Can you stop with the lies about traditional Christianity?

prodromos

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There is a time when the two are mixed, pagan and Christian until the water (Christianity) is almost pure except for a slight tint of ink
You keep saying this like it's a real thing. It isn't.
 
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prodromos

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Prodromos, on the Julian no, on the Gregorian yes. But it was a falsehood created by an official act, changing calendars and keeping the same numerical date.
I'm afraid I must have missed something. Do you mind telling me what this was in reference to?
 
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QvQ

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You keep saying this like it's a real thing. It isn't.
It is a reply to your post above that post. The first of my answer is addressed to the post immediately above and your post is above that. Your post "Like I said, its an oft repeated falsehood."
 
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prodromos

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It is a reply to your post above that post. The first of my answer is addressed to the post immediately above and your post is above that. Your post "Like I said, its an oft repeated falsehood."
I'm afraid I still don't understand your response and what the Julian and Gregorian calendars have to do with this. Please explain.

You also just replied to the wrong post.
 
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QvQ

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The Romans used the Julian Calendar. Saturnalia, the solstice, was December 25. In 1580 +/- some European Countries switched to the Gregorian Calendar. The Solstice was on a different date but December 25 was kept as the date of Christmas. It is strange but it is a fact stated on many websites, Wikipedia, This Day in History.
 
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The Liturgist

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The Puritans believed that Christmas was a Christian veneer on a pagan holiday, which, being a Puritan, is my argument about Gnosticism, a thin Christian veneer on pagan religion.
The Southerners celebrated Christmas, still do, with all the trappings; caroling, Christmas Trees, gifts, Santa.
IT is separate from the religion, as Liturgist stated

The Puritan position makes no sense, because the same people who added the Feast of the Nativity to the liturgical calendar are the same people who opposed Gnosticism with such vigor. In the fourth century, Patristic giants like St. Augustine, St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, and others, were directing great effort at fighting off not only Arianism but also the remaining Gnostic sects first detailed by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his second century classic Against Heresies, and also new Gnostic sects, particularly Manichaeanism, of which Augustine was a member before he was baptized by St. Ambrose of Milan (and then the two of them composed the ancient hymn Te Deum Laudamus, which has become as important as the Evangelical Canticles).

It was during this same time that in every church except Armenia, the Feast of the Nativity was differentiated from the Feast of Theophany, or Epiphany, also known as the Feast of the Baptism of Christ (which in the West later lost some of its meaning with a shifted focus to the three Magi, but since that time there has been a renewed focus on the Baptism of our Lord, and many people are now baptized on Epiphany in, for example, the Anglican and Episcopalian churches, just as the Eastern churches like to baptize on Easter Even. Armenians continue to celebrate the Nativity of Christ together with his baptism on January 6th, except in Jerusalem where the Julian Calendar is still used by the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox (the Roman Catholics and Protestants use the Gregorian Calendar, which is good because it reduces overcrowding at the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Nativity, the Temple Mount, and other locations, including one of the two possible locations of the Cenacle*, and as a result the final celebrations of Christmas each year in Jerusalem take place together with the celebration of Theophany by all Eastern churches, such as the Eastern Orthodox Great Blessing of the Waters, when the Jordan famously flows backwards, on January 18th according to the Gregorian Calendar.

Now, if there was any problem at all with commemorating the Nativity, the physical birth of the Incarnation of the Word of God, when the divine Logos, very God of very God, of one essence with the Father, put on humanity, one would expect the likes of Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Ambrose, Augustine and Epiphanius to be outraged. After all, they were not afraid of going against the grain, fighting the Empire to defend the Council of Nicea after the evil Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia weaseled his way into the palace, baptized Emperor Constantine on his death bed, and gained control over his Eastern heir Constantius on ecclesiastical affairs, leading to St. Athanasius being exiled by an illegal fake ecumenical council, known in antiquity and to scholars as a Latrocinium, or “Robber Synod,” and illictly replaced by an Arian bishop. The people protested and were attacked. Arianism only became popular among those populations the Arians evangelized aggressively, which included sailors in Constantinople and Antioch who he wrote songs for using popular melodies of the day stressing Arian Christology, and most successfully the Visigoths, but it was the Imperial religion from the death of St. Constantine until the coronation of St. Theodosius around 380, and fairly brutal persecution was used in an ill fated attempt to promote it.

