Church of Christ members navigate Christmas without a biblical blueprint

Originally published on Dec. 5, 2025, for The Optimist, a student publication of ACU.

In the New Testament, Christians are not seen celebrating Christmas. There is the birth of Jesus, but his birth is not marked as a day of celebration for Christians in the Bible. 

The Church of Christ strives to imitate the New Testament as closely as possible. For some members, this means not celebrating Christmas at all. For others, this means celebrating only the secular elements of Christmas without bringing the celebration of Jesus into it. 

Sage Andrews, a sophomore youth and family ministry major from Cullman, Alabama, grew up in a Church of Christ congregation. Andrews said she celebrated every aspect of Christmas, from fun activities related to the season to the birth of Jesus. There was a smaller congregation about 45 minutes from her that didn’t do anything to celebrate Christmas. 

“We weren’t really taught it’s important (to celebrate), but it was for the fun of it to do it,” Andrews said, “so growing up, I had a lot of fun doing the decorations and stuff.”

Unlike other denominations, the Church of Christ does not have any central headquarters, meaning there is no central person or body to tell every congregation what the right way to do things is. 

Dr. David C. Kneip, associate professor and associate director of the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry, said people begin to question the Holiday’s morality and validity. 

“For some people, the question is like, is it right or wrong? And the way you answer that is, is it in the Bible? But then, for other people, the question is, is it good or bad? And most people will tend to think that it’s generally good because, you know, as Christians, we like the idea of celebrating Jesus, giving people gifts, being generous, and thinking about babies is fun.”

Each congregation leader will preach their beliefs, but they have limited control over how or if their members choose to celebrate Christmas on their own. The same concept applies to Halloween and Easter. 

Kneip said that some Church of Christ members celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. 

“It’s about giving gifts. It’s about generosity. But they don’t tie it to religion, because religiously we don’t see that in the Bible,” Kneip said. “So they might say, we celebrate Jesus all the time as a religious person, but because we are part of the secular society, we’re not going to take our kids away from Christmas parties.”