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Hrobinsonw
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Username: Hrobinsonw

Post Number: 38
Registered: 7-2004
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 7:38 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I realized that my fiance' doesn't acknowledge Easter. They have alumni weekend at Oakwood College and party on that day. I realize that often people disregard the actual significance of Easter. I asked the owner of the Lifeway Christian Bookstore yesterday, and he couldn't give answers, so I ask them to yall. If Easter is considered a pagan holiday (like my fiance' does), then why celebrate Christmas? If the issue is with the Easter egg hunts and exchanging of gifts that the world does. Then why do the same with Christmas. Just like Easter is the day of resurrection. Christmas is the day of his birth. They both have worldly attachments that people have added to them over time. It just seems that here actions contradict themselves. Secondly, is the Sabbath observance so severe that SDA's cannot celebrate the meaning of Easter Sunday? If Christ had risen on Saturday, would that have made SDA observe Easter? Or is the level of importance of the seventh day out weigh the level of importance of Easter Sunday? If the ramifications of the sabbath are that important, then why didn't God have Christ arise on Saturday? In actuality, we observe Easter every Sunday when we go to church. At what point does Christ exit the Adventist equation? Do they honor Good Friday? If not it seems more and more that they are actually Israelites in training than New Covenant believers.


Okay, that is it. I hope I don't offend anyone. It was just my thoughts. I will get back to yall after lunch with the thoughts from my midday Bible Study. Bye bye.
Ric_b
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Username: Ric_b

Post Number: 32
Registered: 7-2004
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 7:51 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I have actually met SDAs who do not celebrate Christmas because of the "pagan" links. Some SDA churches celebrate with the inclusion of a Christmas tree at the front of the church. A number of SDAs consider this a terrible display of paganism. This is also the same reason that many SDA churches will not have a cross in the sanctuary (again because of the pagan origins). Most SDAs churches would also not have a Christmas or Christmas eve service.

SDAs will often have an "Easter" sermon on the Sabbath before, although I have always felt a kind of irony at the idea of celebrating the day that Christ was in the grave. SDAs taught for some time that the first step from Saturday to Sunday worship was the Easter service. It would be a creeping compromise that could lead to all kinds of bad things. No they do not celebrate Good Friday, nor do they provide it as a holiday for other Christian employees at their institutions. "Israelites in training" is a good explanation!
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 648
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 10:07 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

So true, Ric. A few decades ago it was not at all uncommon for SDAs not to celebrate Christmas--or to perhaps celebrate it but downplay it, i.e., no fuss with decorations, etc. I suspect, Hrobinsonsw, that the questions you raise re: Sabbath suggest the answer to why Adventists often celebrate Christmas now. It's not a Sunday holiday. They can have presents, etc., without feeling they're celebrating on Satan's day except incidentally every 6 years or so.

I know that when Christmas falls on Saturday, many Adventists do not open gifts until after sundown. The day must be spent as a typical Sabbath--Christmas frivolity must wait.

When I was an Adventist, the resurrection was really not mentioned much. Oh, it was taught--but it wasn't the event of deep significance it has come to be since I left. And since Adventists likewise don't make much of the formation of the church, the significance of the resurrection needing to preceed Pentecost is really not explained well. All that happened between the resurrection and 1844 was just preliminary.

Your point about not having Christmas or Christmas Eve services, Ric_b, is also significant. I asked Richard once why he thought Adventists don't have those. (Well, probably the REAL reason is the excuse of paganism...) But he said he believes most Adventists would not want to "waste" one of their days--secular time--in church. He said for years, to him church was for the seventh day. Any intrusion of church into the six days that were for us was an annoyance and a burden.

I'd never thought about it like that before, but I realized I had always felt the same way, only I hadn't defined it.

Colleen
Susan_2
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Username: Susan_2

