"I am the door. By me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture." - John 10:9 At every parish where I have had the pleasure of attending services, there is always a small group of people who find their way all the way up to the church building but don't actually attend services. At one parish it was a group of male gypsies who talked on cellphones or smoked cigarettes. At another it was a few Protestant husbands who, though they never attended services, opened the parish doors for people as they filed in. At yet another parish the men stood in the narthex and chatted until it was time to receive and then got in line. Latin or Greek Catholic, Eastern or Oriental Orthodox I see the same small throng of men standing next to the front door, but not standing, sitting, or kneeling amongst the people. If it were me (and I can only speak for myself here) this option would be an unsavory one. The boredom would be immediate. The anxiety of som...
Unfortunately, the effort has been going on a long time. In my part of the country certain Protestant branches have always made the the claim that Christmas was really a Roman pagan holiday and Easter was worship of a pagan goddess.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the attempt to link icons off Jesus to pagan temple representations of Zeus.
I am 70+ years old and I have heard these things 9n and off my whole life and they were not new when I was young. Jdubs won't celebrate anything even their own birthdays.
These people fundamentally deny both the reality of God and His Incarnation--which is the root of secularism.
The Iconoclasts did the same thing. Nothing new.