What people of your belief concerning th Feast of the Nativity don’t get, and what makes the false accusation that Christmas is Pagan so offensive to Anglicans, Assyrians, most Baptists, Congregationalists, the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ, Dutch Reformed denominations in Europe and America**, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholics, traditional Evangelicals, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, Old Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, most Presbyterians**, Roman Catholics, Russian Old Rite Orthodox, the Uniting Churches of Australia and Canada and the United Reformed Church of Great Britain, and the Waldensians, among other traditional Nicene Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Christians, as well as some newer, less traditional, but still Nicene, Trinitarian movements such as nearly all Pentecostals, the Calvary Chapel, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the majority of “non-denominational” churches, is that the birth of Jesus Christ is the birth of God, the beginning of the Incarnation. Had our Savior not been born of a woman, fully God and fully man, in a hypostatic or natural union according to Chalcedon and St. Cyril respectively, he would not have been in a position to glorify fallen humanity by atoning for our sins and healing our fallen nature through his life, passion and resurrection.

So important is the Nativity that we date our calendars from the approximate year of his birth, except for the Coptic Christians of Egypt, whose calendar epoch is based on the start of the incredibly severe Diocletian Persecutions, in which so many Egyptians and other Christians were martyred, including Pope Paul of Alexandria***, and the Assyrians, who use a reconstruction of the ancient Assyrian Calendar. The Calendar Epoch used by the Byzantine Empire was based on the number of years thought to have passed simce God created the world in Genesis, and this replaced the Roman epoch, The Year of the City, which as the name implies was based on the number of years elapsed since the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus, but this system sees only minor use among some Greek Orthodox today, and this is as it should be, for what could be better and less Pagan than to base our calendar either on an approximate date of the birth of Christ, or the exact date when the worst martyrdom conducted by Pagans against Christians began?

And likewise, what could possibly be less Pagan than to celebrate the incarnation of God in the person of Christ Jesus, as foretold bynthe prophets, and to celebrate the heroic martyrdom of the early Christians who followed in his footsteps, to whom our Lord, in warning of the danger of martyrdom, also promised salvation for martyrs, and blessings for those persecuted for belief in Him?

For this reason, both the Puritan opposition to Christian and the mass destruction of relics of martyrs in England, the mortal remains and personal affects of those who followed Christ even to the death, strikes me as completely wrong theologically, and the insistence that these things are Pagan offends me. My tradition, Congregationalism, was once Puritan, but in the 18th century, when we took stock of the moral failures of Cotton Mather and Increase Mather with the Salem Witch Trials, it became clear that we needed to change. Semper Reformanda. And soon we found ourselves confronted by a schism in which many of our oldest churches, including the oldest surviving church in North America, the Old Ship Church in Rhode Island, and most of our churches in Boston, except for Park Street Church, now a part of the traditionsl Congregational denomination and perhaps the most important conservative Congregational church in the US, as well as our main university, Harvard, rejected Christianity and embraced Unitarianism, a cult worse than Arianism, because the Arians at least admitted Christ was the Son of God and deserving of worship; their mistake was denying the Trinity, denying that Christ was God incarnate, denying that Christ was of one essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and insisting that He was created by God, rather than begotten of The Father before all ages. So American Congregationalism in the 19th century focused on containing the spread of Unitarianism, and American and British Congregationalism really reached their zenith over the two hundred years that stretched from the beginnings of the Unitarian heresy to the tragic takeover of the United Church of Christ by extreme liberals who in some cases embrace many of the errors of the Unitarian Universalists, including universalism, a denial of the Incarnation, and the incorporation of actual pagan ceremonies into the worship.

