The Daily Guardian: Why INC members don’t celebrate Christmas

By: Ma. Beatriz Monteverde
The Daily Guardian

(The author is a Grade 12 student-intern of the Iloilo National High School)

IT is irony, some may say, the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC), a church that preaches to be of Christ does not celebrate His birthday every December 25. After all, the birth of Christ the Savior was a day which brought great joy to all people.

The INC is often accused of refusing to remember and glorify Christ, but its members do remember Christ, glorify God, and wish peace- but in accordance with the biblical mandate.

Thus, it is known to everyone that Christmas is considered as special holiday for Roman Catholics, but for the INC members, it is just another normal day.

[Christmas is NOT about the "DATE" (December 25), but rather it IS the CELEBRATION of CHRIST'S BIRTH, nothing more, nothing less.  Thus Christians (of all denomination) and non-Christians UNDERSTOOD it very well that CHRISTMAS is not about the "date" (December 25) but it's about the birth of the SON OF GOD MADE FLESH.  This is why most Islamic jurisprudence DO NOT directly celebrate Christmas as it "goes against the tenets" of their belief ~ that GOD BECAME MAN. 

In the following summary of a YouTube video it says, "It’s no coincidence that this holiday period happens around Christmas, as traditionally it was a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus."

No sane person would think that Christmas is a celebration OF the date (December 25) but rather it is a "coincidence" that the Church of Christ marked HIS BIRTHDAY on December 25. If we celebrate LIFE by celebrating our birthday, what's stopping Christians to celebrate the BIRTH OF THE SON OF GOD MADE FLESH (John 1:1-4,14; Phil. 2:2-11)]

According to an article published at God’s Message, the official magazine of INC, there is nothing wrong with birthday celebrations, but INC stands firm that there is no biblical verse that says Christ demands for His birthday to be celebrated.

The apostles also made no mention of Christmas celebration but taught how Christ wanted to be remembered.

[True to His Word, God did not command us everything. His commandment is simple: LOVE. It's all about love. If celebrating one's birthday is all about love, then there is nothing wrong with that.  Birthday celebration no matter how simple or extravagant it may be celebrated always boils down to one thing: OUR LOVE OF LIFE. God has given us LIFE and out of this we are able to LOVE because we live.  Do you think, God in his immense wisdom would enumerate to us every detail of what should we do? If God would have done that then even we combine all national libraries in the world, the Bible couldn't fit. 

Our God is NOT DUMB as these false preachers of Manalo's Church would imply. Logic would lead us to the TRUTH. How could the evangelists record the EXACT DATE of Christ's birth when HIS BIRTH precedes the GREGORIAN CALENDAR which was only introduced by POPE GREGORY XIII in October 4, 1582. This 2019, the Gregorian Calendar is just 436 years old while His birth has been remembered for more than 2,000 years. Take note, the Gregorian Calendar is the "most widely used civil calendar in the world" according to Wikipedia and it is so convenient for the INC™ to use it as their tool in measuring date including their birthdays and even their founding anniversary.

Let me throw the same question back to these false preachers: If it was not in the Bible, and the Apostles DID NOT teach Christians to remember Christ's birth then (a) Why are they celebrating Felix Manalo's birthday every May 10th of each year, Eraño Manalo every January 2 each year and Eduardo V. Manalo every October 31 every year? (b) Why are they celebrating every July 27th of their founding anniversary if God or the holy apostles DID NOT command them to celebrate?

I am sure, their answer would be the same as OUR ANSWER. Birthday celebrations are all celebrated out of LOVE which is the very heart of the Gospel.]

Jesus Christ commanded to remember Him in his death, not on His birthday, it stated.

[If this would be our very basis on how to know which among the many churches claiming to be Christ's "true" Church including the Iglesia Ni Cristo®  (INC™) they would fall short.  In their own liturgy, INC™ celebrates Christ's death (Santa Cena) ONLY ONCE A YEAR which coincidentally celebrated on December 25 (see Rappler).  Their December 25 too was not even in the Bible.  Was December 25 randomly chosen as their "Santa Cena (Huling Hapunan)" celebration or sinasamantala lamang nila ang malaki at kilalang okasyon sapagkat ito ay araw na may pagdiriwang na ang sankakristianuhan? Who would buy their shallow reasoning while Catholics and non-Catholics (including non-Christians) are celebrating CHRISTMAS as Christ's birthday, they'd celebrate Christ's death instead!

True to Christ's commandment the CATHOLIC CHURCH faithfully remembers His Passion and Death EVERYDAY in EVERY PARISH around the world "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes" (I Corinthians 11:26). And the TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST ~ which is the CATHOLIC CHURCH (according to history and the Pasugo 1966, p. 6; July-August 1988 p. 6, March-April 1992, p. 22) will CELEBRATE HIS DEATH as He commanded UNTIL HE COMES AGAIN.]

