XPost: alt.christnet.religion, alt.religion, alt.religion.christianity   
   XPost: alt.christnet.theology, soc.history   
   From: a202010@mail.com   
      
   On 4/21/19 8:59 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:   
      
   > Why Easter never became a big secular holiday like Christmas   
   > Hint: the Puritans were involved.   
      
   > By Tara Isabella Burton@NotoriousTIBtara.burton@vox.com Mar 29, 2018,   
      
   > Christians from a variety of traditions will celebrate Easter this   
   > Sunday. Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his   
   > crucifixion. For many Christians, including those from Eastern   
   > Orthodox traditions (who generally celebrate Easter later than Western   
   > Christians, as they use a different calendar), Easter is the most   
   > important Christian holiday of all.   
      
   > But in North America and Europe, Easter has a diminished cultural   
   > force as a time for secular celebration — its wider cultural cachet   
   > hardly approaches that of Christmas. As Jesuit priest and writer James   
   > Martin wryly wrote for Slate, “Sending out hundreds of Easter cards   
   > this year? Attending way too many Easter parties? ... Getting tired of   
   > those endless Easter-themed specials on television? I didn’t think   
   > so.”   
      
   > So why don’t we celebrate Easter the way we do Christmas? The answer   
   > tells us as much about the religious and social history of America as   
   > it does about either holiday. It reveals the way America’s holiday   
   > “traditions” as we conceive of them now are a much more recent and   
   > politically loaded invention than one might expect.   
   > The Puritans weren’t fans of either holiday   
      
   > Christmas and Easter were roughly equal in cultural importance for   
   > much of Christian history. But the Puritans who made up the   
   > preponderance of America’s early settlers objected to holidays   
   > altogether. Echoing an attitude shared by the English Puritans, who   
   > had come to short-lived political power in the 17th century under   
   > Oliver Cromwell, they decried Christmas and Easter alike as times of   
   > foolishness, drunkenness, and revelry.   
      
      
   one could broaden this argument out as a description of   
   The Western Roman Church and the Eastern Greek Orthodoxy   
   in general and suggest that the Roman Church -is- "Christmas-ized"   
   while the Eastern Church has maintained a crucifixion centeredness.   
      
   that somehow Rome sought out a 'popularity' with the "world"   
   while the Greeks tried to maintain an aloofness to worldly degradations.   
      
   but i'm neither Roman nor Greek, so i speculate...   
      
   suffice it to say, that "Christianity" =is=   
   crucifixion/resurrection centered and any drift   
   from this center will likely degrade the power   
   and authenticity of the messaging, and   
   in the West, it's easy to see this degradation.   
      
   thank God for small remnants...   
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
   > Source: https://t.co/vLiDfJl0Bm   
   >   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)