Saturnalia was a public holiday celebrated around December 25 in the family home long before the common era and the cult of Saturn survived in Mediterranean locale such as the province of Constantine, somewhere in present day Algeria until the third century CE. The Saturnalia celebrations were annual events well into a century after Constantine's, the first 'Christian' Emperor's reign. During its popularity, the length of the celebration ranged from two to seven days.
The earliest known reference to December 25th commemorating the birth of Christ is in the Roman Philocalian calendar of 354 CE. The same day also appears in the Philocalian calendar as a Roman civil holiday honoring the cult of sol invicta, originating in Syria and relating to the cult of Mithras.
Buying gifts to celebrate Christmas is steeped in tradition, dating to the 1820s when newspapers began to advertise items for Christmas presents.
(from Illustrissimi by Albino Luciani [Pope John Paul I])
[from a letter to G. K. Chesterton. . . ]
". . . Progress that involves men who don't recognize a singe Father in God becomes a constant danger: without a parallel moral progress, which is continuous and internal, it develops what is lowest and cruellest in man, making him a machine possessed by machines, a number manipulated by numbers; he becomes what Papini called 'a raving savage, who, to satisfy his predatory, destructive, and licentious instincts, no longer uses a club, but has the immense forces of nature and mechanical invention to draw upon.'
Yes, I know there are plenty of people who think the opposite of this, They consider religion a consoling dream, invented by oppressed people who imagine another world, a non-existent world in which they can later find what is stolen from them today by their oppressors. These oppressors have arranged the whole thing for their own benefit, to keep the oppressed underfoot and to quieten the instinct towards a class struggle, an instinct that, were it not for religion, would urge them to fight.
It is no good reminding these people that the Christian religion itself favours the revival of proletarian awareness, that is exalts the poor and foresees a just future. . ."
(from The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who
lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net)
". . . Joel Stein, a writer for Time Magazine, has recently written a lengthy article about the Millennials. As I read it, I realized he was talking about my grandkids’ generation. To the descriptions I just shared about my grandkids, Stein adds additional notable qualities of Millennials. Race, sexual orientation, and gender do not matter much. Some observers see Millennials as self-centered, selfish and narcissistic. Their voting record (turnout) is disappointing. They seem to be too busy with “me.” They are able to live with a high level of chaos and are not motivated to “straighten things out.”
I confess my German heritage pushes me to make things orderly. I am clearly out of step with my grandkids, but I am pleased they accept me without hesitation.
In Stein’s article he did not burden the reader with a lot of statistics. He simply states “I have the facts.” Gallop, the Pew Foundation, universities, and news bureaus are getting the same numbers. Millennials are not challenging our culture. They are creating a new one and have not asked permission from anyone over 30.
Prior to the Stein article in Time, the Barna Group, a research organization that specializes in religious subjects, published the results of a massive study of Millennials with church backgrounds. The phenomenon of the cultural changes fostered by the Millennials is hitting churches big time.
Researchers have verified the “rise of the Nones.” The Pew Foundation research found that one in every five American is religiously unaffiliated. The Barna Group wanted to know specifically who made up the swelling tide of nones. Over one-third of all Millennials are nones. The Barna research became even more specific. Among Millennials who were raised in a church tradition over 50 percent are now nones.
The Barna studies show Millennials to be socially mobile, intellectually adventuresome, detached from institutions, and frustrated with churches. Many Millennials are still interested in religion and want a personal faith. Christian churches and institutions do not fit in the picture.
In the Barna Group research, they introduced new categories for understanding those leaving churches. They identified sub-groups they called “nomads,” “prodigals,” and “exiles.” I noted that the categories all indicate significant movement. With Millennials there is no “status quo.” They are on the move.
What is behind all this? Just now few are venturing a guess. However, Joel Stein is correct. We have the facts. The numbers are not lying. The patterns that are being described are reality.
Are Millennials a case of arrested maturation? Has mobility produced a new kind of rootless generation? Is this a product of the flat world dominated by computers that do not need human contacts? Has Facebook replaced family and primary social groupings? How does this relate to the emergence churches?
I do not know how to explain the emerging patterns. I do know that my grandkids are great young people. I do not believe the Millennials will let us down. However, I observe the chaos and get a bit nervous. I am tempted to join Maxwell Smart and fight the evil of chaos. Then I am reminded of the first law of chaos. Chaos increases the possibilities. Millennials may be the best hope for the future of humankind. . ."
