by Rod D. Martin
December 25, 2024
Watch, like, and share Rod’s 2024 Christmas message. And don’t miss:
In the most Christian twenty-five minutes in all of television history, everyone knows that Linus nails the Gospel. Charlie Brown, however, is wrong about more than you think. God wastes nothing, not even our sin. And in liberty, God turns even the selfish motives of the sinner into the provision of good for all, an unconscious obedience to the Golden Rule guided as though by an invisible hand.
Every year the debate begins again. But in fact, the early church fathers chose a date based on their knowledge of the date of Christ’s death (which they believed was also the date of His conception), and while they knew that their choice for Christmas was imprecise, they thought it best to settle minor disputes for the future.
That mostly worked until, more or less, the invention of social media.
In any case, read here about the reasoning of the early church, and also why Christmas is NOT actually the Saturnalia or some other pagan holiday.
Ian Morris is a Stanford historian and archaeologist. If anything comes clear in Ian’s enlightening essay, it is the degree to which hard power (e.g., the geopolitical pre-eminence of the Christian English-speaking powers since the 18th Century) shapes and changes the cultures of the rest of the world. This is perhaps the single most important argument for the continued leadership of the United States: the desire that dominance produces in others to emulate American ideas of liberty, human rights and even faith.
Ian provides a reason many of you haven’t thought of for why that power matters. A Chinese-led world not only would not value those things, but would see both ancient and modern Chinese values -- both Confucian and Communist -- as better, superior, and the way to success. Instead of protecting Christianity and its values, the state power of the world would be used to suppress it and those who believe.
Finally, yes you should have already finished your Christmas shopping, but just in case, this helpful list:
Run don’t walk to buy these excellent books for your friends and family!
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