So it is ironic that the Puritans of New England, who were in error concerning what was and was not Pagan, wound up with the exception of a minority of churches either embracing Unitarian Universalism and routinely incorporating actual Paganism into their worship, or becoming a part of the UCC, which is a Nicene Church, but liturgical abuses similiar to those in the Episcopal Church and the ELCA (which have in the Bay Area an Episcopalian church with a universalist priest, dedicated to St. Gregory of Nyssa, who they think was Universalist, which incorporates elements of Shinto and other non-Christian religions into their worship, and “herchurch”, formerly Ebeneezer Lutheran Church, where Christ has been swept away or “reimagined” as a female, and “Mother Goddess Rosaries” with an idol of Aurora instead of a Crucifix, are sold. In the case of the UCC, no specific congregation that I can think of has slipped into such a bad state, but rather, liturgical abuses of a Pagan nature, often under the influence of the UUA, who some in the UCC would love to merge with, are distributed across many parishes. There are 75 Faithful and Welcoming parishes, consisting in many cases of ethnic congregations like the Hungarian Reformed Church in Los Angeles, which are doctrinally solid, and there are also a great many liberal parishes which are still steadfast in their Christianity, but the atmosphere has become toxic for traditionalists like myself, so I left.

* There are two possible sites for the Cenacle in Jerusalem, one, a Syriac Orthodox monastery, and the other, a site disputed between Islam, some Christians, and Judaism, which is presently under Islamic control but consists of a Gothic structure built by the Crusaders over what the Jews believe is the Tomb of David, so it is a real mess; I personally think that it is the Tomb of David, and that the house of St. Mark was much more low key, and much more likely to be the Monastery of St. Mark owned by the Syriac Orthodox Church; that monastery, is at the top of my list, followed in no particular order by the Anglican Order of the Holy Cross, the aforementioned St. Catharines in Sinai, sthe Coptic Monastery of St. Anthony in Egypt, some of the beautiful monasteries in Romania and the former Soviet Union, and various Benedictine monasteries in Western Europe, and Mount Athos or Meteora, would be very appealing if I ever become a monk, which would be admittedly an unusual career choice for a Congregationalist pastor, but if I fail to get married and am left without a family, it would make sense.

** The three great televangelists of the 20th century were the Roman Catholic Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Reverend Robert Shuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral, and part of the Reformed Church in America, one of the continental Reformed churches in the US of Dutch Reformed heritage, which put on a spectacular Christmas show; I attended the 2009 service, which was one of the last before a quarell between the Shullers and the Board caused the Crystal Cathedral to file for bankruptcy; it was acquired by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County and is now their Cathedral; graciously, the funeral for Rev. Shuller was held in the refurbished Christ Church Cathedral as it is now called, and he was buried next to his wife in the churchyard, and finally, Dr. James Kennedy of the beautiful Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, who I did see in person, and greatly admired as one of the best preachers of our era, and whose church, part of the traditionalist Presbyterian Church in America, had under his leadership a majestic program of traditional church music with a first-rate organist, choir, bell choir, brass choir and trumpeters, and an excellent liturgy; his last ever sermon, and perhaps his most beautiful, was on Christmas Eve in 2006, before his tragic and premature death from a heart attack that left him disabled for the final months of his life until he reposed in August of 2007, a fitting end to a great career which alas ended too soon.
 
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The Liturgist

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The Romans used the Julian Calendar. Saturnalia, the solstice, was December 25. In 1580 +/- some European Countries switched to the Gregorian Calendar. The Solstice was on a different date but December 25 was kept as the date of Christmas. It is strange but it is a fact stated on many websites, Wikipedia, This Day in History.

This is irrelevant because as my preceding post explains, historically the Nativity was celebrated together with the Baptism of Christ on January 6th, and still is by the Armenian Apostolic Church (Oriental Orthodox), and I believe by the Armenian Catholics.

