Ken wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 4:05 pm
HondurasKeiser wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 10:29 am
Ken wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 10:25 am
Same day as everyone else. I just don’t pretend to be upset that it shared a date with Caesar Chavez day this year and will again sometime in the 2080s.
So even though they're not biblical, you nevertheless recognize their importance and celebrate them accordingly?
Of course. But I don't look for my government to endorse my religious observations or beliefs one way or the other. When it comes to holidays or anything else.
Neither do I look for a presidential endorsement of my celebration of Easter and Christmas. That's not exactly my point. I ask all this because whenever these types of discussions come up you make it sure to point out that our Christian celebrations of the Birth and Resurrection are neither Biblical nor particularly Christian in origin. Yet you admit that you do indeed celebrate them and see them as important.
Thus I ask myself: Why do you throw that information out there if you yourself see it as not terribly relevant to your own observance and solemnization of those celebrations? I don't know for certain your motivations; it could be you're trying to goad or troll people you see as hopelessly tradition-bound and therefore unenlightened in the historical criticism of everything "Christian". Or it could be that you think by pointing out the non-biblical, non-Christian origins of said celebrations you can take a lot of the "durm und strang" out of the arguments of these benighted, backward reactionaries. You can and will (I'm sure) tell me I'm wrong.
Regardless, your motivations I think you're missing the point. Grace (and others) are not alarmed exactly by the fact that Mr. Biden failed to treat March 31st as exclusively special because of Easter. It makes no difference to her Easter celebration - just like the fact that it may or may not have been placed in the calendar because of some ancient pagan equinoctial practices (and here
I think the scholarship is a touch thin which again says more about your motivations for mentioning it in the first place) make no earthly difference to her celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord. What Grace is doing is noticing. Noticing how strange it is that we have days in our secular, liturgical calendar (
145 I believe) devoted to celebrating sexuality and the transgression of gender norms. Days, that until recently did not exist and that take place of pride (I use that word advisedly) alongside religious celebrations that have a nearly 2000 year history. Thus, when a modern president treats both as equally important via his powers of proclamation; those with eyes to see, sit up and take notice. What does it mean when the president devotes as much energy to writing a milquetoast, half-hearted, Happy Easter card as he does to
tweeting out "I see you" for the some of the most visible people in the world? It means to me that sexuality and gender transgressions are the new and latest secular religion and thus just as much a potential idol and pitfall as money, power, materialism, etc. It's not just a question of "Christians butting out of people's lives" rather it's recognizing that there is sea-change occurring and we as Christians need to be wise as foxes in our navigation of that change.
Affiliation: Lancaster Mennonite Conference & Honduran Mennonite Evangelical Church