I say Christmas at every chance I get and I've sent out CHRISTMAS cards for the past two years. I purposely look for the ones that mention CHRISTMAS. I really liked one set, but they didn't have the dreaded word, so I passed on them. :P
Now I notice lots of stores are eliminating the word from their advertising so as not to offend. HELLOOOOO.....isn't CHRISTMAS a Christian event? Supposed to be, anyway. They why the he11 can't they use the word?
I also looked for an angel to put on my tree but couldn't find one I liked, so I opted for the bright shining star instead.
It's so nice to be able to say and do whatever you want!!
I remember very well VPW talking about how Jesus Christ was not born at the time of the year we celebrate Christmas, and I remember him say that he wouldn't advocate changing because "the Word says we are not supposed to be observers of days".
I remember well how at the end of my corps acceptance letter was "if we do not hear from you by Christmas, we will drop you."
For that matter, we even had a halloween partly at HQ in the fall of 1979. hard to forget that since I was "encouraged" by some corps buddies to dress up as the Pope.
Lifted, you're talking about a different TWI than the rest of us. Craiggers eliminated lots of words from our vocabulary because they were wrong and we were not part of the egg sucking world.
According to craiggers - Merry Christmas means "Merry Christ is Dead" because, he said, a mass is a service for the dead.
We were forbidden from having angels anywhere in our houses because angels didn't have wings and the commercial ones that did carried devil spirits. We couldn't play traditional Christmas tunes, even some of them were re-written and bastardized, imo.
We were "strongly discouraged" from having Santas anywhere and were forbidden from playing Santa or telling our kids there was any Santa because that would be lying.
We didn't have Easter Bunnies or Tooth Fairies either. We didn't call it Easter because that comes from the pagan goddess of fertility (or was it god?) - Astarte or Ashtaroth....can't remember.....
We were forbidden from saying "create" because only God creates. We weren't allowed to call anyone "creative" either.
Pretty much anything fun or "traditional" was done away with under craig's rule. :blink: That's the only TWI I know or experience.
Oh yeah!
Halloween?? We had fellowship most years at Halloween and didn't pass out candy. For the kids, IF - IF - IF we did anything at all - it was called "Bless & Treat" - not trick or treat. But most years.....just a quiet, normal boring fellowship meeting..... :(
Lifted, you're talking about a different TWI than the rest of us. Craiggers eliminated lots of words from our vocabulary because they were wrong and we were not part of the egg sucking world.
I can accept that, because I know there were some big changes in daily life, and my exit came at the end of 1979. Just testifying to how it was in my time.
The pagan, yet baptized "Christian" Christmas season is again upon us. Any religious leader with an ounce of brains knows, as anyone else can if he wants to, that Jesus Christ was not born on December 25. Furthermore, people know that he was not even born at this season of the year. Then, pray tell, how did we get so confused, and why do we continue to teach as truth what we know to be wrong? It's an addiction; willful spiritual blindness. Here are the facts:
In Rome, a mid-winter festival was celebrated known as the Saturnalia, "the feast of Saturn." It was a pagan celebration of the birth of the sun god celebrated at the time of the winter solstice, when the sun is at its lowest point in the southern sky. In 274 A.D. in Rome, December 25 was established as the birthday of the "unconquered sun," as the sun was then beginning to rise in the winter sky.
But, by 336 A.D. the church of Rome had incorporated the festival of Saturn and adopted it as the Christian celebration of the "nativity of Jesus Christ," setting the date of December 25 as the absolute date of the birth of Christ. The Roman church established December 25 as the birthday of the "son of God" to replace the birthday of the "unconquered sun" in order to win the pagan sun worshippers to Roman "Christianity".
In compromising and absorbing the pagan festival, the Roman Catholic "Christians" spiritualized its significance calling it the "Feast of the Nativity of the Son of Righteousness." Under Roman Catholicism it became known as a time for a special mass to celebrate the birth of Christ or a "Christ-mass", later shortened to "Christmas".
