And if that's the case, then I imagine that God is rather happy when we take God's creation and put it back to its original intent--to testify of Him, not to be worshipped or used as symbols of false worship.
But they
are symbols of false worship. You can't use them in a thinly veiled pagan celebration, adopted by the church centuries ago, relabelled, and then pretend that you have "washed" them.
This is what we Christians have always done. We get rid of false worship among the peoples of the world, and bring the parts of God creation being used as symbols of false worship, BACK to giving testimony of Him. We are correcting the misuse of these parts of God's creation, not misusing them ourselves.
The only way to eliminate false worship is to "separate" yourself from it. What does it mean to "quit touching the unclean thing"? The church did not do that. It embraced the unclean thing and renamed it.
I see nothing in the history of Israel to back up what you say.
And "Christians" have never done what you are suggesting. Christendom has.
I see no similarity between the Christianity that Jesus taught and the power hungry juggernaut that the Roman Catholic Church became.
And tell me the last time a Christian worshipped an egg, bunny or tree?
That would be when Easter eggs were given out by the Easter bunny as a symbol of Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday a few weeks ago.
It was when Christmas trees were decorated and used as a symbol of the season of Christ's birthday celebration, except that Christ himself did not command us to celebrate either of those occasion as part of our worship.
We are told 'not to go beyond the things that are written'. The Jews did not choose their own festivals. After the golden calf incident, they were told what festivals to hold and every detail on when and how to celebrate them was provided by God. They did not step outside of that arrangement.
We are not idolaters, nor has Christianity ever been idolatrous.
It baffles me how you're blind to this fact.
It baffles me that Catholic people cannot see the idolatry in their worship. Since God's command was not to "make an image of anything" to use in worship, it is the "making" of any kind of image that breaks God's law on idolatry. No images means no images. No statues, no icons, no crosses.
Yes, even sex is reclaimed. Sex is put back into its proper context of being that which unites a man and a woman in marriage, and opens up the way for a new human being to be born into this world.
Um......you must live in a different world to me. The last time I looked, most people were not bothering to get married, they just move in together and have kids. New life comes into the world through fornication. Adultery and divorce is rife. Churches are full of these people. Who really cares about what God says?
And we don't have pagan forms of worship in Christianity. We don't have temple prostitution, child sacrifice, self-mutilation, idols that we bow down to, or anything else like that. Christian worship is derived straight out of Jewish worship.
Except that the trappings of Jewish worship were not retained.
There was no priesthood, no temple, no distinctive robes or clergy class in first century Christianity.
Converted by Christ through Christendom.
I do not believe that Christ has ever supported Christendom. IMO, when bloodshed entered the church, Christ left the building.
An honest, non-rhetorical question: Have you ever been to a Christmas service before? Have you ever been in either a Catholic Midnight Mass or an Orthodox Liturgy of the Nativity?
I was an Anglican for the first 20 years of my life. I did what many in Christendom did, I celebrated Christmas and Easter along with many others in my church. Once I learned the truth about the origins of these celebrations however, it was easy to walk away from them.
I have only ever attended one Catholic Mass in my life and I am sorry to say that I found it to be empty and meaningless ritual. The priest swigging copious amounts of wine disturbed me greatly. :sorry1:
If not, then what makes you think you have the faintest idea of how Christmas is actually celebrated? Songs about a jolly old fat man with reindeer are unique to America. Christmas trees with lights and ornaments and presents underneath them weren't a big thing until a few hundred years ago. Even gift-giving is typically done on St. Nicholas Day in most other countries, and not on Christmas. Christmas is reserved specifically for celebrating Christ's birth.
We were never told to celebrate Christ's birth. His birthdate is not recorded in scripture. It was not something Jews did. Only pagans celebrated birthdays.
I guess you really don't see Christ in anything or anyone, then. How sad.
I see Christ in the truth. I see it in the work he assigned us to do....the one he said he would support to the end. (Matt 28:19, 20) I do not see Christ being party to anything connected to false worship in any way. What is sad is that people think Christ would compromise. Never once did he do that.
We placed the feast of Christ's birth on December 25th to remove the temptation of pagan converts to Christianity to go and slip back into their old ways, and to take a stand against a pagan world.
Now how do you figure that? The Roman Saturnalia was celebrated on the same December date, with exactly the same feasting and gift giving, and merry making as Christmas has to this day. Sun worship is inextricably linked to Roman Catholicism. The trappings are still in evidence as any Google search will reveal.
And the reason WHY we call Pascha "Pascha" is because Christ is our Pascha.
The Passover was exclusively Jewish. Christ is the true Passover Lamb and that is why he asked that his death be commemorated as a memorial of that event.
Easter is not Passover. It has nothing to do with Passover. There is no Easter in scripture.
So bunnies, trees and eggs will forever be lost to paganism, then? Such a shame to know that humanity can completely and utterly corrupt God's creation beyond all repair.
That is a very strange thing to say IMO. Since rabbits were classified as "unclean" animals, they were never part of God's worship in the first place. They exist along with myriad other creatures that God created...nothing special about them.
Trees, particularly evergreen trees were believed by pagans to have magical properties, so again these trees did not figure in God's worship.
Eggs were good to eat, but they had no place in the worship that God prescribed for his people....they were held as pagan symbols of fertility, yet Christendom wants to retain their status and re-label these false religious symbols as if they are somehow less offensive to God because of the new label.
I doubt I will ever understand your justification, but that is your choice. I choose to "quit touching the unclean thing". I personally find these celebrations repugnant.
