In the World But Not of the World: The Separation of Christians From the Ways of This World

Are Christians practising Pagan rituals?

Do we break the first commandment when we gather at dawn to celebrate Easter with a sunrise service, because facing the east at dawn was an ancient practice in the worship of the  Sun-god BAAL?

Are we honouring the sun god Mithra by worshipping the One True God on Sundays, as Christians have been doing since the first century? (see 1Cor. 16:2)

Do we celebrate the birth of our Lord on December 25 because the pagans were already celebrating the birth of the god Saturn at that time, and Easter at the time when pagans are worshipping their fertility goddesses because these pagan holidays were too popular for the early Christian leaders to ban? Rather than forbidding newly converted Christians from celebrating the popular holidays, did they simply reassign meaning to the traditions so that no one would feel deprived?

Did the early Christians have to give people incentive to follow their new religion by incorporating old pagan traditions into the Christian myth?

Guilty by Association?

Some Christian church groups have stopped celebrating these Christian holidays because of the supposed association with pagan traditions. For example:  due to a push by the Puritans, Christmas was banned in Massachusetts for 22 years because of its pagan origins. Should we follow their lead? Are our sacred celebrations guilty by association?

The Birth of Christianity:

The first Christian converts were Jewish: Jesus’ disciples, including the 12 who had spent three years sitting under His personal tutelage, as well as the many who believed on Him while He was still alive. Just before the resurrected Jesus ascended to Heaven, He gave His followers the commission to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

As the early church spread, Gentile (non Jewish) believers were added to the rapidly growing flock. As the first leaders of Christianity were Jewish, they realized that a new covenant with God was being formed.   Acts chapter 15 describes the events now known as the Council of Jerusalem, or Apostolic Conference. This meeting is generally dated to around the year 50 AD, or at the latest some time before the death of James the Just in 62, and also before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70, both events recorded by the historian Josephus.

The Council of Jerusalem came about because of a dispute in Antioch when some Jewish Christians came down from Judea and were teaching the new Gentile Christians that they had to undergo the Jewish rite of circumcision before they could be saved by Christ. The Gentiles had no wish to lose any of their skin, so Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some others, to go up to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles and elders to discuss this matter. Some believers who had been Pharisees stood up and declared: “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the Law of Moses.”

Then the apostle Peter got up and addressed the Council:

“Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.  God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.  He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. (Acts 15: 7-12)

The Council wrote the following letter, which was sent to the church at Antioch:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul– men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

From Law to Grace

This was not the end of all disputes about what laws Christians ought to obey. The apostle Paul ran into this problem again with the church of the Galatians. He wrote a letter to them (which is now part of the New Testament) in which he wrote:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!  As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:6-9)

The new Christians in Galatia had accepted the gospel of grace, but now they were trying to follow the Jewish law. Paul went on to say:

 ”You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing–if it really was? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?”

Regarding circumcision, Paul rebuked those who were telling the Galatian Christians that they needed to obey this Jewish law:

“As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!  You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.  The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Galatians 5:12-14)

The apostle Paul had on one side Jewish Christians who were trying to add the law to grace, and on the other side Gentile Christians who needed to be taught to separate themselves from the pagan practices of those living around them.

In the world, but not of the world

Here is an example from early church history. The busy cosmopolitan city of Corinth was dominated by the temple of Aphrodite (goddess of love). The Christian church in Corinth was founded circa AD 54.It grew very quickly despite the fact that it is hard to imagine a less likely place for Christianity to take root. The Corinthian Christians shared this city with thousands of temple prostitutes, and a large, racially diverse population. The city was a by-word for excess and sexual licence. There was even a word for it: to ‘Corinthianize’. (Eerdmans’ Handbook to the Bible)

Far from incorporating the rituals of pagans into their own practices, the Corinthian Christians were taught to live “in the world, but not of the world.” In 1 Corinthians 5: 9-13, Paul instructed:

“ I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people–  not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”

There may be some resemblance of pagan symbols to those of the Christian church, such as Easter sunrise services and the Christian celebration of Christ’s birth at the same time that worshippers of pagan gods were also celebrating; and bunnies, eggs, and baby chicks are universal symbols of new life. But to say that the Christian church incorporated pagan rituals into the worship of God is not consistent with the Biblical record or the writings of extra-Biblical historians. Those who promote this distorted view of history negate the power of the Holy Spirit who inspired the writers of the Biblical record and who still indwells those who follow Christ.

 Related writings by Karen Gross:
The One True God
Creating our own Religions