Posted on 05/09/2011 11:11:10 AM PDT by bronxville
Comparing Christianity and the New Paganism
The most serious challenge for Christianity today isn't one of the other great religions of the world, such as Islam or Buddhism.
Nor is it simple atheism, which has no depth, no mass appeal, no staying power. Rather, it's a religion most of us think is dead. That religion is paganism — and it is very much alive.
Paganism is simply the natural gravity of the human spirit, the line of least resistance, religion in its fallen state.
The "old" paganism came from the country. Indeed, the very word "paganism" comes from the Latin pagani, "from the fields" or "country-dwellers." Country people were the last to be converted to Christianity during the Roman Empire, the last to abandon their ancestral roots in pre-Christian belief. Today, country people are the last to abandon Christianity for the "new" paganism, which flourishes in the cities.
The old paganism was a far greater thing than the new. In fact, Chesterton brilliantly summarized the entire spiritual history of the world in this one sentence:
"Paganism was the biggest thing in the world, and Christianity was bigger and everything since has been comparatively small."
There were at least three elements in the old paganism that made it great. And all three are missing in the new paganism
The first is the sense of piety (pietas), the natural religious instinct to respect something greater than yourself, the humility that instinctively realizes man's subordinate place in the great scheme of things. "Moderation" or "temperance" went along with this, especially in classical civilization. The motto "nothing too much" was inscribed over every temple to Apollo, along with "know thyself."
This natural modesty and respect contrast sharply with the arrogant attitude of the new pagan in the modern West. Only Oriental societies still preserve a traditional reverence. The West does not understand this, and thinks it quaint at best and hypocritical at worst.
The new paganism is the virtual divinization of man, the religion of man as the new God. One of its popular slogans, repeated often by Christians, is "the infinite value of the human person." Its aim is building a heaven on earth, a secular salvation. Another word for the new paganism is humanism, the religion that will not lift up its head to the heavens but stuffs the heavens into its head.
A second ingredient of the old paganism that's missing in the new is an objective morality, what C.S. Lewis called "the Tao" in his prophetic little classic "The Abolition of Man." To pre-modern man, pagan as well as Christian, moral rules were absolute: unyielding and unquestionable. They were also objective: discovered rather than created, given in the nature of things.
This has all changed. The new paganism is situational and pragmatic. It says we are the makers of moral values. It not only finds the moral law written in the human heart but also by the human heart. It acknowledges no divine revelation, thus no one's values can be judged to be wrong.
The new paganism's favorite Scripture is "judge not." The only judgment is the judgment against judging. The only thing wrong is the idea that there is a real wrong.
The only thing to feel guilty about is feeling guilty. And, since man rather than God is the origin of values, don't impose "your" values on me (another favorite line).
This is really polytheism — many gods, many goods, many moralities. No one believes in Zeus and Apollo and Neptune any more. (I wonder why: Has science really refuted them—or is it due to total conformity to fashion, supine submission to newspapers?) But moral relativism is the equivalent of the old polytheism. Each of us has become a god or goddess, a giver of law rather than receiver.
A third ingredient of the old paganism but not of the new is awe at something transcendent, the sense of worship and mystery. What the old pagan worshiped differed widely — almost anything from Zeus to cows—but he worshiped something. In the modern world the very sense of worship is dying, even in our own liturgy, which sounds as if it were invented by a Committee for the Abolition of Poetry.
Our religious sense has dried up. Modern religion is de-mythologized, de-miraclized, de-divinized. God is not the Lord but the All, not transcendent but immanent, not super-natural but natural.
Pantheism is comfortable, and this is the modem summum bonum. The Force of "Star Wars" fame is a pantheistic God, and it is immensely popular, because it's "like a book on the shelf," as C.S. Lewis put it: available whenever you want it, but not bothersome when you don't want it. How convenient to think we are bubbles in a divine froth rather than rebellious children of a righteous divine Father! Pantheism has no sense of sin, for sin means separation, and no one can ever be separated from the All. Thus the third feature, no transcendence, is connected with the second, no absolute morality.
