Keeping Christ in Christmas—But Who Was Christ?
Christ's Mass: As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, the Mass of Christ, for Him whose birthday reset the calendar -- AD, Anno Domini, In the Year of Our Lord-- let's ask, Why Jesus Christ? According to Hugh Trevor-Roper, in The Rise of Christian Europe, the West's development was a Christian undertaking, driven by such great kings as Alfred & Charlemagne. And so by lineage, prophetic prediction, theological logic, the historic record and by sheer effectiveness using His ideas in societies, we claim Jesus was God on earth. And Jesus allowed himself to be executed so His blood, like the symbolic animals executed in the Old Testament Jerusalem Temple, would save all who believed.