What do I think of Holding’s defense of Easter? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.
Easter time is coming up. This means that before too long we’ll be seeing colored eggs, bunnies hopping around, and paranoid Christians who run from the thought of anything that could be “pagan” as if they were Dracula running from the sun.
J.P. Holding, my ministry partner and president of Tekton Ministries back around Christmas wrote an Ebook about people who think that Christmas is pagan. Now he’s done the same for Easter. Those who have read the Christmas book will find this one is a lot shorter and there’s a reason for that.
The sad reason is that Easter is not treated as seriously as Christmas usually is, which is a shame since without Easter we would not really be celebrating Christmas. Easter is the foundation of our worldview. We can hope that that will change sometime, but until then, we need to address what is being said.
If you’re familiar with the Christmas book then, you won’t find a lot of new stuff and if you’re familiar with the book he wrote about conspiracies, that will also add in to what has been said in this book. This book then is much shorter and you will quite likely be able to read it in about half an hour or so.
In it, Holding looks at claims that there were goddesses who used eggs as their symbols and had a fondness for bunnies. Holding shows that these do not add up and keeps repeating a refrain that must be stated. God owns creation. If he wanted to use a symbol that the pagans were using any way, he can do that.
In fact, the early church thought the same way. They did not take on the behavior and the beliefs of the pagans around them, but they did take on the artwork. Why? Because art is a tool in itself and art is a remaking of the creation. The Christians then were reclaiming from the pagans what already belonged to God. As it were, they were taking the spoils of war.
Holding deals with ideas all across the board in this one. He’ll look at the charge that sunrise services are pagan because of what is said in the book of Ezekiel. There’s even what is probably one of the most researched defenses of hot cross buns, a topic that I never would have thought I’d need to see a defense of, but it is the methodology of Holding to cover all of the bases when he’s dealing with these kinds of objections.
When Easter comes from now on, just always be able to delight in and enjoy the resurrection. This is an important date to celebrate. Don’t let your freedom to worship God on this day be restricted because someone else has a fear of paganism. You are a servant of the God who conquered the pagans and is still conquering them to this day. Go out and live accordingly.
In Christ,
Nick Peters