Why would you feel sorry for those who choose not to sin deliberately?
There is no way to Christianize paganism....you only end up paganizing Christianity. A complete separation is necessary, as the apostle Paul makes clear in the following scripture. (2 Cor 6:14-18)
Paul also said...."?..do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Do not be misled. Those who are sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who submit to homosexual acts, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners will not inherit God’s Kingdom. And yet that is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean; you have been sanctified; you have been declared righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and with the spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6:9-11)
Yes, the people have been washed clean of those practices. And so you do not judge them. That sin will always be part of their history, but it isn't a part that we give even so much as a glance to.
And in the same manner, the symbols of the tree and the egg and the rising sun have been baptized and washed clean. It isn't just people that are baptized and washed clean, but entire nations, tribes and tongues. Whatever is sinful about them is washed away and cast out, while whatever is Christian, or possible to be transformed into something Christian, is retained and cleansed of its former impurities.
I am confused by what you consider to be a 'Christian'. Is it a pagan who simply changes the names of their festivals to kid themselves that they are now somehow "Christian"? What does it mean to "become" a Christian?
It means to be washed clean of one's sins, embark on the path of repentance, to walk with Christ, in the Holy Spirit, with the hand of God the Father upon our backs to guide us. It means to imitate Christ, so that people look at us and say, "That person's a little Christ".
Can one be forced at the point of a sword like a lot of pagans who were forced to convert to Catholicism? What constitutes 'conversion' in your estimations?
Anyone who forces people at the sword to convert to Christianity is in grave error. Conversion can never be forced, and any baptisms or sacraments performed under coercion are null and void. Only a conversion borne out of a genuine change of heart towards God can be accepted by any Christian.
Christians must choose not to follow their former course. You cannot live a life of sin and expect Christ to accept you as one of his own. When Paul listed the former sins of those who had become Christians, he said "and yet that is what some of you were". (Past tense) They no longer pursued that lifestyle but cleaned up their lives and showed that they were followers of Christ by imitating his life course. Christ did not celebrate pagan festivals, so why would we?
And we don't celebrate pagan festivals.
The moment a person becomes a Christian, deliberate sins can no longer be a part of their life. (Heb 10:26, 27) Christ did not die for deliberate sinners.....he died to cancel out the sin of Adam. When one has erred and is genuinely repentant, they are also covered by Christ's blood. But we cannot deliberately sin and expect God's grace to cover it. :no:
Right.
I think Jesus words are quite pertinent in this discussion:
Mark 2:21 Nobody sews a patch of unshrunk cloth upon an old outer garment; if he does, its full strength pulls from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse.
22 Also, nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine bursts the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. But people put new wine into new wineskins.”
Does it not seem that taking an old pagan custom and dressing it up to 'appear' christian is akin to taking an old wineskin and putting new wine into it? And is it not the same thing as taking an old piece of cloth and sewing a new patch onto it?
Jesus makes all things new. All of creation is for God, not for paganism. If we surrender trees and eggs to pagans, are we not forfeiting vast parts of God's creation to Satan, rather than recovering them for God's kingdom?
but do those celebrations really celebrate Jesus?
Yes.
What do the bunny rabbits represent in relation to Jesus? They are the remnant of sex worship. Do you really think Jesus would be pleased to be remembered in such a way???
EDIT: I stand corrected.
In
Early Christian art, hares appeared on
reliefs,
epitaphs, icons and oil lamps although their significance is not always clear.
The
Physiologus,
an inexhaustible resource for medieval artists, states that when in danger the rabbit seeks safety by climbing high up rocky cliffs, but when running back down, because of its short front legs, it is quickly caught by its predators.[5] Likewise, according to the teaching of St. Basil, men should seek his salvation in the rock of Christ, rather than descending to seek worldly things and falling into the hands of the devil. The negative view of the rabbit as an unclean animal, which derived from the
Old Testament, always remained present for
medieval artists and their patrons. Thus the rabbit can have a negative connotation of unbridled sexuality and lust or a positive meaning as a symbol of the steep path to salvation. Whether a representation of a hare in Medieval art represents man falling to his doom or striving for his eternal salvation is therefore open to interpretation, depending on context.
The
Hasenfenster (hare windows) in
Paderborn Cathedral and in the
Muotathal Monastery in Switzerland, in which
three hares are depicted with only three ears between them, forming a triangle, can be seen as a symbol of the
Trinity, and probably go back to an old symbol for the passage of time. The three hares shown in
Albrecht Dürer's
woodcut,
The Holy Family with the Three Hares (1497), can also be seen as a symbol of the Trinity.
The idea of rabbits as a symbol of vitality, rebirth and resurrection derives from antiquity. This explains their role in connection with Easter, the resurrection of Christ. The unusual presentation in Christian iconography of a Madonna with the Infant Jesus playing with a white rabbit in Titian's Parisian painting, can thus be interpreted christologically. Together with the basket of bread and wine, a symbol of the sacrificial death of Christ, the picture may be interpreted as the resurrection of Christ after death.
The phenomenon of
superfetation, where embryos from different
menstrual cycles are present in the
uterus, results in hares and rabbits being able to give birth seemingly without having been impregnated, which caused them to be seen as symbols of virginity.
[6] Rabbits also live underground, an echo of the tomb of Christ.
So you see, Pegg, rabbits are just another part of God's creation that point to Christ. They're not evil or pagan in and of themselves.