The new paganism is a great triumph of wishful thinking. Without losing the thrill and patina of religion, the terror of religion is removed. The new paganism stoutly rejects "the fear of God." Nearly all religious educators today, including many supposedly Catholic ones, are agreed that the thing the Bible calls "the beginning of wisdom" is instead the thing we must above all eradicate from the minds of the young with all the softly destructive power of the weapons of modern pop psychology — namely, the fear of the Lord.
"Perfect love casts out fear," says St. John; but when God has become the Pillsbury Doughboy, there is no fear left to cast out. And when there is no fear to cast out, perfect love lacks its strong roots. It becomes instead mere compassion — something good but dull, or even weak: precisely the idea people have today of religion. The shock is gone. That the God of the Bible should love us is a thunderbolt; that the God of the new paganism should love us is a self-evident platitude.
The new paganism is winning not by opposing but by infiltrating the Church. It is cleverer than the old. It knows that any opposition from without, even by a vastly superior force, has never worked, for "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." When China welcomed Western missionaries, there were 2 million conversions in 60 years; when Mao and communism persecuted the Church, there were 20 million conversions in 20 years. The Church in East Germany is immensely stronger than the Church in West Germany for the same reason. The new paganism understands this, so it uses the soft, suggestive strategy of the serpent. It whispers, in the words of Scripture scholars, the very words of the serpent: "Has God really said...?" (Gen. 3:1).
The new paganism is a joining of forces by three of the enemies of theism: humanism, polytheism and pantheism. The only five possibilities for ultimate meaning and values are: atheism (no God); humanism (man as God); polytheism (many gods); pantheism (one immanent God); and theism (one transcendent God). The Battle of the Five Kings in the Valley of Armageddon might, in our era, be beginning. Predictions are always unwise, but the signs of the times, for some thoughtful observers, point to a fundamental turning point, the end of an age.
The so-called "New Age Movement" combines all the features described under the title of the new paganism. It's a loosely organized movement, basically a flowering of '60s hippiedom, rather than a centralized agenda. But strategies are connected in three places. There may be no conspiracy on earth to unify the enemies of the Church, but the strategy of hell is more than the strategy of earth. Only one thing is more than the strategy of hell: the strategy of heaven.
The gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church; in fact, God uses the devil to defeat the devil, just as He did on Calvary, when the forces of the Hebrew, Greek and Roman worlds united to crucify Christ, as symbolized by the three languages on the accusation sign over the cross.
The very triumph of the devil, the death of God, was the defeat of the devil, the redemption of mankind, "Good Friday" Because God, who spoke the first word, always gets the last word.
Cronos (post 47): And you give us adequate proof of why your kind are wrong -- your basic facts are utterly wrong. Here's another blooper from you.
Diana was the goddess of the hunt. The Roman goddess consort of Jupiter and Jupiter's queen was Juno.
Diana never had the title of Queen of Heaven -- give me proof for your statement.
. In the Khorshed Nyaish [Khwarshed Niyayesh], Mihr Yazad or the Angel Mithra, the God of Light, Justice, and Truthfulness is represented as carrying a vazra or mace to strike it over the heads of the Daevas or the evil powers
compare to Ed underwood, God of Light, http://holybreathspiritualqigong.com/FatherGod.html - Jesus is the son of the God from Heaven our creator, the God of Light, opc.org O God of Light, Your Word, a Lamp Unfailing, first baptist A God of Light "I praise you, Lord, because you are my light and my salvation,' and because you know what lies in darkness, and light dwells with you'. . . ." (Psalm 27:1, Daniel 2:22).
So, I ask you again, Even the term God of Light has similarities in Zoroastrianism — do you condemn us Christians for using this term?
Cronos (post 47): And you give us adequate proof of why your kind are wrong -- your basic facts are utterly wrong. Here's another blooper from you.
Diana was the goddess of the hunt. The Roman goddess consort of Jupiter and Jupiter's queen was Juno. Cronos (post 59):
Diana never had the title of Queen of Heaven -- give me proof for your statement.
Iscool (post 60): "It's all over the internet."
