Paganism Surviving in ChristianityLewis, Abram Herbert
Religion
Paganism Surviving in Christianity
Lewis, Abram Herbert
Christianity and other religions; Paganism
As to Sunday legislation we have seen that its origin was absolutely
pagan, and that it has been destructive of true Sabbathism at all
times. If the highest hopes of the present agitators could be realized;
if the civil law should compel all citizens of the United States to
rest on Sunday, every year of such a system would sink the people
deeper into the slough of No-Sabbathism. The “Continental Sunday”
is the product of a No-Sabbath theology, and civil Sunday-laws. The
Sunday-law advocates seek the supremacy of an unscriptural Sabbathism,
linked with Sunday by civil law. This has been fully tried, at a time
when men had far more regard for Sunday as a sacred day than they have
now. But with all things in its favor, the strength of youth, and the
honest ignorance of the masses concerning its true character, the
“Puritan Sunday” has returned to its original holidayism, in spite of
Church and State combined. It could not do less, even if a fortuitous
combination of influences should exalt it temporarily again. Religion
and conscience are entitled to the protection of the civil law, without
regard to creed or numbers. If immorality is practised in the name of
religion, it may be suppressed as immorality. Beyond such protection
the State may not go.
_Conclusion Fifth._
_All union of Church and State, or of Christianity and the State,
is pagan-born, and opposed to the genius and purpose of Christ’s
kingdom._
Last Words.
Whatever prepossessions or conceptions the reader may have brought to
the perusal of these pages, he cannot finish them without seeing that
much which has come down to us as “Christianity” is so tinctured with
paganism that it does not fairly represent what Christ taught. The
purity of the earliest Christianity was the source of its wondrous
conquering power. After it was paganized, and united with the State,
it continued to conquer, but by the sword rather than by the spirit
of God. It is clear proof of the divine character of Christianity,
that it was not wholly destroyed by its contact with paganism. It
is surpassing proof of that same divine origin, that it could rise
from the grave of the Dark Ages, with such vigor as produced the
Reformation, and has carried that work to the point already gained.
But in the crises that await it, in the solving of the problems which
confront it, Protestant Christianity must realize that its specific
mission is to complete the work of eliminating the pagan residuum,
a work well begun by the Reformers, but which must be carried on to
higher victories, or sink back to lower defeats. When the last stain
of paganism is removed, the world will see a Christianity which will
be primarily a _life of purity_, through love for God and truth and
men, rather than a _creed_, embodying speculations about the unknowable
and abstractions concerning the unsolvable. In such a Christianity,
the Bible plainly interpreted, without allegory or assumption, and in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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