the egg thing came from mary magdelane. extremely simplified version: when questioned about her beliefs she was asked to preform a miracle. she turned an egg red and presented it to the head honcho. at the end of the service of pascha everyone in church gets a red hardboiled egg to remember mary’s miracle.
egg hunts and bunnies came much later.
I can dig it, but I’m afraid that means you’re going to have a hard time finding anything written by anyone other than yourself to believe in. And in fact, once you practice a bit of introspection, you may have to disqualify anything you write yourself.
Politics infiltrates just about everything we do. The Creeds were written down to counter heresies in the Church. The Gospels themselves were written down to counter the growing Gnostic influence in the early Church; prior to their writing, verbal telling of the stories of Jesus’s life was considered sufficient (and that is why the Gospels are later than the Epistles in their dating). Even messages like this one, that I write on the SDMB, are influenced by my political beliefs.
Wherever there are people, there are politics. Humans are political animals. I wish it were otherwise, I really do; I hate politics, and some of my worst memories are of political conventions (noise, hypocrasy, gladhanding, week long commercials — everything I hate). But such is reality, at least as I see it. I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think so.
And it may not be as bad as it seems. Political reasons may not completely contaminate religious and other writings. The Creeds are still true statements of belief. Thomas Cranmer was a political animal, but the Book of Common Prayer still has some of the most beautiful worship ever written in the English language. God works through broken, even tainted instruments to get His work done, and sometimes we just have to recognize that fact.
I understand what you’re saying, dlb, but I have to think that there is a threshhold of political percentage of influence, if you will, that would invalidate a thought, an idea, an action, a doctrine, a belief, a way of life.
For (a ridiculous) example, let’s say that a minister preaches that he thinks that God wants His people only to buy Ford cars. Even if he wasn’t getting kickbacks from Ford for his message, something tells me that it isn’t motivated enough by non-political thought to be considered as valid. I’d still buy a Toyota if I wanted. 
I suppose the difficulty then lies in determining what that threshold is.
Rocking Chair said:
I agree. To elaborate further:
Yes, those who marked their houses with the blood of the lamb were spared death. Death ‘passed over them,’ and the children were spared.
Jesus’ “passover” does not only connote his passing through death–he, being the lamb, is the blood by which the children of God are ‘marked,’ that when Father looks upon humanity, He sees the blood of His son upon those whom death no longer has hold, as they have accepted life through Christ.
Just a thought.
In the Catholic Lectionary for Holy Thursday, the Old Testament reading is from Exodus and it is the Passover story. The Gospel reading describes the Last Supper. The emphasis during the Holy Thursday celebration is on “The New Covenant”.
There is a great deal of respect shown toward Passover, but the emphasis is that times have changed and that the events of the Last Supper embody the principal tenets of Christianity.
At least, that’s how I was taught in school.
At my church as well, Maundy Thursday services typically focus on the institution of Holy Communion and the history of it back to Passover. At least several times we have had Seders (usually on Maundy Thursday, though, if I remember rightly). I would agree that most Christians would not consider Passover as essential in a religious sense, not to say that it it is not spritually significant.
The “redefinition”, or superseding, of the Jewish tradition is mentioned in various places in the New Testament (that name in itself is a giveaway)[sup]*[/sup]. I think the best explanation is of course the book of Hebrews, for which this is the central theme. See especially Chapter 9, in which the sacrifice of animals is compared to Christ’s sacrifice (and also why Christians don’t celebrate Yom Kippur).
And, to Skott – I think it’s vitally important that you are trying to figure out just what you believe. As dlb said, don’t be too hasty in discarding what’s been written over several thousand years that might be helpful (those people were struggling with mostly the same questions). Your reason, and a careful consideration and comparison of what has been said will help you find the truth.
After all, thinking is how you would know that your minister’s admonition to buy Ford was beyond that threshold of acceptable (either that, or you’d spent all your time at www.DoNotBuyFord.com)
And if anyone’s really interested in the dates & history of Easter, a good starting point is http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/ec-cal.html
[sup]*[/sup]I’m not saying it should be accepted simply because it’s scripture. I understand that some critics might say it was written down only for political reasons, but no one seems to be arguing that here.
Sorry, been away for a while.
Well, I think these are different things. You may have to take them one at a time, and go slowly. It is hard to do anything else in a politically soaked world.
Well, you may have to take it piece by piece. Let us take a middle case, one that is very personal to me (and that perhaps deserves a separate thread, but let’s keep it in this one for now). I believe strongly in the right to keep and bear arms, and am also strongly anti-restrictions on abortion (both of them derivative of my very strong beliefs concerning the freedom and dignity of the individual, and the necessity of protecting the rights of the individual). For several years I was unable to find a church, any church, that did not work actively with the money that I would be donating, to support laws that would restrict either gun ownership or abortion. (And, by the way, I still can’t.) So for several years, I was without a place of corporate worship, for purely political reasons; my place in an institutional church breaks before my constitutional beliefs. I felt I could not belong to a church and not contribute to it, and I felt I could not contribute to the active destruction of freedom. Politics, again.
I eventually resolved this, after visiting my childhood church and realizing how much I missed some form of worship with other Christians. My resolution was to go to my rector and talk with her openly about my dilemma. We agreed that I would contribute to her discretionary fund, which she assured me would be given only to those in need around the community and never to any political cause, rather than to the general church fund. And so it stands at present. We have moved, and I must find a new church home. I don’t know if I can find a new church that will make a similar arrangement, but I do know now that if I search for some resolution to conflicts like this, I may find them.
The point is not that everyone should flock to their priest and pester them. The point is that we are all active members in the development of our own personal theology and beliefs. We can gauge the trustworthiness of our authorities, we can listen to even the worst and most biased speakers, and sometimes come away with amazing pearls. I truly dislike Clinton, but I have found that if I discount his speeches for bias and check for facts if he says something that I am tempted to believe, he sometimes comes up with a gem that I really treasure. God can speak through anyone, with any amount of political bias, and it is up to us to allow that to happen, and be wary of bias from even the most trusted of sources. It is all part of being human.