Answering Evangelical claims of Paganism

[Knight_of_JaM]

I’m in agreement with C.S. Lewis’ explanation for the similarities between Christianity and pagan mythologies. Allow me to explain…

A god turning water into wine, baptism for the remission of sins, consuming a god in the form of wine and bread, a god being born of a virgin, a god dying and resurrecting for the salvation of humanity are ideas that predated Christianity by hundreds and thousands of years…and all of them can be found in Sacred Scripture.

That isn’t a conclusion gathered from that fallacious “Zeitgeist” video found on YouTube or from wacky Christ-Myth theorists (see D.M. Murdock) and their zany conspiracy theories. Pre-Christian pagan myths with such ideas have been published for centuries for anyone to read, and early Church Fathers such as Saints Irenaeus and Justyn Martyr were well aware of Christianity’s similarities to the pagan myths of the various cultures that preceded it. They even coined it “diabolical mimicry.”

And it didn’t start with Christianity. Many of Judaism’s rituals are lifts from Egyptian practices. Animal sacrifices for the ritual expiation of sins is thousands of years older than Judaism. The story of Noah’s Ark is the Judaic version of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Code of Hammurabi predated the Torah, and the story of Moses as a baby in the bulrushes escaping a villain was taken from that of Sargon the Great and the Hindu myth of Karna. Those are the simple, widely known ones.

We can either abandon Christianity because of its explicit similarities to paganism, or we can accept C.S. Lewis’ explanation that those ideas were pagan practices and prophecies that were perfected and fulfilled in Christianity. In other words, they basically amounted to a longing of pagan hearts for the one, true God. What we shouldn’t do as Christians is deny fact, or lie to ourselves and others because we can’t deal with the truth. Again, for my part, I’ll agree with C.S. Lewis.

Christianity is about perfecting things. It is about perfecting us. Even formerly pagan holidays like Christmas and Easter find their perfection in Christianity. (Sorry, but I can’t help but to roll my eyes when people refuse to use the word “Easter” or won’t celebrate Christmas because they’re sooooo pagan.) If we start splitting hairs over what’s pagan in Christianity and what’s not, we’ll have next to nothing left of Christianity. In fact, the new “pagan-free” Christianity, i.e., Christianity stripped of any resemblance to the pagan myths that came long before it, will be completely alien to any of the hundreds of conflicting versions that already exist. It will certainly be alien to orthodox Christianity.

I lost a friend over the summer because he proclaimed Roman Catholicism as pagan without ever once trying to understand our practices, symbols, or theology. Heaven knows he never picked up a Catechism, but simply regurgitated all the same tired fallacies and rhetoric he’d heard from his anti-Catholic buddies and his pastor. That friend was an evangelical.

I refuse to check my brain at the door, and the Church has never asked me to. I’m thankful for that. Lying to yourself is still lying.

 

[otjm]

My only disagreement with you is that you did not lose a friend; you lost an acquaintance.

Friends care enough about one another that they don’t challenge in the manner your acquaintance did. Friendship is based on mutual respect for one another.

 

[Knight_of_JaM]

Thank you. Very good observation.

 

[Proclus]

Over the course of centuries, culminating in the works of late authors such as Proclus and Damascius, ancient Platonists developed a system of thought capable of articulating the radical polytheism of the ancient world.

Beginning with Plato himself you’ll find throughout all their works rules for interpreting myths – with Proclus’ distinctions and hermeneutics being the crowning achievement of this long process of academic, spiritual refinement.

Sallustius said it best: myths signify things that “never happened but always are.”

From a Pagan perspective, the myths are not reports of historical events. Rather, they embody a culture’s experience of who a God is at each level of reality. So, I would argue that far from fulfilling or perfecting the Pagan myths, Christianity has severely distorted their nature, misappropriated their themes and claimed to defeat an enemy of its own making.