From Rome the December 25th date as the birth of Jesus Christ spread to the whole western world, but the Eastern church did not observe this until much later. The church in Jerusalem knew nothing about the December 25th observance of Christ's birth until the 6th century A.D.
Christmas December 25, as a mass for Christ, began in the church of Rome, not in the Bible.
Some years ago religious groups got all concerned about "keeping Christ in Christmas." Now, how are you going to keep something in something if it was never there to begin with?
The Roman Catholic religion still celebrates December 25 as the birthday, the nativity of Christ. They have a right to believe and celebrate what they want to, and I respect and have a lot of Roman Catholic friends. But, that does not prove that what they believe in is necessarily true.
Man's natural love for truth today is almost as depraved as his love for holiness and purity of life. Most men don't take the time or have the courage to think about truth. They simply accept what is handed down to them by someone else.
E.W. Bullinger, perhaps England's greatest Bible scholar, theologian, teacher and author said, "the majority of mankind think that they think; they acquiesce, and flatter themselves, when they have actually grown up to manhood with scarcely a conviction that they can call their own."
Rev. J.B. Herd said, "the way of discovery still lies open to us in divine things if we have the moral courage and the desire to go to the fountain head of truth, instead of filling our vessels out of this or that doctor's compendium ... or be held spellbound by the shadow of a few great names."
Truth can never be held on any other tenure than the "knight's fee" of holding its own against all comers. Yes, truth is forever on the scaffold, being guillotined by those who have only facts, incongruous with truth.
Bishop Butler in his "Analogy" states, "that the book, (the Bible), which has been so long in the possession of mankind, should contain so many truths as yet undiscovered is unbelievable." Most people apparently would rather abide by tradition than to know the truth.
If in this holiday season we want to give our households and friends a gift, would it not be logical to wait until December 26 to shop when prices are 40 percent to 50 percent less than before Christmas? You might want to tell your household and friends their gifts will be a couple of days late. It is wonderful if you want to celebrate, have a happy time at this season, but let's not call it the birthday of Christ. We who have Christ in us, the hope of glory might enjoy calling this season "Happy Household Holiday" rather than "Christ-mass."
We have a Biblical research work on the birth of Christ entitled The Promised Seed. This book deals completely with what the Bible says about the birth of Christ. It will be published in August 1981. You might just find this work enlightening, and if you take the time to check its veracity you might discover some invigorating truths. Most likely your local bookstore will not have it, but it will be available through The Way International bookstore at New Knoxville, Ohio.
Starting next Monday, December 8, a four day series of by The Way...Don't Miss It.
To revisit veepee's article.........to me, comes across as KNOW-IT-ALL and DEMEANING.
It adds very little to my Christian faith......it's judgemental and bullying from the get-go when stating, "Any religious leader with an ounce of brains knows, as anyone else can if he wants to, that Jesus Christ was not born on December 25."
Thanks Oldies for bringing this forward. Makes me SO THANKFUL that I exited that outfit........and found my way back to the Light of Life, my Lord and Savior.
Yeah, veepee could market a product.......but couldn't sustain a Christian walk.
Ya know, Lifted, I really like hearing about those days. It reminds me that there used to be a shred of humanity in TWI. It gives me hope that those still involved from those days will realize how far they've come from that and will find their way to freedom and peacefulness like we have.
It's those kids who are 12 years old and younger I really worry about and feel sorry for. They've known nothing but the ugliness and legalism of craig's TWI. They haven't really been allowed to get involved with normal kid stuff and have normal friends. Their vocabularies are warped by TWI and their logic and thought patterns not fully developed in a healthy way.
I remember hearing that Mrs. W used to have a Christmas party for all the kids and they would dress up, sing REAL Christmas songs and have - gasp - Santa Claus visit the kids. The kids who were allowed to believe in Santa and experience that joy and rite of passage.
