Infusing old religious patterns with new religious ideas is a common sociological phenomenon known as "assimilation." Missionaries have grappled with this issue for centuries. Is it "conversion" if the natives simply paste Christian names over the heads of pagan gods and continue to worship any old way they want? Are "Christianized" pagan festivals acceptable to the God of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob?
Gentile converts were accepted into the early Jewish churches by faith and with few restrictions (Acts 15). The downside to this is that they had little training in the OT scriptures or the traditions of the Jews. The Gentile convert's understanding was not "mature" from a scriptural point of view. Jews had often misunderstood Yahweh and they knew the scriptures. Consider the potential for misunderstanding among the pagan converts.
The Christian Democracy
It comes as a shock to some that Christian religious practices, more often than not, have their roots, not in scripture, but in the pagan worship traditions inherited from the early Gentile converts. When the Gentiles converted, they had well established holidays and worship patterns, just like the Jews. We see how strongly Jews felt about the Sabbath in the Gospels. Gentiles did not easily give up their traditional "Sun day," on which the Sun God was worshipped, but rather "assimilated" it into the worship of Jesus Christ. Like most of us, they generally found reasons not to change. Scripture was then "used" to "rationalize" an existing pagan practice. So it is that we worship according to the traditions of our fathers.
When the "Way" was young, Gentile converts were a minority. Over time, however, they became the majority. The majority soon dominated. The "assimilation" of the Greco-Roman worship paradigm changed the name and nature of the savior of the world from a Jewish Messiah to a Greco-Roman Christ. The following may illustrate some of the shift from the early Jewish "Way" to the "Church" as we know it today.
Sabbath (Fri.-eve to Sat.-eve)
vs. Sunday "Sabbath" (not official until 325 CE)
Sunday was the traditional day for "sun" worship.
No Jewish pattern
vs. Lent (Old pagan festival of the boar)
Feast of Unleavened Bread
vs. Easter (Old fertility goddess, eggs, bunnies)
The Lord's Passover(An annual feast)
vs. The Lord's Supper (A weekly sacrament)
Pentecost
vs. No Gentile pattern
Feast of Trumpets
vs. No Gentile pattern
Day of Atonement
vs. No Gentile pattern
Feast of Tabernacles
vs. No Gentile pattern
No Jewish pattern
vs. Christmas(Dec. 25, birthday of Mithras,the Sun God) "For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter." Jeremiah 10:3 And so it was that the Kingdom of God became the Holy Roman Empire. |
