The Paganization of Christianity

In the early 4th Century, Christians were enduring the Great Persecution. Churches were burned, treasures were stolen, believers were imprisoned, tortured and martyred for their faith. Then something happened that changed everything. The Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.

As a pagan emperor, Constantine held the title Pontifex Maximus, serving as high priest of the pagan religion of Rome. As a Christian emperor, Constantine retained the title, believing that the emperor was responsible for the spiritual health of his subjects. He exercised his authority to maintain orthodoxy of doctrine and practice throughout the church universal to ensure that God was properly worshiped in the world. He also summoned the First Council of Nicea.

Declaring Christianity to be the state religion, Constantine oversaw the incorporation of many pagan elements into the new state religion. Rather than destroying the pagan idols of Roman society, he simply renamed them. Pagan gods were transformed into Christian patriarchs and saints. One of the oldest pagan symbols is the madonna and child, going all the way back ancient Babylon and the myth that when Nimrod was killed, his wife Semiramis miraculously conceived their son Tammuz, who was really believed to be Nimrod reincarnated. The madonna and child became one of the most recognizable Christian icons in the empire. What's most interesting in Christian iconography is that Jesus is almost always portrayed as the babe on Mary's lap or the crucified corpse. Hardly ever is he seen as the resurrected, glorified and all powerful Christ.

In a further attempt to make pagans feel welcome in Christendom, pagan holidays were matched up with Christian observances, giving birth to several new holidays. The two most prominent were Christmas to celebrate the birth of Christ, and Easter to celebrate the resurrection.

During the first hundred years of the church, the majority of Christian believers were Jewish by birth and heritage. The apostles continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath and the festivals such as Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Those in Jerusalem continued to worship daily in the temple. Even their writings preserved in the New Testament have a distinctly Hebraic flavor. But as the decades passed, animosity began to grow between the Jewish and Gentile branches of the church. The Jews began to isolate themselves against the influence of Christianity, and the Gentile believes became hostile toward the Jewish community. What was begun by a Jewish Messiah and his Jewish students in the Jewish homeland slowly became a Gentile religion, and the Gentiles began to distance themselves from the Jewishness of Christianity.

December 25 was a pagan holiday celebrating the the annual rebirth of the sun and various pagan gods and goddesses. With the standardization of Christianity instituted by Constantine, it became the day to celebrate the birth of the Son of God. Easter is a word right out of pagan worship which is tied, in Western Europe, to the spring equinox. It became the celebration of Christ's resurrection. And slowly, all connections to Judaism and the church's Hebrew roots were severed.

And now, even in Christian churches, we see the overwhelming effects of paganism on our Christian holidays. At Christmas time our sanctuaries are draped in lights and tinsel, decked with evergreen boughs and holly and mistletoe. Christmas trees are stood at the altar, and the gifts we give are for each other and not for the Christ. At Easter, we welcome the Easter bunny and his Ishtar eggs, and the holiday is more about candy and ham than about the risen Lord. And I can already hear the outcry of sincere Christians who will protest that Easter really is about the resurrection!

So why did we celebrate the Resurrection in 2008 a full month before the anniversary of Christ's death? Because we have bound the date to the pagan worship of the sun rather than the original worship of the Son.