I hope I didn't sound snippy. I really didn't mean it that way; just wanted to clarify which TWI we were talking about so that someone doesn't try to call me a liar again.
We didn't have Easter Bunnies or Tooth Fairies either. We didn't call it Easter because that comes from the pagan goddess of fertility (or was it god?) - Astarte or Ashtaroth....can't remember.....
FYI, the word Easter is an anglicisation of the word Eostre, who was the Teutonic goddess of light, day, spring.
Here is the interesting part of this: the Scandinavian languages and Germanic languages use Easter to represent the Solemnity of the Resurrection of Our Lord (the technical name of the day). In all other cases that I've seen, the word corresponds to the word "pasch" (meaning passover from the Hebrew pasech). In Italian, it's Pasque, in French, it's Pâques, in Greek it's pascha, in Spanish it's pascua.
The customs associated with Easter are, from my experience, largely confined to the same regions. In Southern Europe, that I've seen, the habits are far less 'pagan' in nature -- still nice, but a lot more clearly identifiable as associated with the purpose of the holiday.
Christmas is another story altogether. An interesting history on how the date of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord (it's 'official' name) can be found here. According to the article, the holiday wasn't even celebrated until after 200 AD (at any time of the year) and the date wasn't officially set until This article debunks the Saturnalia theory and assigns the most credibility to the 'christianization' of the Roman holiday 'Natalis Invicti' (or birth of the sun) as a likely reason for the particular date. However, in another section of the article, it says the following:
<blockquote>This checks the so-called correspondence between Cyril of Jerusalem (348-386) and Pope Julius I (337-352), quoted by John of Nikiu (c. 900) to convert Armenia to 25 December (see P.L., VIII, 964 sqq.). Cyril declares that his clergy cannot, on the single feast of Birth and Baptism, make a double procession to Bethlehem and Jordan. (This later practice is here an anachronism.) He asks Julius to assign the true date of the nativity "from census documents brought by Titus to Rome"; Julius assigns 25 December.</blockquote>
Julius would have had access to the archival census records if they existed. But, on the other hand, they might not have existed 350-360 years after the fact.
The bottom line is that there is no conclusive reason as to why it was assigned a certain day. It's not conclusive that it was a replacement for a pagan holiday...it's not for certain that it's for a rational reason...but the important thing is to celebrate the nativity of the Lord...whenever it's celebrated...
This Christmas I put a Christmas Tree up in my livingroom and made sure I had plenty of angels on it. I made doubly sure that they had wings and some even hold songbooks and are in the pose of singing. Most of my Christmas Cards say Merry Christmas. They should. It happens to be the name of the holiday, as mentioned above, unless of course you are celebrating Chanukka or even Kwanzaa. By the way I have also been known to have a Kwanzaa display in my home as well as Christmas displays. Celebrating one does not preclude the other. I have Santa Claus on my tree as well, along with flying reindeer and even -gasp - ELVES! I do make sure the cards I send to my innie relatives say Merry Christmas quite prominently, just to make a point. And to make another point, I attended a Christmas Concert in a Church conducted and performed by members of Cleveland Lesbian/Gay/Allies and it sounded far better and was performed with more heart than anything I ever witnessed on the stage of the Weirdness Over the World Auditorium. And today I am treating a homeless woman to some decent food, and some well-deserved pampering for a week at a local spa where I have a membership.
So according to TWI (and possibly others) I guess I am simply totally given over to worldliness, ungodliness and paganism.
So be it.
And I pity those who are so backward and mentally bound by intolerance that they are blinded to the love that sent Jesus here in the first place.
For that matter, we even had a halloween partly at HQ in the fall of 1979. hard to forget that since I was "encouraged" by some corps buddies to dress up as the Pope.
LOL Lifted, In 1982 I remember a branch halloween party (My3cents was there). I dressed as the Pope too, and my wife, who was a very obvious 10 months pregnant, dressed as a nun!