Are random google queries the source of your data? If you type in diana queen of heaven you get a website that praises Princess Di... now, if this is the source of your information, there's no wonder you are consistently wrong.
For the first three...The fourth is the first of many sites that claim Diana was known as the Queen of Heaven...Apparently you quit after reading the first two, eh???
“For the first three...The fourth is the first of many sites that claim Diana was known as the Queen of Heaven...Apparently you quit after reading the first two, eh???”
None of us should have to hunt the net for your source. You made the preposterous accusation now please post the link to support your claim or retract it.
“The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors (or Christianity before Christ)”
“FRIENDS and brethren — teachers of the Christian faith: Will you believe us when we tell you the divine claims of your religion are gone — all swept away by the “logic of history,” and nullified by the demonstrations of science?”...
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/kersey_graves/16/
This guy “proves” that ALL of Christianity itself is pagan. I’d be interested to get your feedback on it.
Are you a Hislop apologist?
By that strictly accurate definition:
Hinduism is the pagan faith of India. Shintoism is the pagan faith of Japan. Animism is the pagan faith of Africa. Druidism for Celtic Europe, and Wotanism for Germanic Europe.
Now obviously there's a fair amount of variation in that little lot! However there are similarities. They are polytheistic, and essentially forms of spirit and/or nature worship.
Islam is not a pagan faith, although there are elements of pagan thought in it. Mind you, there are elements of pagan thought in Christianity too. More than we might like to admit...
As for the CofE, everyone knocks them, but it has to be admitted that most of the UK Church growth initiatives of the past three decades have originated from them.
True. The invention of ‘patron saints’ made Christianity more appealing to the Greek and Roman pagan mind that felt their different gods had varying responsibilities and that one god was not enough to manage the earth, let alone a universe.
Hagee and others have continued to reenforce Hislop’s myths - Hagee’s four sermon set “Prophecy for the 21st Century” includes the sermon “Mystery Babylon, The Great Mother of Harlots.” Ian Paisley’s twin brother in “imaginative thought” - Papists are the “The Whores of Babylon”.
And that’s just a few of Hagee’s most blatant anti-Catholic filth - he also claims that “Romanism” is the apostate church, a world-wide religious system that is rejected by God and will be destroyed in the end times. He states that God will allow the anti-Christ to destroy Romanism and the city of Rome, and that the destruction of Rome by fire is prophesied in Revelation 18. (Hagee also uses the term “Queen of Heaven” in reference to the Church, the same term continues to be used by other independent church leaders to reference THE DEMON that supposedly prevents Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims from converting to evangelical Christianity.
In the Mystery Babylon sermon Hagee states that the “Whore of Babylon” or apostate church of the end times “is not limited to the Roman church” and that there will be apostates throughout other churches.
He defines these doomed for hell apostates as those who believe in the use of intermediaries (priests), sacraments, ritual and repetition (liturgy), belief in purgatory, belief in works as opposed to grace, and other features Hagee claims are part of the demonic and false religion of Semiramis.
Hagee’s sermon(s) are almost the same as Hislop’s pamphlets/books. The Two Babylons/The Papal Worship - Hislop claimed that Catholicism is the DEMONIC WORSHIP developed by Semiramis, supposedly the consort of the Babylonian king Nimrod, and passed down to modern times through the Church. He claims that Protestantism is the only true religion. Hislop’s book has been thoroughly debunked but generations later, with help from the Hagee’s of the world, it continues to feed the useless idiots - > Protestant fundamentalists, Statists, and Muslims.
An interesting tidbit - the 1959 edition of Hislop’s book has an overleaf written by Donald Grey Barnhouse - Barnhouse was the long term pastor and mentor of C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General and coauthor with Francis Schaeffer of Whatever Happened to the Human Race. There’s usually a relationship with the past, interbreeding, and a book. Darwin, Fabianism, Eugenism, Theosophistism, New Dawnism, Scottish Rite Freemasonaryism...comes to mind.
PS: Nimrod and Semiramis, is neither biblical nor historic. Mystery Babylon is a term from Revelation but Semiramis is not even mentioned in the Bible, and there is only a brief reference to Nimrod in Genesis 10. Hagee’s version is not only directed at Catholics but includes Jews as a major source - he claims they’re also followers of the demonic Babylonian religion.
