declaring that “little will be said about ceremonies before the judgement-seat of God.”
There was a struggle between those who wanted the magistrates firmly in control of the clergy and others, like Calvin, who wanted a city where the clergy were free to preach what they wanted from the pulpit and administer the sacraments as they wished.
Matters came to a head over several practical issues demanded by the Council, including the reintroduction of Christmas and other holy days. In 1538, Geneva’s city elections resulted in a demand to the pastors to imitate Bern (where Bernhold Haller and then Caspar Hedio pastored) and re-adopt Christmas and other holy days, among other things. Calvin and others refused to comply with what they viewed as unwarranted interference in spiritual matters.
After they ignored an order banning them from their pulpits, in April 1538 Farel and Calvin were forced by the Council to leave the city, which they did, going to Strasbourg (pictured). It was there, while agreeing to pastor a group of French refugees, that Calvin experienced the power of congregational song on a regular basis, which stimulated his preparation of a complete French psalter.
Farel never returned to Geneva, ministering in Strasbourg and Neufchatel, but Calvin returned for an intended stay of a week in 1541 and to great acclaim from most in the city, only to remain there for the rest of his life!
Calvin progressively endeared himself and his teaching to the influential families in the city and Geneva’s City Council became increasingly Reformed. The functions of the church in Geneva and its relationship to the state were embodied in the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, which were officially adopted and promulgated by the General Council on November 20, 1541. Calvin insisted that the Lord’s Day was the Christian’s true holiday. In 1545 and after much campaigning, the Genevan Company of Pastors persuaded the magistrates to follow Bucer’s example in Strasbourg, outlawing all holy days. They feared that the retention of days such as Christmas would reinforce the long-standing superstition as to the sacred value of certain days and seasons.32
According to the Register of the Company of Pastors, in 1546, Calvin and his fellow pastors issued an edict to the effect that “those who observe the Romish festivals or fasts shall only be reprimanded, unless [i.e., if] they remain obstinately rebellious.”33 On Sunday, November 16, 1550, an edict was issued by the pastors reaffirming a ban on holy days: “Respecting the abrogation of all festivals, with the exception of Sundays, which God had ordained.” Holy days were to be treated as a normal working day.
A church member in Geneva, Antoine Cadran, was suspended from the Lord’s Table for “impertinence and lies,” for maintaining that Geneva was wrong for not practicing Christmas, which, he maintained, was a mandatory requirement of