Yea, I was worshipped LOL. BTW what does that last line on your posts refer to? It's not a reference to Bill Clinton's former fast food cardiac diet, is it?
Just so this post isn't irrelevant, of course through 1979 at least, in residence corps still had those Christmas breaks when we were still allowed to go out into the world on our own. Did those end at some point?
At some point they stopped calling them Christmas Breaks and began calling them "Ho-Ho Relo."
The Corps Director (LCM) and VPW were concerned regarding the number of new Way Corps who dropped out of the program after only 4 months, when returning home for Christmas break. The association with family who are not under the control of TWI, the reintroduction of outside media and adequate amounts of sleep and nutrition seemed to put a "pinch" in the Corps numbers at that time. So, a little "revision" of the "purpose" of this "time period" was in order.
They stopped "Christmas" for the obvious pagan reference, and stopped using "Break," because the word infers a respite from the previous activity. "Relo" or "relocation," simply inferred that even though they were changing locations, they were to continue their former activities of reality/brain disengagement.
You can bet that it was, along with the many others who left during that time year after year. Christmas break was a huge hole in the Corps program rosters until they made some major tune-ups to their control techniques.
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bliss
:D haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Happy HOHO- every time I said it I kicked my own a@s!
Boy did my parents hate it.
I felt so fake, I couldn't even enjoy the holidays with "unbelievers" because they said "Christmas"
What a joke, I have been saying it for awhile now, and maybe even to ''believer" this year!
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Kevlar2000
ChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristma
sChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristma
sChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasIt's Christmas dammitChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristma
sChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristma
sChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasunless it's ChannukahChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristma
sChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmasChristma
sChristmasChristmasChristmas.
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Belle
I say Christmas at every chance I get and I've sent out CHRISTMAS cards for the past two years. I purposely look for the ones that mention CHRISTMAS. I really liked one set, but they didn't have the dreaded word, so I passed on them. :P
Now I notice lots of stores are eliminating the word from their advertising so as not to offend.
HELLOOOOO.....isn't CHRISTMAS a Christian event? Supposed to be, anyway. They why the he11 can't they use the word?
I also looked for an angel to put on my tree but couldn't find one I liked, so I opted for the bright shining star instead.
It's so nice to be able to say and do whatever you want!!
CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS
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Lifted Up
I remember very well VPW talking about how Jesus Christ was not born at the time of the year we celebrate Christmas, and I remember him say that he wouldn't advocate changing because "the Word says we are not supposed to be observers of days".
I remember well how at the end of my corps acceptance letter was "if we do not hear from you by Christmas, we will drop you."
For that matter, we even had a halloween partly at HQ in the fall of 1979. hard to forget that since I was "encouraged" by some corps buddies to dress up as the Pope.
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Belle
Lifted, you're talking about a different TWI than the rest of us. Craiggers eliminated lots of words from our vocabulary because they were wrong and we were not part of the egg sucking world.
According to craiggers - Merry Christmas means "Merry Christ is Dead" because, he said, a mass is a service for the dead.
We were forbidden from having angels anywhere in our houses because angels didn't have wings and the commercial ones that did carried devil spirits. We couldn't play traditional Christmas tunes, even some of them were re-written and bastardized, imo.
We were "strongly discouraged" from having Santas anywhere and were forbidden from playing Santa or telling our kids there was any Santa because that would be lying.
We didn't have Easter Bunnies or Tooth Fairies either. We didn't call it Easter because that comes from the pagan goddess of fertility (or was it god?) - Astarte or Ashtaroth....can't remember.....
We were forbidden from saying "create" because only God creates. We weren't allowed to call anyone "creative" either.
Pretty much anything fun or "traditional" was done away with under craig's rule. :blink: That's the only TWI I know or experience.
Oh yeah!
