Just came back from a business trip.... still kinda of zonked
out....
Yup, Icey's got me spot on here....
.... but with regards to the various the various postulation on
whether Christmas or Easter is Biblical or not, I have this to
say:
Culture is alive in that in any society, we immerse
the various elements of a culture into our lifelihood. In rural
Shanghai, I have seen a Catholic church that looks like a Buddhist
temple, right in the middle of the sanctuary there is a huge
painting that looks like the Buddhist heaven, but if one is to look
closely into it, one will find Jesus, the twelve apostles plus
heaps of Christian imagery. So should we b-itch about the
politically incorrect style? or rejoice because poor folks have a
way to honor God (might not be a way that I like?)
If there are supposedly paganistic imagery in our
festivities, there is very little one can do right now to correct
it, as if there is really a correct take on such festivities. Look
at it this way: churches cannot even agree on the correct way to
perform baptism, a totally Christian event. All the folks here can
quote various passages from the Bible to invalidate immersion, or
sprinkling, or whatever ways a church is to use.
To go beyond the supposedly paganistic imagery,
"Christian" festivities serves a larger purpose of a rallying point
for churches to open their doors to a more receptive crowd during
such festivities.
At a personal level, I generally have no issues with
the chronologically inaccurate dates for the festivities, I do have
issues with the image of Santa Claus. My reason is simply: Santa
Claus is should NOT be the reason for Christmas, Christ is.
the bottom line is: to those who think that
Christian festivities are overladen with pagan symbols and it
affects their walk with God - don't be part of the celebration, but
such folks need to understand that there is good reason to continue
to do so, eg NCC's yearly collaboration with Mediacorp on their
Christmas eve performance, where even Joe Prince gets up an sings a
ditty or two.
