Was Spurgeon Really Anti-Christmas?

Opinions were never lacking for Charles Spurgeon. This 19th-century British Baptist is on record for everything ranging from pancakes to the person and work of Christ. Whether you are reading his sermons, devotionals, or books, you learn what the man believed, what he thought, and where he stood. Even about Christmas.

Spurgeon a Scrooge?

While researching a new book project on Spurgeon, I searched for some merry thoughts and choice comments on Christmas. So I thought.

I began reading his sermon, "The Great Birthday." His humbugs startled me.

There is no authority whatever in the word of God for the keeping of Christmas at all, and no reason for keeping it just now except that the most superstitious section of Christendom has made a rule that December 25th shall be observed as the birthday of the Lord…you are under no bondage whatever to regard the regulation."

Could it be that the Prince of preachers was also the Scrooge of scrooges? Could it be that my dead mentor, my figure from church h…