Why Christians Should Care About the Pagan Roots of Valentine’s Day

A few years ago, there are probably many who would be shocked about the origins of Valentine’s Day. Between the rise of available knowledge through the internet and the acceptance by many churches of non-Biblical doctrines, it’s likely nothing that would shock (or even sway) many today.

We could go into detail about the practices of Lupercalia, the original Roman festival of “love” that ran between February 13-15. The festivities started with animal sacrifices. Then, the skins of the animals were used by men to magically bestow fertility into women by flailing them with these skins. That is, of course, non-Biblical, but that’s not the main reason Christians should care about Valentine’s Day.

“It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn’t stop it from being a day of fertility and love.”Noel Lenski, Historian, University of Colorado at Boulder

We could discuss the Catholic establishment of the holiday by Pope Gelasius I that was intended to tone down the craziness of the pagan festival and meld it with a love celebration surrounding the story of St. Valentine, a bishop who was executed for performing marriages when they had been outlawed by Emperor Claudius II. Still, none of this is the reason that Christians should care.

The biggest reason that Christians should care is because of what the holiday has become. It’s not the commercialization, though yearly spending for the holiday is approaching $20 billion. It’s the fact that, as a tradition of men, it acts as a replacement for certain Bible teachings.

There are Holy Days established by God that we should follow. He created them for very specific reasons, yet most Christians are unaware of when they are or what they really mean. Instead, most have plans to enjoy themselves on man-made holidays like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and/or Halloween. The first two act as replacements; we are supposed to love our spouses and honor our parents constantly. When a particular day is set aside by tradition that is supposed to be set aside for “extra-special loving and honoring,” we’re diluting the intent of the constants in the Bible.

In other words, we shouldn’t celebrate man-made events that are designed to pull away from the ongoing decrees.

That’s not to say that every man-made holiday goes against the Bible. Independence Day, for example, is a celebration designed to commemorate an important day in the country’s history while forcing us to remember something that we don’t normally think about on a regular basis. Celebrating the 4th of July does not dilute anything because we don’t consider it regularly. We should be considering our parents or spouses regularly without a holiday to remind us.

I’m not condemning anyone or saying that you’re going to hell because you bought flowers for your spouse. We are all sinners in one way or another. Our works do not get us into Heaven. Conversely, celebrating Valentine’s Day won’t keep us from Heaven. That doesn’t give us license to take an ancient pagan holiday loaded with debauchery and twist it into something acceptable to the morality of the day.

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