Post Number: 901
Registered: 11-2002
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 10:51 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I just must jump into this conversation. Hrobinsonw, I will explain my understanding to the questions you posed. The SDA's I grew up wih actually refer to Easter as the most heathen of the heathen holidays. Christmas is heathen too but not quite as heathen as Easter, As a child I was allowed to have all the secular trappings of Easter- the egg hunt, coloring the eggs, an Easter basket, etc. I was told by my parents that those things are o.k. because people just made them up for fun. But, to add a Christian significance to Easter is blasphomas and we are not to do that. Also, many SDA's say that since Jesus was in the tomb dead over the Sabbath hours then this is just one more proof of the seventh-day Sabbath being the only day of holy rest, that Jesus even rested being dead over the Sabbath. Now to the Christmas spin. Many SDA's celebrate Christmas. I think Christmas is o.k. with SDA's because egw liked Christmas. She had one of her men dress up as Santa on Christmas to entertain the children of her family. She also wrote that the churches (sda, of course) should have Christmas trees in the front of their churches and the people should place their offerings on the tree. At the Lutheran Christmas is not a day but a season, the Advent season. We start preparing for Chrismas 40 days before Dec. 25. I grew up in what can only be referred to as an extremely schitzophernic religon. My parents still to this day will tell me they have never celebrated Chistmas. And, it is true that they have never had a Christmas tree or done anything special on Dec. 25. Yet, during my entire childhood the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's all the relatives would get together for our annual family reunion and us kids would get scads of presents all wrapped pretty in Christmas paper but I was not allowed to refer to these gifts as Christmas presents. When I would ask my mom how come they weren't Christmas presents even thoughthey were wrapped in Christms paper sh told e it is bcause Christmas is on Dec. 25 and we were not having our gathering on Dec. 25 and the paper was only because being frugal they bought Christmas paper because that time of year that kind of paper cost less than other wrapping paper. But, I was told by my parents to never say to anyone or even think that we were having Christmas. Yet, in the stores my parents thought it was fun to have me go to the santa and tell him what I wanted for Christmas and my parents would always drive through the parts of town where the neighborhoods put out a lot of lights and decorations. But, back to the sda spin on these days. Jesus is very insignificant to most sda's and in sda doctrine. Both, Christmas and Easter have Jesus at their focus. Most of the recent sda sermons I have sat through are one-to-two hour informercials for this or that sda program that needs money. The sermons very seldom have anything to do with Jesus. I think the sda denomination plays up the Christmas tree in the church so they can get money but they haven't figured how to milk their devotees out of their money on Easter so Easter will continue to be called heathen until they can get money out of their people in an Easter acknowledgement. It's very warped!
Dd
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Username: Dd

Post Number: 115
Registered: 7-2004
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 11:37 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

At the SDA church we attended it was deemed "OK" to have a green pine tree in the santuary BUT when we tried to put pretty white lights on it...OH MY!!...doesn't this "stuff" just make you laugh...but it really is so sad...
Madelia
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Username: Madelia

Post Number: 81
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 - 1:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

At the SDA church I've attended, they decorate the church for Christmas, and it's beautiful and they do a nice Christmas pageant. And I"ve found that as Colleen said, if Christmas Day falls on Saturday, SDAs would not observe it or open gifts.

At Easter, this church has an "agape" meal on Good Friday evening and do a musical program on the Saturday before Easter. To me, it's just not the same as going to church on Easter morning and singing those wonderful Easter hymns.

Colleen, what you said about SDAs not attending church except on Saturdays made me think of that SDA children's song. Hrobinsonw, you might find this enlightening: 1,2,3,4,5,6 for us, the 7th is for Jesus!
Cindy
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Username: Cindy

Post Number: 645
Registered: 7-2000
Posted on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 6:33 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Oh yes, Madelia, I always hated that song! Isn't it so much better having EVERY day for Jesus?

I've been told--just this week--that, although I SAY I am complete and secure IN CHRIST, it is actually untrue... since I do not "meet" when He meets (meaning, of course, on the 7th Day!)

Sigh... Oh well, I know that I could never go back to that compartmentalizing of my life into "sacred" versus "secular" times!

grace always,
cindy
Cindy
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Username: Cindy

Post Number: 646
Registered: 7-2000
Posted on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 6:40 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Susan, boy, you sure did grow up with some convoluted thinking on the Christmas experience--having presents wrapped in Christmas paper even, but not opening them on Christmas or even calling them Christmas presents!

It is a miracle of God's grace that you now live in the clarity and openess of Christ alone!

grace always,
cindy
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 655
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 11:00 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Cindy, I so relate to that "sigh" above! I agree with you; I can never go back to that compartmentalizing again. And I SO agree with what you said on another thread--there is an anit-christ at the core of Adventism. It is dark, and it is a spiritual power that blinds those under its spell.

Colleen
Susan_2
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Username: Susan_2

Post Number: 977
Registered: 11-2002
Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 11:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yes, Cindy. Please read some of my other posts. You will see very clearly when I say I was raised with a schitzopherenic religous upbringing as a child I am not exaggerating at all. Someday I want to write it out and snail mail it to Colleen and she can add it to the stories list.

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