Halloween?? We had fellowship most years at Halloween and didn't pass out candy. For the kids, IF - IF - IF we did anything at all - it was called "Bless & Treat" - not trick or treat. But most years.....just a quiet, normal boring fellowship meeting..... :(
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Lifted Up
I can accept that, because I know there were some big changes in daily life, and my exit came at the end of 1979. Just testifying to how it was in my time.
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oldiesman
By The Way
December 4, 1980
St. Mary's Evening Leader
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skyrider
To revisit veepee's article.........to me, comes across as KNOW-IT-ALL and DEMEANING.
It adds very little to my Christian faith......it's judgemental and bullying from the get-go when stating, "Any religious leader with an ounce of brains knows, as anyone else can if he wants to, that Jesus Christ was not born on December 25."
Thanks Oldies for bringing this forward. Makes me SO THANKFUL that I exited that outfit........and found my way back to the Light of Life, my Lord and Savior.
Yeah, veepee could market a product.......but couldn't sustain a Christian walk.
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Belle
Ya know, Lifted, I really like hearing about those days. It reminds me that there used to be a shred of humanity in TWI. It gives me hope that those still involved from those days will realize how far they've come from that and will find their way to freedom and peacefulness like we have.
It's those kids who are 12 years old and younger I really worry about and feel sorry for. They've known nothing but the ugliness and legalism of craig's TWI. They haven't really been allowed to get involved with normal kid stuff and have normal friends. Their vocabularies are warped by TWI and their logic and thought patterns not fully developed in a healthy way.
I remember hearing that Mrs. W used to have a Christmas party for all the kids and they would dress up, sing REAL Christmas songs and have - gasp - Santa Claus visit the kids. The kids who were allowed to believe in Santa and experience that joy and rite of passage.
I hope I didn't sound snippy. I really didn't mean it that way; just wanted to clarify which TWI we were talking about so that someone doesn't try to call me a liar again.
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jardinero
From Kevlar:
I love it!
J.
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coolchef1248 @adelphia.net
i wonder
what does it matter if we celerbrate the birth of christ on dec25 the 4th of july or the first of may? what does it matter?
as long as we clerbrate it every day of our life
so get off it you people who don't like christmass
just love christ and try to enjoy the season
after all it is a great time to witness
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dmiller
Ishtar was the *goddess* easter celebrates.
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markomalley
FYI, the word Easter is an anglicisation of the word Eostre, who was the Teutonic goddess of light, day, spring.
Here is the interesting part of this: the Scandinavian languages and Germanic languages use Easter to represent the Solemnity of the Resurrection of Our Lord (the technical name of the day). In all other cases that I've seen, the word corresponds to the word "pasch" (meaning passover from the Hebrew pasech). In Italian, it's Pasque, in French, it's Pâques, in Greek it's pascha, in Spanish it's pascua.
The customs associated with Easter are, from my experience, largely confined to the same regions. In Southern Europe, that I've seen, the habits are far less 'pagan' in nature -- still nice, but a lot more clearly identifiable as associated with the purpose of the holiday.
Christmas is another story altogether. An interesting history on how the date of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord (it's 'official' name) can be found here. According to the article, the holiday wasn't even celebrated until after 200 AD (at any time of the year) and the date wasn't officially set until This article debunks the Saturnalia theory and assigns the most credibility to the 'christianization' of the Roman holiday 'Natalis Invicti' (or birth of the sun) as a likely reason for the particular date. However, in another section of the article, it says the following:
<blockquote>This checks the so-called correspondence between Cyril of Jerusalem (348-386) and Pope Julius I (337-352), quoted by John of Nikiu (c. 900) to convert Armenia to 25 December (see P.L., VIII, 964 sqq.). Cyril declares that his clergy cannot, on the single feast of Birth and Baptism, make a double procession to Bethlehem and Jordan. (This later practice is here an anachronism.) He asks Julius to assign the true date of the nativity "from census documents brought by Titus to Rome"; Julius assigns 25 December.</blockquote>
Julius would have had access to the archival census records if they existed. But, on the other hand, they might not have existed 350-360 years after the fact.