Hitler and Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini were joined at the hip - there are connections with the occult, paganism, leftists, eugenists, bankers and/or Freemasons - perhaps freemasonary covers all of them. I’m not convinced the primary source was Muslims or Hitler. I believe it was a lot broader and going on a lot longer.
Yes, there’s always a book, pamphelet, play, movie, documentary, manifesto, little red book, little black book, which appears to pop it’s head up at an appropriate time in history. Whether it was during the Renaissance - Arcadian (Utopian) or the Sixties and the Arcadian (Utopian) Age of Aquarius, these “happenstance” bursts of “freedoms” arose...we’re freeeeeee now let’s all take our clothes off, drug ourselves into oblivion, practice whatever religion we want and become our own gods. People are so confused with the tripe that they’re mixing pagan myths with reality - one might even suspect it’s a deliberate ploy, that is, if one were into conspiracy theories. :)
“”As Fred Hayek posted above - “There is nothing new about “New Age”””
That is correct.
From the Vatican Document...
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html
“Some of the traditions which flow into New Age are: ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on”
The majority of this easily invaded protestantism and liberal Catholics,especially in america.
I spent 2 full years helping protestants see the dangers of the NAM by pointing out the root causes
“The invention of ‘patron saints’ made Christianity more appealing to the Greek and Roman pagan mind...”
See post 71
“Islam is not a pagan faith, although there are elements of pagan thought in it. Mind you, there are elements of pagan thought in Christianity too. More than we might like to admit...”
I recall reading somewhere that the “black stone” was once called after the pagan god Allah and three other goddess’ (can’t remember their names - along with many more gods/goddess’)...that’s if the Satanic Verses was correct and I think it was proven as such.
You’re vague in your moral relative allegations toward Christianity - perhaps you can expand a little more?
I’m not trying to inflame any denominational passions here, I’m simply noting that the whole ‘patron saint’ thing was a post First Century idea. We can go down the whole list of paganisms if you’d like; Christmas being moved on the calendar so it displaced the winter solstice bacchanalia, Christmas trees, numbering passages in the Bible (A Roman thing), and etc. All of those things have been adapted into Christian tradition and not all of them are bad and it’s not a slam on anyone to cite history.
“I spent 2 full years helping protestants see the dangers of the NAM by pointing out the root causes”
Did you get anywhere with it?
“Some of the traditions which flow into New Age are: ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on”
Yes, a deliberate modern twist in order to lull them to sleep...
“Wherefore we see that men are publicly tempted by the many allurements of pleasure; that there are journals and pamphlets with neither moderation nor shame; that stage-plays are remarkable for license; that designs for works of art are shamelessly sought in the laws of a so-called realism; that the contrivances of a soft and delicate life are most carefully devised; and that all the blandishments of pleasure are diligently sought out by which virtue may be lulled into sleep…
For, since generally no one is accustomed to obey crafty and clever men so submissively as those whose soul is weakened and broken down by the domination of the passions, there have been in the sect of the Freemasons some who have plainly determined and proposed that…
The multitude should be satiated with a boundless license of vice, as, when this had been done, it would easily come under their power and authority for any acts of daring.”
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html
It’s okay, I’m not easily inflamed. :)
I’ve never seen a Christmas Tree in a Catholic Church though we do have mangers. I’m not exactly sure where it came from - Germany? Easter? Not sure either. We call it Pascal.
As for history of the saints - if you read the Acts of the Apostles, the early Christians referred to themselves as “saints”, meaning they were “holy” or “separate” from ordinary people and as persecuted communities, they did tend to keep to themselves. As members died from persecution, their survivors were extremely disheartened, and concerned that the dead would miss the imminent return of Jesus. That is why Paul says in 1 Thess 4:13-14 - “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”
They eventually came to understand that their dead members were still part of the community, still “saints”. The martyrs were honored by the living, who in Rome actually gathered in the catacombs to pray, often over the very tombs of their fallen comrades. In time, the martyrs’ sacrifices were regarded as being joined with the sufferings of Christ. And since they were still community members, they could pray to God as well as living Christians could. So living saints asked dead saints’ help in praying to God.