Here is a sad fact by the way: in 1906 Armenian Catholics were the largest and most important Eastern Catholic church, and even the Orthodox had under their influence adopted many customs taken from the Roman Rite, including Western style mitres, albeit with icons om the front, and the reading of John 1:1-14 at the end of the Soorp Badarak (the Western Armenian word for their main Sunday liturgy; Armenians are unique among the ancient churches in that they only have a liturgy with communion on Sunday and major feast days, with minor feast days being moved to the nearest Sunday).

Today, because of the genocide in 1915 perpetrated by the Turks against all Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and the subsequent conquest of the newly independent Republic of Armenia by the Soviet Union and the brutal persecution of religions that followed, which targeted churches in communion with Rome particularly, because the Soviets would replace or compromise the Orthodox bishops, but could not get to the Pope or the Vatican directly, the Armenian Catholics are one of the smallest Eastern Catholic churches.
 
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Radagast

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The Liturgist

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You keep saying this like it's a real thing. It isn't.

Except alas in the liberal mainline churches. But the real Paganism they practice is quite distinct from the non-Pagan activities Puritans mislabel as Pagan. It is extremely offensive when we are trying to protect the Church from actual neo-Pagan intrusions, for example, the incorporation of religious rites of indigenous people, which are incompatible with Christianity, and the misrepresentation of Christ or the Godhead as female (there is a blasphemous crucifix that was recently installed, depicting our Lord as a woman in the Episcopalian Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City), and in some cases, even the incorporation of Wicca or witchcraft into church services, in the name of “inclusion,” to be accused of being Pagan when in fact, the dating of Christmas by the Roman Church was based on the pre-existing date of the Annunciation; that it coincided with the Saturnalia was good, because Romans, who were accustomed to syncretism, worshipping multiple gods at once, even the gods of monotheistic religions (see the Mithras Mysteries, which were based on Zoroastrianism), were now forced to choose between Christianity and Paganism, and between Christ and the devil.

The celebration of the birth of God is not Pagan and cannot be Pagan, by definition.
 
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The Liturgist

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None of those are reliable sources.

Wikipedia is useful mainly for information on obscure and uncontroversial subjects, or when the citations provided are readily verifiable. For example, it provides accurate information on subjects like the history and internals of various computer systems, software, and operating systems, like UNIX, Linux, Windows 98 and DOS, and on the history of various aircraft, railways and mass transit systems. Because these subjects are generally uncontroversial, and errors tend to be accidental, and occur at a rate comparable to other literature.

Painful experience has taught me however that Wikipedia articles on aspects of theology that are controversial have to be checked against their references, and I rely more on my library than Wikipedia when it comes to that.
 
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The Liturgist

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The Puritans were big on the regulative principle of worship. If the Bible didn't explicitly tell you to worship in a certain way, then you shouldn't. For related reasons, they did not believe in marriages inside the church.

Indeed, but this principle was radically misapplied. As a thought experiment, I was able to justify a Roman Catholic mass and an Eastern Orthodox service of Holy Unction using the regulative principle. As Hilary of Poitiers said, Scripture is the interpretation, not the reading.
 
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Radagast

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As a thought experiment, I was able to justify a Roman Catholic mass and an Eastern Orthodox service of Holy Unction using the regulative principle.

Indeed. The more traditional the service, the more the regulative principle is satisfied.
 
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Radagast

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Wikipedia is useful mainly for information on obscure and uncontroversial subjects, or when the citations provided are readily verifiable. For example, it provides accurate information on subjects like the history and internals of various computer systems, software, and operating systems, like UNIX, Linux, Windows 98 and DOS, and on the history of various aircraft, railways and mass transit systems. Because these subjects are generally uncontroversial, and errors tend to be accidental, and occur at a rate comparable to other literature.

Painful experience has taught me however that Wikipedia articles on aspects of theology that are controversial have to be checked against their references, and I rely more on my library than Wikipedia when it comes to that.

I am 100% in agreement.
 
