{"id":19389,"date":"2019-12-26T14:55:47","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T14:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/?p=19389"},"modified":"2019-12-26T14:55:47","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T14:55:47","slug":"why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical","title":{"rendered":"Why celebration of Christmas is idolatry, unbiblical"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry, MFM, Dr Daniel Olukoya, has described Christmas celebration as idolatry.<\/p>\n<p>Olukoya said the church does not celebrate Christmas because it is unbiblical.<\/p>\n<p>The pastor argued that no book in the Bible recorded the word \u2018 Christmas\u2019 or that Jesus was born on Dec. 25.<\/p>\n<p>The General Overseer spoke during the Wednesday Manner Water Service, a programme that was organised to shift the attention of members from the 2019 Christmas celebration.<br \/>\n\u201cIf you really study the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, there is no word like Christmas,\u201d he said at the church headquarters in Lagos.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Bible only recorded that the Shepherds were taking care of their flocks during a very cold season when they sighted the star that announced the birth of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis cold period could be around April or May.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDecember 25 is a date originally set aside by the ancient Romans for Mars festival by the worshippers of the sun.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe birth of Christ was subsequently co-opted into the same date to give the Mars festival more popularity and then renamed \u2018Christmas\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The General Overseer cautioned the modern Christians against promoting such an unbiblical celebration.<\/p>\n<p>He further made it clear that his church has decided to henceforth engage members in various spiritual activities during such periods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry, MFM, Dr Daniel Olukoya, has described Christmas celebration as idolatry. Olukoya said the church does not celebrate Christmas because it is unbiblical. The pastor argued that no book in the Bible recorded the word \u2018 Christmas\u2019 or that Jesus was born on Dec. 25. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":19390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30],"tags":[1273,1272],"class_list":["post-19389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","tag-mfm","tag-olukoya"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why celebration of Christmas is idolatry, unbiblical - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry, MFM, Dr Daniel Olukoya, has described Christmas celebration as idolatry.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why celebration of Christmas is idolatry, unbiblical\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry, MFM, Dr Daniel Olukoya, has described Christmas celebration as idolatry.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-26T14:55:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2019\/12\/pastor-olukoya.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"338\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"alico\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/50afd2ef4f0e900bd0a176404a8484a7\"},\"headline\":\"Why celebration of Christmas is idolatry, unbiblical\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-26T14:55:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical\"},\"wordCount\":224,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2019\/12\/pastor-olukoya.png\",\"keywords\":[\"MFM\",\"Olukoya\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/why-celebration-of-christmas-is-idolatry-unbiblical\",\"name\":\"Why celebration of Christmas is idolatry, unbiblical - 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