[Today’s run: nothing yet, but I need one]
This post is about religion, beware!
I recently added one of my cousins to my Facebook friends list and I’m starting to regret it.
His posts since I did that have consisted mostly of chastisements of modern Christians for participating in Christmas and Easter traditions which he claims have “roots” in pagan practices.
He seems to be involved in a movement of sorts which I had not run into before, kind of a neo-judiazer thing. They refer to God and Jesus using Hebrew names, put great emphasis on the Old Testament books of the law (referred to as the Torah) and seem to not be very interested in anything after the first chapter of the book of Acts.
I really haven’t talked to the guy about it other than some back and forth on Facebook, which isn’t productive. I think he sincerely thinks he needs to follow the rules of the Torah to make God happy and to have a blessed life, subject to some interpretation. They have some picking-and-choosing, but I don’t deny them that since everyone else also does.
Why? That’s the part I don’t understand. Why go back to pre-Gospel? A whole lot of the story in the Epistles, not to mention the whole book of Hebrews, is about the new way, the New Covenant, the Good News, the Gospel.
So he latches on to these commands from God to the children of Israel: on conquering the promised land they are to avoid the religious worship activities of the pagans and only worship the way God tells them to do it. He points out the various traditions in Christmas and Easter and how similar things were done by pagans in times past. Can’t worship like the pagans; out with your Christmas tree. No giving gifts either. Best not to participate in Christmas at all since December 25th isn’t really Jesus’s birthday, blah blah blah. Oh, you thought those carols were about Jesus being born in a manger. Little did you know, Molech and Baal are laughing over you. (It’s too bad Molech didn’t have Elf on the Shelf, I’d be glad to see that tradition die.)
It’s not like there aren’t enough evil things in the world that a person has to dredge up the long lost practices of evil.
Well, like I already said, I don’t actually have much interaction with the guy.
One final thing. I know that for me the salvation-by-works angle isn’t going to work. When I die, if reincarnation is right I’ll be a lesser life form; I haven’t done anything here that would warrant moving up a notch. If atheists are right, I’ll be nothing. If salvation-by-works is right I’ll be headed to the lake of fire… or wherever else God wants to put me so he doesn’t have to look at me for all eternity. So my only hope is to be met at the door by Jesus and he says, “I covered all that.” That’s the good news.