The Forerunner Blog

Here are some of my latest comments relating to some of the articles and video projects found at The Forerunner. Check back for my thoughts on eschatology, world missions, God’s Law and Society, pro-life activism, evangelism testimonies, Neo-Puritanism, revival and spiritual awakening, church history, and so on. Use the navigation sidebar to see Forerunner Blog articles by category or see the blog archive for the category listing.

Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?

Video: Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?
Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?
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The date of Christmas was not determined by Church Fathers by copying the date of a pagan Roman winter solstice festival. Instead, the date was calculated from the Jewish calendar using the date of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, September 22nd, 6 BC, when Gabriel appeared to Zecharias in the Temple according to Luke 1:5. The conception of John occurred “immediately after that” when Zecharias returned home to Elizabeth to the hill country of Judea, by calculation on September 24th, 6 BC.

The conception of Jesus was calculated to have occurred when Elizabeth was “in her sixth month” (Luke 1:26,36) on March 25th, 5 BC, which was also the first day of Passover in that year. John’s birth was June 24th, 5 BC, followed by Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem on December 25th, which was also the first day of Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights, in that year. The Church Father, Hippolytus of Rome, in his work Chronicon, saw that each date had allegorical significance.

So why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?

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Why the Forever War Must Finally End

How do we describe the current shift in American and geopolitics?

The problem with terms is that they mean different things in different contexts. In Russia, the communists are right wing. In America, they are on the extreme left. Libertarianism is extreme right wing, but extreme left wing at the same time. Those terms are meaningless because they shift over place and time. The most helpful paradigm is that the political realignment is no longer horizontal — left vs. right — but vertical — populace vs. the elites. That is now a worldwide phenomenon by the way.

I’m excited about Trump’s foreign policy. He’s right more than 50 percent of the time, but he was forced to compromise with the neocons in his first term. The plus is that he was ALWAYS against foreign wars. He was against Iraq and Afghanistan when most Republicans believed we were fighting an existential threat in radical Islam. Most Republicans in Washington still believe that, but a few are waking up.

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