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prodromos

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The Romans used the Julian Calendar. Saturnalia, the solstice, was December 25. In 1580 +/- some European Countries switched to the Gregorian Calendar. The Solstice was on a different date but December 25 was kept as the date of Christmas. It is strange but it is a fact stated on many websites, Wikipedia, This Day in History.
Saturnalia was from December 17 to December 23 and is only indirectly associated with the Winter solstice on December 25.
The Winter solstice was... the Winter solstice. It had about as much significance as the first day of Spring. The date of December 25 was chosen for the liturgical celebration of Christ's birth because it was 9 months after March 25, on which day the Church was already celebrating the Annunciation of Mary when she conceived in her womb. The fact that it was the Winter solstice had nothing to do with the choice of date. When the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, the date was adjusted back by 10 days to adjust for the inaccuracy of the Julian Calendar which is currently out by 13 days. In that year the Winter solstice would have been occurring in early January.
 
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prodromos

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None of those are reliable sources.
This Day in History, published by The History channel, AKA The Hitler channel, AKA its a Mystery why they call it the History channel
 
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QvQ

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The Puritan position makes no sense, because the same people who added the Feast of the Nativity to the liturgical calendar are the same people who opposed Gnosticism with such vigor. In the fourth century, Patristic giants like St. Augustine, St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, and others, were directing great effort at fighting off not only Arianism but also the remaining Gnostic sects first detailed by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his second century classic Against Heresies, and also new Gnostic sects, particularly Manichaeanism, of which Augustine was a member before he was baptized by St. Ambrose of Milan (and then the two of them composed the ancient hymn Te Deum Laudamus, which has become as important as the Evangelical Canticles).

It was during this same time that in every church except Armenia, the Feast of the Nativity was differentiated from the Feast of Theophany, or Epiphany, also known as the Feast of the Baptism of Christ (which in the West later lost some of its meaning with a shifted focus to the three Magi, but since that time there has been a renewed focus on the Baptism of our Lord, and many people are now baptized on Epiphany in, for example, the Anglican and Episcopalian churches, just as the Eastern churches like to baptize on Easter Even. Armenians continue to celebrate the Nativity of Christ together with his baptism on January 6th, except in Jerusalem where the Julian Calendar is still used by the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox (the Roman Catholics and Protestants use the Gregorian Calendar, which is good because it reduces overcrowding at the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Nativity, the Temple Mount, and other locations, including one of the two possible locations of the Cenacle*, and as a result the final celebrations of Christmas each year in Jerusalem take place together with the celebration of Theophany by all Eastern churches, such as the Eastern Orthodox Great Blessing of the Waters, when the Jordan famously flows backwards, on January 18th according to the Gregorian Calendar.

Now, if there was any problem at all with commemorating the Nativity, the physical birth of the Incarnation of the Word of God, when the divine Logos, very God of very God, of one essence with the Father, put on humanity, one would expect the likes of Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Ambrose, Augustine and Epiphanius to be outraged. After all, they were not afraid of going against the grain, fighting the Empire to defend the Council of Nicea after the evil Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia weaseled his way into the palace, baptized Emperor Constantine on his death bed, and gained control over his Eastern heir Constantius on ecclesiastical affairs, leading to St. Athanasius being exiled by an illegal fake ecumenical council, known in antiquity and to scholars as a Latrocinium, or “Robber Synod,” and illictly replaced by an Arian bishop. The people protested and were attacked. Arianism only became popular among those populations the Arians evangelized aggressively, which included sailors in Constantinople and Antioch who he wrote songs for using popular melodies of the day stressing Arian Christology, and most successfully the Visigoths, but it was the Imperial religion from the death of St. Constantine until the coronation of St. Theodosius around 380, and fairly brutal persecution was used in an ill fated attempt to promote it.