Moreover, the article said that “there is no reliable historical that exists pinpointing the exact date or month of Christ’s birthday.”

[That was because there was no calendar yet when He was born but that does not stop us from appointing a fitting date to celebrate THE OCCASION OF HIS BIRTH.]

It claimed that the focus of Christmas had shifted from Christ to Sta. Claus and from “so-called spirituality to materialism.”

[The Iglesia Ni Cristo® shouldn't fault the Catholic Church if some people are replacing Christ's birth celebration to Santa Claus or it turned to be focused more on materialism.  The truth remains that CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT THE BIRTH OF THE SON OF GOD MADE FLESH, not Santa Claus or the snow or Reindeers or Yuletide.]

December 25 isn’t specified as the exact birth of Christ but is originally called ‘Birthday of the Sun’ and the great pagan religous celebration of the Mithras cult celebrated all through the Roman Empire, an article published at Iglesia Ni Cristo blogspot said.

[The Iglesia Ni Cristo® hates the Catholic Church and they accuse her as a PAGAN CHURCH. There is nothing good in the Catholic Church as the Iglesia Ni Cristo® looks at it in any angle even they benefited a lot from the Catholic Church. Evidently, they attack the Catholic Church in radio, TV or in print. Wala nang bago sa kanila. Instead we pray for our persecutors and bless those who hate the TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST which is the Catholic Church.]

Members of the INC continue to abide with the teachings of the Holy Bible.

[Every member of the INC™-1914 should know that WITHOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH there is no Bible. And they should always remember that THE CHURCH CAME FIRST BEFORE THE LIST OF THE BOOKS IN OUR PRESENT BIBLE WAS FINALLY FORMULATED IN 382 A.D.]

Eureka Rodriguez, 13, stands firm with her faith.

“Sa age ko, makita ko ang iban nga sadya sa Christmas Party nila. Pero sa bata pa nga edad, natudluan na kami sang insakto nga duktrina. Wala man ko mahisa kay may paagi man kami magpasalamat kag mag-glorify through Year End Thanksgiving namon. Amo na ang ginaka-excitedan namon kung December,” she said.

Was Jesus born on Christmas?

It’s not a trick question.

By Alice Camill / USCatholic

Photo from public domain

It sounds like a trick question akin to “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” Of course Jesus’ birth is Christmas Day. But did the Incarnate Word arrive on December 25? I’d say there’s a 1-in-365 chance.

While births are significant in scripture, birthdays are not at all. Honestly, we don’t know what year Jesus was born, much less the date. Sometime between what we call 7 BCE and 4 CE, the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. John’s gospel perceives the incarnation as central to history but the precise date is irrelevant. Details about Jesus’ birth, as narrated by Matthew and Luke, are shaped for theological reasons, and they are powerfully significant ones. Their historicity is less certain—and, for these evangelists, utterly beside the point. Mark shows no interest in Jesus until he’s a grown man. So anyone looking for the inches and ounces of Jesus’ birth will find the gospels unforthcoming.

So why did the church latch onto the 25th of December? That date doesn’t become a “thing” until the Roman Emperor Aurelius (270–275) institutes the sol invictus, or festival of the invincible sun. He sets this feast on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year on the Roman calendar. In the anxiety of waning light, the coming victory over darkness is merrily anticipated.

The sol invictus is so popular, and so light-centered, it becomes a no-brainer for Christian leaders to co-opt and consecrate the celebration on their liturgical calendar. Converts are drawn from the Roman world, after all. The recognition of Jesus as “Light of the world” weds happily with the established festival to remind new Christians that “the dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow” (Luke 1:78–79). By the fourth century Christian calendars include the nativity as a regular feast.

That works well in Rome. In Egypt and Arabia, however, winter solstice occurs on January 6th. A feast proclaiming God manifest among us, Epiphany, dawns for those Christians as well—which they celebrate on their solstice. In this easternmost part of the church, the feast is less about Jesus’ arrival and more about how his divinity is revealed: by the testimony of the magi, in his baptism, and through the first miracle at Cana.

Later the West adopts Epiphany, and the East likewise assumes the nativity. With dual origins, Christmas-Epiphany becomes more an extended season with multiple meanings than a single event. For centuries the feast is hardly observed as a birthday party for Jesus, which some parishes throw today complete with cake and balloons. Early Christmas liturgies were pointedly determined to fight heresies. In heavy dogmatic fashion, Christmas honored “the eternal Word made flesh,” in contradiction to the suggestion that the human Jesus was a divine mirage.

It would be centuries more before crèches and evergreens lightened the mood and the meaning of Christmas. Yet those strings of lights still remind us that a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can’t touch it.

This article also appears in the December 2017 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 82, No. 12, page 49).

Image: via Unsplash

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST WHICH IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!