The eternal Son did not become man to furnish the Church or the secular world with another occasion for seasonal entertainment. He assumed our nature to accomplish the redemption of sinners. Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, He entered the world under the law, to fulfill all righteousness, bear the guilt of His people, and offer Himself as the sacrifice for sin. The incarnation belongs inseparably to the humiliation, obedience, suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ.

To detach Christmas from this redemptive reality is therefore no small matter. It raises the possibility that the Church has retained the language of a Christian commemoration while allowing the world to determine its character.

The history of Christmas itself deserves consideration. The New Testament contains no command to observe an annual festival commemorating Christ's birth. Early Christians differed in their calculations concerning its date. Clement of Alexandria, writing around the beginning of the third century, records several proposed dates. A disputed passage attributed to Hippolytus identifies 25 December, but the earliest reasonably secure evidence for its ecclesiastical observance comes from fourth-century Rome, preserved in the Chronography of 354. By the later fourth century, the observance was spreading through the eastern churches, where John Chrysostom defended its adoption at Antioch. I have no intention here of entering the historical debate concerning the possible appropriation of pagan Roman festivities by the early Church. That question, however significant, is not necessary to my argument. Even without establishing a pagan origin for Christmas, the modern practice of “Christmas in July” raises the disturbing question of whether the Church is once again allowing the customs of the surrounding culture to determine how it commemorates the incarnation of Christ.

Whatever arguments were subsequently advanced for 25th December, the historical distinction remains fundamental. The incarnation was an act of God accomplished once in history. Christmas was an ecclesiastical observance established centuries afterwards.

This distinction was not lost upon the Presbyterian Reformers. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 21, teaches that acceptable worship is instituted by God and regulated by His revealed will. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship expressly rejected the continuation of religious festival days lacking biblical warrant. The Reformers did not regard the religious importance of an event as sufficient authority for the Church to establish an annual celebration of it.

Consequently, a Presbyterian congregation cannot justify Christmas in July merely by observing that Christians may give thanks for the incarnation throughout the year. The obligation to remember and proclaim Christ does not confer authority to institute religious festivals at human discretion. Indeed, the same confessional objection applies to the ecclesiastical observance of 25 December. Christmas in July does not create this difficulty; it exposes it.

The modern history of Christmas in July introduces a further concern.

One early literary appearance occurs in Massenet's opera Werther (1892), in which children rehearse Christmas music during July. A more recognizable recreational celebration was organised in 1933 by Fannie Holt at Keystone Camp in North Carolina. Decorations, festivities, gifts, and seasonal novelty formed part of the occasion. In 1940, Hollywood released Preston Sturges's comedy Christmas in July, further establishing the expression within popular entertainment.

In Australia, the modern custom is commonly associated with winter celebrations in the Blue Mountains around 1980, particularly the hospitality tradition subsequently known as Yulefest. The precise origins of every Australian celebration cannot be established from this account, but the character of the modern custom is unmistakable: seasonal dining, decorations, commercial hospitality, and the novelty of celebrating Christmas during winter.

It was not a movement arising from renewed contemplation of the mystery of godliness. It was a recreational custom.

When Presbyterian congregations adopt this practice, we must therefore ask whether the Church is bringing the Word of God to bear upon the world or allowing the world to supply the pattern of its own activities.

The question cannot be dismissed by describing Christmas in July as merely a social gathering. A congregation advertising an event under the name Christmas deliberately employs a term associated with the commemoration of Christ's birth. Its corporate identity gives that designation a significance different from that of an ordinary commercial establishment.

A restaurant may advertise Christmas in July to attract customers. A Presbyterian congregation professes to bear witness to the incarnate Son of God. Its public use of the same designation consequently invites theological examination.

Nor is the difficulty removed simply because the gathering contains no formal service of worship. The regulative principle governs instituted worship, but the obligation to honour Christ extends to the whole life and public witness of the Church. An activity may fail to constitute unauthorized worship and nevertheless communicate an unworthy understanding of sacred things.

The danger is that Christmas becomes a collection of detachable cultural accessories: a dinner, decorations, music, and the pleasure of seasonal novelty. Once these things become sufficient to constitute Christmas, the incarnation is no longer necessary to the celebration. What remains is a secular imitation bearing a Christian name.

I do not suggest that Christian fellowship, hospitality, or cheerful recreation is sinful. These are legitimate blessings when exercised in accordance with God's Word. Nor does every use of a familiar cultural expression establish deliberate irreverence. The issue is whether the Church has appropriated the commemoration of Christ's incarnation as an instrument of amusement, thereby obscuring the truth it professes.

An ordinary birthday dinner illustrates the distinction. The food may be enjoyable, but the celebration derives its personal significance from the one whose birth is remembered. Remove that person entirely, and the occasion has become something else, however familiar its decorations remain.

The Church must therefore consider not merely what its organizers intend, but what its public conduct communicates.

This brings us to a particularly troubling question concerning the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. Has the denomination gradually normalized ecclesiastical practices that its historic confessional tradition would have questioned?

The presence of Christmas-in-July events in particular congregations warrants investigation, although their frequency and growth across the denomination must be established from documentary evidence. I am aware of three congregations advertising such events this year. Nevertheless, the underlying theological question is already apparent. If the Church professes the Westminster standards while adopting religious customs shaped principally by popular culture, it must explain how those practices accord with its confession.

There is a difference between engaging the world with the gospel and reproducing the world's entertainments under ecclesiastical sponsorship. The former subjects culture to the authority of Christ. The latter risks allowing culture to determine the Church's priorities and public identity.

Christmas in July is more than an eccentricity of the congregational calendar. Where it treats the commemoration of Christ's incarnation as a recreational novelty, it deserves serious rebuke. Where it assumes the Church's authority to establish religious observances without biblical warrant, it encounters the historic Presbyterian objection to humanly instituted festivals.

The incarnation is not the Church's invention, and neither its meaning nor its dignity is at the Church's disposal. The eternal Son became flesh to save His people from their sins. His coming demands faith, repentance, thanksgiving, reverence, and worship according to God's Word.

Presbyterian ministers and elders need to examine these practices against the Scriptures and the standards they profess. The question is not whether congregations may enjoy a meal together, but whether they should employ the name of Christmas to reproduce a secular entertainment whose relationship to the incarnation has become increasingly tenuous.

The Church has not been commissioned to make the mysteries of redemption more entertaining. It has been commissioned to proclaim Christ faithfully. Christmas in July should therefore prompt serious reflection upon whether contemporary Presbyterian practice is being governed by the Word of God or increasingly accommodated to the customs of the world.