When Christianity was accepted and legalized in the Fourth Century, the martyrdom ended, and the cult of the martyrs faded. The dead died of natural causes and were no longer as distinct from survivors as before. Christianity went mainstream and the habit of calling onself “separate” (”saint”) made less sense. The word came to be reserved for the dead alone, but the sense of remembering and asking departed Christian heroes for help in praying continued on...and so it has been for 2000 yrs.
It was Martin Luther who repudiated the practice as part of his campaign to delegitimize Roman authority by making any hint of human intercession invalid. It took some careful scripture parsing but by carefully ignoring history (and some contradictory passages), the idea took root among his followers and remains among us today.
I hope that didn’t inflame you. Did you read post 71? There was no confusion until Martin Luther and his followers.
It's really sad to see Protestantism in this country breaking into ever smaller pieces frequently preaching ever more well worn lies from hundreds and even thousands of years ago. There was a time when most Protestants thought preaching Christ and elaborating on His life as our example was far more important than growing the congregation but I'm afraid that day is long past in the majority of Protestant churches. Those that recognize the disintegration and fight against refuse to understand that the reason the selfish society is defeating them is because their one of their own most basic tenants is just a thinly disguised repetition of, "to thine own self be true".
The rate of fragmentation and degeneration among US Protestants had been exactly in sync with the resurrection of the pagan New Age beliefs. In spite of the majority of Protestants decrying New Age beliefs, they actually accept a great many of those same beliefs by adopting psychiatrists as their guides and a dedication to self-help that boils down faith in their own ability to perfect themselves. Christian sacrifice, when mentioned at all, is accompanied by cautions against betraying ones own needs and conveniences. Except when sacrifice is required to keep the cash flow picture in good shape, of course, then individual sacrifice is expected as proof of true faith. It's as if many leaders sat down, decided that if they couldn't beat them they'd join them, and then developed substitute terms for the same thing in order to fit it into their existing doctrines. Like leftists, they hide what they're doing by loudly accusing others of doing it.
Muslims are shedding what secular restraints there were on them, preaching about recapturing those lands that were once Muslim, and sharpening their swords. Meanwhile American Protestants cheer on a resurgence of anti-Catholic propaganda which is at least as anti-Christian as it is anti-Catholic. If you give it much though, it's not really much of a mystery what would be the ideal vehicle for Satan to use if he were planning to start his own new religion as so many claim and it sure wouldn't be the Roman Catholic Church.
Diana was, in Latin mythology the daughter of Jupiter. Her mother Jova WAS the queen to "king" Jupiter. Jova (Greek Hera) doesn't get bumped off, and naturally retains that title of "queenie" -- check any actual historical statements of the Latin gods, don't go by speculation
Secondly, that some pagan gods used or use the same term does not imply that it is the same.
Do you know where the Title "King of Kings" originated? Did you know that that was the term used of various chief gods as well as of the Persian Emperor (Shahenshah) -- do you now claim that Christianity is paganism?
you can find the God of the OT referred to the “Sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2) and pagan gods were compared to stars and other semitic Gods given the name El or Adonai. Even the term God of Light has similarities in Zoroastrianism — do you condemn us Christians for using this term?
. In the Khorshed Nyaish [Khwarshed Niyayesh], Mihr Yazad or the Angel Mithra, the God of Light, Justice, and Truthfulness is represented as carrying a vazra or mace to strike it over the heads of the Daevas or the evil powers
compare to Ed underwood, God of Light, http://holybreathspiritualqigong.com/FatherGod.html - Jesus is the son of the God from Heaven our creator, the God of Light, opc.org O God of Light, Your Word, a Lamp Unfailing, first baptist A God of Light "I praise you, Lord, because you are my light and my salvation,' and because you know what lies in darkness, and light dwells with you'. . . ." (Psalm 27:1, Daniel 2:22).
So, I ask you again, Even the term God of Light has similarities in Zoroastrianism — do you condemn us Christians for using this term?
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