What people of your belief concerning th Feast of the Nativity don’t get, and what makes the false accusation that Christmas is Pagan so offensive to Anglicans, Assyrians, most Baptists, Congregationalists, the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ, Dutch Reformed denominations in Europe and America**, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholics, traditional Evangelicals, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, Old Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, most Presbyterians**, Roman Catholics, Russian Old Rite Orthodox, the Uniting Churches of Australia and Canada and the United Reformed Church of Great Britain, and the Waldensians, among other traditional Nicene Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Christians, as well as some newer, less traditional, but still Nicene, Trinitarian movements such as nearly all Pentecostals, the Calvary Chapel, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the majority of “non-denominational” churches, is that the birth of Jesus Christ is the birth of God, the beginning of the Incarnation. Had our Savior not been born of a woman, fully God and fully man, in a hypostatic or natural union according to Chalcedon and St. Cyril respectively, he would not have been in a position to glorify fallen humanity by atoning for our sins and healing our fallen nature through his life, passion and resurrection.

So important is the Nativity that we date our calendars from the approximate year of his birth, except for the Coptic Christians of Egypt, whose calendar epoch is based on the start of the incredibly severe Diocletian Persecutions, in which so many Egyptians and other Christians were martyred, including Pope Paul of Alexandria***, and the Assyrians, who use a reconstruction of the ancient Assyrian Calendar. The Calendar Epoch used by the Byzantine Empire was based on the number of years thought to have passed simce God created the world in Genesis, and this replaced the Roman epoch, The Year of the City, which as the name implies was based on the number of years elapsed since the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus, but this system sees only minor use among some Greek Orthodox today, and this is as it should be, for what could be better and less Pagan than to base our calendar either on an approximate date of the birth of Christ, or the exact date when the worst martyrdom conducted by Pagans against Christians began?

And likewise, what could possibly be less Pagan than to celebrate the incarnation of God in the person of Christ Jesus, as foretold bynthe prophets, and to celebrate the heroic martyrdom of the early Christians who followed in his footsteps, to whom our Lord, in warning of the danger of martyrdom, also promised salvation for martyrs, and blessings for those persecuted for belief in Him?

For this reason, both the Puritan opposition to Christian and the mass destruction of relics of martyrs in England, the mortal remains and personal affects of those who followed Christ even to the death, strikes me as completely wrong theologically, and the insistence that these things are Pagan offends me. My tradition, Congregationalism, was once Puritan, but in the 18th century, when we took stock of the moral failures of Cotton Mather and Increase Mather with the Salem Witch Trials, it became clear that we needed to change. Semper Reformanda. And soon we found ourselves confronted by a schism in which many of our oldest churches, including the oldest surviving church in North America, the Old Ship Church in Rhode Island, and most of our churches in Boston, except for Park Street Church, now a part of the traditionsl Congregational denomination and perhaps the most important conservative Congregational church in the US, as well as our main university, Harvard, rejected Christianity and embraced Unitarianism, a cult worse than Arianism, because the Arians at least admitted Christ was the Son of God and deserving of worship; their mistake was denying the Trinity, denying that Christ was God incarnate, denying that Christ was of one essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and insisting that He was created by God, rather than begotten of The Father before all ages. So American Congregationalism in the 19th century focused on containing the spread of Unitarianism, and American and British Congregationalism really reached their zenith over the two hundred years that stretched from the beginnings of the Unitarian heresy to the tragic takeover of the United Church of Christ by extreme liberals who in some cases embrace many of the errors of the Unitarian Universalists, including universalism, a denial of the Incarnation, and the incorporation of actual pagan ceremonies into the worship.

So it is ironic that the Puritans of New England, who were in error concerning what was and was not Pagan, wound up with the exception of a minority of churches either embracing Unitarian Universalism and routinely incorporating actual Paganism into their worship, or becoming a part of the UCC, which is a Nicene Church, but liturgical abuses similiar to those in the Episcopal Church and the ELCA (which have in the Bay Area an Episcopalian church with a universalist priest, dedicated to St. Gregory of Nyssa, who they think was Universalist, which incorporates elements of Shinto and other non-Christian religions into their worship, and “herchurch”, formerly Ebeneezer Lutheran Church, where Christ has been swept away or “reimagined” as a female, and “Mother Goddess Rosaries” with an idol of Aurora instead of a Crucifix, are sold. In the case of the UCC, no specific congregation that I can think of has slipped into such a bad state, but rather, liturgical abuses of a Pagan nature, often under the influence of the UUA, who some in the UCC would love to merge with, are distributed across many parishes. There are 75 Faithful and Welcoming parishes, consisting in many cases of ethnic congregations like the Hungarian Reformed Church in Los Angeles, which are doctrinally solid, and there are also a great many liberal parishes which are still steadfast in their Christianity, but the atmosphere has become toxic for traditionalists like myself, so I left.

