I am a Christian.

I agree with Pat Robertson and others about not supporting stores which bar employees from saying 'Merry Christmas' in favor of 'Season's Greetings' and 'Happy Holidays'. It makes no sense to shop at retailers that are hostile to you or your beliefs. This is no different from the 'don't shop where you can't work' campaigns during the Civil Rights Movement.

But I agree in theory not principle.

Why is this? Because I am one of the few Christians that does not celebrate Christmas. There are no Christmas trees and no nativity scenes in my home. Don't gasp and don't think that I am part of a strange cult. And please don't pity me or my future children for I will tell you why 'Merry Xmas' doesn't bother me.

A few years ago, I found that the closer my walk with Christ became the more I wanted to please Him and as the Christmas season grew near, the blatant commercialism repulsed me. How can people hostile to God get excited about the celebration of the birth of Jesus. I wanted to celebrate the reason for the season. So, instead of a Christmas tree, I did a nativity and placed the gifts around it. It was such a spiritual high and well received in the family that once Mary, Joseph and the wise men were packed away, I began an indepth study on the origins of Christmas so that the next year I could make it even better.

I started with the Bible and ironically found nothing. Yes, the birth of Christ is recorded but there wasn't any mention of where the evergreen trees and holly came from. There wasn't even a date. And the only thing Jesus told us to do in rememberance of him was the bread and wine at Passover.

I was stumped. Perhaps I just didn't know where to look so I tried reference materials that might point me to the correct verses of scriptures. What I found was the history of the Church of Rome ( the Catholic Church) strategically grafting religious ceremony over the pagan practices of the Rome. This tactic spread to each territory acquired within the churches reach to make forced conversion more user friendly.

Silver bells, evergreen trees, holly and mistletoe. Each of these and many more of the things we associate with the season have a direct tie to the non-Christian religion of ancient Rome. Uniformity of these pagan practices are scattered all over the globe because the religious system of the world began at Babylon and spread abroad. The ancient Sumerian and Chaldean religion of goddess worship with the iconolgy of mother and child are well represented in Ishtar and Tammuz and the Egytpian Isis and Horis leading easily to worship the Madonna and Child.

All of our rituals surrounding Christmas, including the date of December 25th comes from pagan Rome in Christian covering. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory wrote to the English bishop Augustine : " Do not destroy their pagan temples, but make them into Christian churches named after the saints. Out of custom the people will continue coming and will venerate their new God. The animal sacrifices should be maintained but changed; instead of being sacrifices, they will supply a Christian meal in honor of God."

This is vastly different from the biblical account of a council taken in Jerusalem on what parts of the law new gentile converts were to uphold. There it was decided that among other things, they were to abstain from meats offered to idols ( Acts 15:29).

Pope Gregory's decision also flies in the face of two old testament decrees from God.

Leviticus 18:3 states: "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances."

When the children of Israel left Egypt they were walking away from pagan practices to follow the true and living God. When they went to possess the land of Canaan they were going amongst those that were practicing the same things that they left behind. God told them not to copy what they saw.

Later in Deuteronomy 12:30-32, he repeated the same thing: "Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you,, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto nor dominish from it."

Early Christian leaders, Tertulian for example, urged people not to go back to the pagan rituals they left when they came to Christ: "Let them kindle lamps, they who have no light; let them fix on doorposts laurels which shall afterwards be burnt, they for whom the fire is close at hand; meet for them are testimonies of darkness and auguries of punishment. But thou art a light of the world and a tree that is ever green; if thou hast renounced temples, make not a temple of thy own housedoor.'

The Puritan settlers of the New England states repudiated the holiday because it was marked with drunkenness and rioting.

Some say what difference does the origins make, it is now a celebration of the birth of Christ. To them I say when will we stop trying to serve God our way and worship him in spirit and in truth. If God is eternal, and he is the same yesterday, today and forever then who are we really worshipping when he has told us twice in his word what he does and does not want?

Today we arrive a a retailers season more than anything else. Before the Jack-o-lanterns are stored away and Halloween candy consumed, the stores are in full swing vying for your Christmas dollar. Now they want to take Christ out of Christmas. But was he there in the first place?

I often stand with my conservative brothers and sisters, but on this issue, I wish there was something more worthy to stand for.