The Christmas Controversy

 As the Plymouth colonists were busy at work with their morning communal tasks, Governor Bradford saw something disturbing. Several young men (new arrivals to the colony) stood about doing nothing. Clearly, they lacked the customary work ethic of the original colonists. When he encouraged them to go work, they refused. They said it went against their conscience to work on Christmas Day. This was December 25, 1621, one year after the Pilgrims began building their community. Governor Bradford reluctantly allowed them to set aside work until they were better informed. 

Later that day, Bradford found those same young men gleefully playing ball in the streets. He confiscated their sporting equipment, saying that, while it may go against their conscience to work on Christmas day, it also went against the whole town’s conscience for them to play as everyone else was working. It was one thing to keep Christmas as a day of devotion in their homes, but quite another to use it as an excuse for laziness and public revelry. 

Puritans and Separatists did not observe holidays like Christmas or Easter because they were not commanded by God, but believed they were from Catholic or pagan origins. They also disapproved of the “dishonorable” theatrical plays, gambling, and dancing associated with Christmas celebrations. 

In 1647, the Puritan dominated English Parliament voted to abolish Christmas, and in 1659 the Puritan colony of Massachusetts Bay did the same, adding a five shilling fine to anyone caught observing the holiday of Christmas. 

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“This man esteemeth one day above another day, and another man counteth every day alike: let every man be fully persuaded in his mind. He that observeth the day, observeth it to the Lord: and he that observeth not the day, observeth it no1t to the Lord.”

(Romans 14:5-6; 1599 Geneva Bible) 

Uncontrollable Church Protests

England in the 1640s endured unprecedented religious fracturing. The momentum for religious freedom spread like wildfire, fueling the political divide in a nation at war with itself. Even the Sunday morning church service was not immune to the conflict as religious protesters disrupted sermons with angry outbursts, shouting out messages with all the fury of ancient prophets. Filled with righteous indignation, Quakers, Levelers, Anabaptists, Separatists, and others burst into church gatherings to challenge the doctrines of their ministers. This happened so often that on December 22, 1646 the House of Lords ordered local authorities to arrest anyone “who shall disturb any minister in holy orders” while he is “exercising his public calling.” 

The church protests eventually spilled overseas as religious rebels continued pouring into New England colonies, and even Harvard College was not immune. The school, which began as a training center for Puritan ministers, held regular services on their campus. In July of 1654, during an infant baptism ceremony, one man entered the chapel to stop the service and instruct them of their errors. If his objections were more academic than other church protests, it was because the protester was none other than the college president himself. The views of Henry Dunster, Harvard’s first college president, had moved away from Puritan orthodoxy toward the Anabaptist practice of adult baptism. He was soon dismissed from his office at the college, taken to court, exiled from Boston, and his last few years were spent as a preacher in Plymouth Colony. 

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“So the Priests, and the Prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the House of the Lord. Now when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking..., and all the people took him, and said, Thou shalt die the death.”

(Jeremiah 26:7-8; 1599 Geneva Bible)

See: The Life of Henry Dunster (1872) in Google Books.