* There are two possible sites for the Cenacle in Jerusalem, one, a Syriac Orthodox monastery, and the other, a site disputed between Islam, some Christians, and Judaism, which is presently under Islamic control but consists of a Gothic structure built by the Crusaders over what the Jews believe is the Tomb of David, so it is a real mess; I personally think that it is the Tomb of David, and that the house of St. Mark was much more low key, and much more likely to be the Monastery of St. Mark owned by the Syriac Orthodox Church; that monastery, is at the top of my list, followed in no particular order by the Anglican Order of the Holy Cross, the aforementioned St. Catharines in Sinai, sthe Coptic Monastery of St. Anthony in Egypt, some of the beautiful monasteries in Romania and the former Soviet Union, and various Benedictine monasteries in Western Europe, and Mount Athos or Meteora, would be very appealing if I ever become a monk, which would be admittedly an unusual career choice for a Congregationalist pastor, but if I fail to get married and am left without a family, it would make sense.

** The three great televangelists of the 20th century were the Roman Catholic Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Reverend Robert Shuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral, and part of the Reformed Church in America, one of the continental Reformed churches in the US of Dutch Reformed heritage, which put on a spectacular Christmas show; I attended the 2009 service, which was one of the last before a quarell between the Shullers and the Board caused the Crystal Cathedral to file for bankruptcy; it was acquired by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County and is now their Cathedral; graciously, the funeral for Rev. Shuller was held in the refurbished Christ Church Cathedral as it is now called, and he was buried next to his wife in the churchyard, and finally, Dr. James Kennedy of the beautiful Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, who I did see in person, and greatly admired as one of the best preachers of our era, and whose church, part of the traditionalist Presbyterian Church in America, had under his leadership a majestic program of traditional church music with a first-rate organist, choir, bell choir, brass choir and trumpeters, and an excellent liturgy; his last ever sermon, and perhaps his most beautiful, was on Christmas Eve in 2006, before his tragic and premature death from a heart attack that left him disabled for the final months of his life until he reposed in August of 2007, a fitting end to a great career which alas ended too soon.
WoW, what a wealth of valuable information.
I am not attacking Christmas nor am I defending the Puritans.
I actually read the Gospel of Thomas. I have Never until yesterday made any attempt to discuss that book. Who exactly in this world wants to discuss Gnostics? Me, maybe
BTW Is the poem "Caliban Upon Setebos" by Robert Browning expressing Gnostic thought. Perhaps Gnosticism was not banished from the world but lingered or it may be only my interpretation of the poem and the gnostic book
 
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Philip_B

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Perhaps Gnosticism was not banished from the world

I don't know of a single heresy that has been banished from the world. Arianism is probably more alive today than ever, and all manner of gnostic variations dance a merry dance often unrecognised in our midst determining that if we have our doctrine wrong we will have been doomed, whilst failing to recognised that our salvation is wrought in arms stretched out to embrace us nailed to a cross, and those arms are the arms of Jesus Christ, God the Son.
 
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I don't know of a single heresy that has been banished from the world. Arianism is probably more alive today than ever, and all manner of gnostic variations dance a merry dance often unrecognised in our midst determining that if we have our doctrine wrong we will have been doomed, whilst failing to recognised that our salvation is wrought in arms stretched out to embrace us nailed to a cross, and those arms are the arms of Jesus Christ, God the Son.
I found this article from the Greek Orthodox, worth a read. The author talks about how unvanished Gnostic is. Gnosticism Today
The Da Vinci Code, I was not interested in the fiction/mythology so I never read the book or saw the movie but the article above states it is Gnostic.
You are correct. Gnosticism is not banished or vanished at all.
 
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