Indie-christian...it's the new cool...

ok, so this is going to be a rant...if you're not in the mood for a rant i suggest not reading this right now...

ok, now that we got all the losers out of here, this is what it's about...

the other day on facebook, i received this:

now i thought this was a pleasant little greeting, and once you get past the creepiness of a book offering a nice holiday greeting, you take comfort in the pleasantry that's given and that the person who made this took time to wish us all a Happy Easter. Innocent enough right? WRONG! well, apparently to some. as you can see, there's 462 comments...when i checked it yesterday there were only 270 or so. now, roughly half of them are, "thank you, i'll be reading you later," or something to that affect. and now it's more like 95% because someone has gone through and deleted all the others. but there are some people that have a vendetta against the very word "Easter"....

take this for example:

Tami at 8:06pm April 6:
Easter isn't even in the Bible!

or this:

Richard:

Jeremy Nelson is right, Easter is a pagan fertility festival. We should be celebrating the

resurrection of Jesus Christ on the first Sunday after the Passover. Not during a sex holiday

observed by pagans and witches.

now,

i'm not saying what these people are saying isn't true. in fact i agree with them...BUT my point is that nobody was asking these people for their opinion (and i wouldn't mind celebrating a sex holiday with my wife...God invented sex for married people, indulge and celebrate). i don't have a problem with people celebrating Resurrection Sunday instead of Easter. if you want to play with semantics, that's fine, go ahead. but my issue is with people that go out and make a point to tell everybody (Christians and non-Christians) about how Easter is a pagan word derived from a pagan god and this that and the other thing...it's bad, you shouldn't be doing it...blah blah blah...and then get this pious attitude (and i don't know if this is actually how it is, but it's the image i get in my head) and then with their noses pointed to the heavens, dressed in a tailcoat tuxedo, with the most arrogant voice (probably with a good English accent a lot like Jeeves from Jeeves and Wooster) proclaim to the masses, "I celebrate Resurrection Sunday...NOT that drivel, heretical, heathen Easter...that's for pagans..." no one asked you, no one cares that you think more highly of yourself because of it. last time i checked Christ said, "Remember me." not, "remember me on this day, and by no means whatsoever remember me on any day that is, was, or will be any sort of pagan holiday, OR during a period of time that uses the title of a pagan holiday, cause that's just wrong..." i guess these people don't celebrate Easter, or Christmas, or remember Christ on any day that falls in the months of January, February, March, May, or June due to pagan god titles. July or August are questionable because they are named after Emperors, which would have worshipped pagan gods. April, September, October, November, and December are ok, because they have non-religious meanings. BUT, if any of these days (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and of course Saturday) fall into any of the acceptable months, remembering Christ's death and resurrection is absolutely out because of pagan titles! SO, now that you have your acceptable parameters, celebrate away...but today is Tuesday, so not today, maybe tomorrow...

CAN'T THESE PEOPLE SEE HOW RIDICULOUS THIS IS?!?!?! THERE ARE NO PEOPLE THAT STILL CELEBRATE EASTER THE WAY THE PAGANS DID, AND IF THERE IS THEY ARE IN A SERIOUSLY SMALL MINORITY! more so, in America i can almost guarantee that pretty dang near 0% of all Americans celebrate Easter the way pagans did.

but this doesn't just stop at Easter either. i've known people that celebrate Christmas a certain way, read the bible a certain way, even pray a certain way exclaiming, "it's the way the ancient Hebrews would have done it, so that's why i do it..." great, good for you, let me go sacrifice the fattened calf in your honor, it's time to celebrate...NO! if you want to do things the way the ancient Hebrews did them, fine. if it helps you connect with God on a deeper level, fine. if YOU think it's the way it's supposed to be done...FINE, BUT don't go telling people that how they meet god, how they worship, how they honor Christ's death and resurrection is WRONG because it's not, "how they used to do it..." last time i checked Christ died around 2000 years ago...which means that cultures change, people change, methods of worship and remembrance change...BUT GOD DOES NOT. God is not confined to be worshipped in a certain way, with certain words, at certain times. the only thing confining God is his infinite everything! there are no limits to our experience with God and Christ. it's like people like this are trying to achieve some sort of extra credit for not changing or being relevant to our current culture. yes we are to stand apart form the world, but not in a way that alienates us from the very people that Christ called us to go out and minister to! we are to be separate from the world in that we excel in love, our first reaction to each situation is to love, not to be selfish. which if you look around the world today (and look through history) would separate us from a vast majority of people.

what this whole thing boils down to is this: God cares about our HEARTS, not titles we (mankind) have given particular days, seasons, months, whatever. and if my heart is in the right place and i'm authentically worshipping Christ on a day that has a pagan title then so be it. i tell you the truth, i'd be closer to God on Easter than those that are worrying so much about Resurrection Day.

my $.02.

-kyle