Roots

The more I learn about the origins of the common practices and traditions that pass for modern Christianity, the more upset and disillusioned I become. I was just reading about the origins of Christmas and all its attendant practices and traditions. Christmas trees, caroling and even gift-giving have origins that were secular at best and ranging all the way up to blatantly pagan, which is to say diametrically opposed to the deity of Christ. We celebrate the birth of Christ at the wrong time of year. Indeed, the scriptures make no mention of celebrating a person's birth, not even the birth of our savior. The gifts of the Magi were the types of homage rendered to a king.

Note that I do not say that I am moving away from the actual cause of Christ; far from it! I long to move closer to Christ than ever. The problem is that I can't seem to find anyone who wants to go there with me. Everyone is so mired in the rituals and traditions that spawn from extra-Biblical sources including everything from the worship of Ashera and Baal to Druidism and Pantheism.

What would truly Biblical living, worship and koinonia look like? I imagine that such practices would be so radically different from all the modern denominations as to appear to be a completely separate religion. Christmas would disappear completely. Easter would change to a Passover Seder with no rabbits and no egg rolls. The pastorate would change from a corps of overeducated professionals who do nothing but solicit funds and build ridiculously huge churches, and instead become a collection of men and women striving to build Christ's Church, one believer at a time, leaving the massive manifestations of divine power to the Holy Spirit.

One of the greatest problems in the church today is the ascendency of the so-called Prosperity Gospel.  This line of thought teaches that those who are truly devout will be richly blessed, but in order to achieve such blessings, one must commit as much as possible to the ministries of a large church, with a high-profile minister.  What these churches resemble is not the image of a First Century church so much as they do a multi-level marketing scheme, where only the leader and a handpicked few really prosper.  And, since when did the measure of the success of a Christian ministry become the affluence of its leaders?  It just seems to me that we are rewarding the wrong behaviors.