Christmas Is Not Pagan, and Neither Is Its Date

The Incarnation sanctifies time itself — and the smug “Saturnalia/Sol Invictus” meme collapses the moment you check the calendar and read the Church Fathers.

This analysis is free, but with Premium Membership you get MORE. Join today.

by Rod D. Martin
December 21, 2025

Every year, right on schedule, the same argument resurfaces: that Christmas is “really” pagan, that December 25 is a fraud, and that Christians only picked it to baptize Roman revelries. They don’t attack the Incarnation itself — the audacious, civilization-shaping truth that God took on flesh and entered history. They strike at the calendar, preen over their “deeper knowledge,” and insinuate that the Church is naïve at best, heretical or idolatrous at worst, for celebrating the coming of our Lord.

Out come the familiar talking points: Saturnalia and Sol Invictus, usually delivered with the smug certainty of people who get their history from Facebook posts. The insinuation is always the same: the early Church was either too ignorant to know what it was doing or too corrupt to care.