(from "Thomas Jefferson; Author of America" by Christopher Hitchens)
". . . As his days began to wane, Jefferson more than once wrote to friends that he faced the approaching end without either hope or fear. This was as much as to say, in the most unmistakable terms, that he was not a Christian. As to whether he was an atheist, we must reserve judgment if only because of the prudence he was compelled to observe during his political life. But as he had written to his nephew Peter Carr as early as 1787, one must not "be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you fell in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.". . . "
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(from http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm)
Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the week long celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.
The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).
In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]
The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.
Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.
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. . . I guess she doesn't believe in evolution NOW. . .
(from CNN)
"Leah Libresco, who’d been a prominent atheist blogger for the religion website Patheos, announced on her blog this week that after years of debating many “smart Christians,” she has decided to become one herself, and that she has begun the process of converting to Catholicism.
Libresco, who had long blogged under the banner “Unequally Yoked: A geeky atheist picks fights with her Catholic boyfriend,” said that at the heart of her decision were questions of morality and how one finds a moral compass.
“I had one thing that I was most certain of, which is that morality is something we have a duty to,” Libresco told CNN in an interview this week, a small cross dangling from her neck. “And it is external from us. And when push came to shove, that is the belief I wouldn’t let go of. And that is something I can’t prove.”
According to a Patheos post she wrote on Monday, entitled “This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal,” she began to see parts of Christianity and Catholicism that fit her moral system. Though she now identifies as a Catholic, Libresco questions certain aspects of Catholicism, including the church’s positions on homosexuality, contraception and some aspects of religious liberty.
“There was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth,” Libresco wrote about Catholicism in her conversion announcement post, which has been shared over 18,000 times on Facebook. “I asked my friend what he suggests we do now, and we prayed the night office of the Liturgy of the Hours together.”
At the end of the post, Libresco announces that she is in a Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults class and is preparing for baptism. She will continue to blog for Patheos, but under the banner, “A geeky convert picks fights in good faith.”
According to Dan Welch, director of marketing for Patheos, Libresco’s post has received around 150,000 page views so far.
“Leah's blog has gotten steadily more popular since she arrived at Patheos, but a typical post on her blog is probably closer to the range of 5,000 page views,” Welch wrote in an email. “Even now, a few days later, her blog is probably getting 20-30 times its normal traffic.”
Libresco’s announcement has left some atheists scratching their heads.
“I think atheists were surprised that she went with Catholicism, which seems like a very specific choice,” Hemant Mehta, an atheist blogger at Patheos, told CNN. “I have a hard time believing how someone could jump from I don’t believe in God to a very specific church and a very specific God.”
Mehta says that Libresco’s conversion is a “one-off thing” and not something that signals any trend in atheism. “The trends are very clear, the conversions from Catholicism to atheism are much more likely to happen than the other way around,” he said. . . "
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(from Wikipedia.com)
". . . The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada. The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as excessive wealth, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. Theologically, the Social Gospellers sought to operationalize the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:10): "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." They typically were post-millennialist; that is, they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort. Social Gospel leaders were predominantly associated with the liberal wing of the Progressive Movement and most were theologically liberal, although they were typically conservative when it came to their views on social issues. Important leaders include Richard T. Ely,Josiah Strong, Washington Gladden, and Walter Rauschenbusch.
Although most scholars agree that the Social Gospel movement peaked in the early 20th century, there is disagreement over when the movement began to decline, with some asserting that the destruction and trauma caused by World War I left many disillusioned with the Social Gospel's ideals while others argue that World War I actually stimulated the Social Gospelers' reform efforts. Theories regarding the decline of the Social Gospel after World War I often cite the rise of neo-orthodoxy as a contributing factor in the movement's decline. Many of the Social Gospel's ideas reappeared in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. "Social Gospel" principles continue to inspire newer movements such as Christians Against Poverty. . . "
It's time for some of these ideas to reappear. . . again!
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On being 'saved', being whole. . . and just being. . .
". . . Christian faith has no place for a heaven with gates. Being a follower of Jesus means that his concerns are our concerns, that his commitments are our commitments, and that his motives are our motives. The God that Jesus called Heavenly Father desires that the whole world be healed and that every person be made whole. That is what being saved is all about. . . "
(by The Rev. Howard Bess, a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbssd@mtaonline.net)
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