The bottom line is that there is no conclusive reason as to why it was assigned a certain day. It's not conclusive that it was a replacement for a pagan holiday...it's not for certain that it's for a rational reason...but the important thing is to celebrate the nativity of the Lord...whenever it's celebrated...
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oldiesman
Here are a few more views that Christmas is pagan in origin:
Origin of Christmas
Origin of Christmas
Real Story of Christmas
Surprising Origin of Christmas
About Christmas
Christmas is Spiritual Adultery
Christmas Customs-Are they Christian?
Merry Christmas
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mstar1
Of who does the author speak? of himself? or some other man?
I almost choked when I read this
Holiness? Purity of life?
Tell it to the girls cornered in the motorcoach.
Gimme a break
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Lifted Up
That seemed to be the tone of what I heard VPW say (see my above post if you wish). Again and obviously, things changed.
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Lifted Up
There are significant blocks of people who celebrate Christmas, but at other times than December 25th.
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Catcup
This Christmas I put a Christmas Tree up in my livingroom and made sure I had plenty of angels on it. I made doubly sure that they had wings and some even hold songbooks and are in the pose of singing. Most of my Christmas Cards say Merry Christmas. They should. It happens to be the name of the holiday, as mentioned above, unless of course you are celebrating Chanukka or even Kwanzaa. By the way I have also been known to have a Kwanzaa display in my home as well as Christmas displays. Celebrating one does not preclude the other. I have Santa Claus on my tree as well, along with flying reindeer and even -gasp - ELVES! I do make sure the cards I send to my innie relatives say Merry Christmas quite prominently, just to make a point. And to make another point, I attended a Christmas Concert in a Church conducted and performed by members of Cleveland Lesbian/Gay/Allies and it sounded far better and was performed with more heart than anything I ever witnessed on the stage of the Weirdness Over the World Auditorium. And today I am treating a homeless woman to some decent food, and some well-deserved pampering for a week at a local spa where I have a membership.
So according to TWI (and possibly others) I guess I am simply totally given over to worldliness, ungodliness and paganism.
So be it.
And I pity those who are so backward and mentally bound by intolerance that they are blinded to the love that sent Jesus here in the first place.
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coolchef1248 @adelphia.net
catcup
that is wonderful!
A Very Merry Christmass to you and yours
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HAPe4me
LOL Lifted, In 1982 I remember a branch halloween party (My3cents was there). I dressed as the Pope too, and my wife, who was a very obvious 10 months pregnant, dressed as a nun!
~HAP
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Lifted Up
Yea, I was worshipped LOL. BTW what does that last line on your posts refer to? It's not a reference to Bill Clinton's former fast food cardiac diet, is it?
Just so this post isn't irrelevant, of course through 1979 at least, in residence corps still had those Christmas breaks when we were still allowed to go out into the world on our own. Did those end at some point?
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Catcup
At some point they stopped calling them Christmas Breaks and began calling them "Ho-Ho Relo."
The Corps Director (LCM) and VPW were concerned regarding the number of new Way Corps who dropped out of the program after only 4 months, when returning home for Christmas break. The association with family who are not under the control of TWI, the reintroduction of outside media and adequate amounts of sleep and nutrition seemed to put a "pinch" in the Corps numbers at that time. So, a little "revision" of the "purpose" of this "time period" was in order.
They stopped "Christmas" for the obvious pagan reference, and stopped using "Break," because the word infers a respite from the previous activity. "Relo" or "relocation," simply inferred that even though they were changing locations, they were to continue their former activities of reality/brain disengagement.
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Lifted Up
Well I'm sure my vanishing act during that time of my final residence year wasn't on their minds.
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Catcup
You can bet that it was, along with the many others who left during that time year after year. Christmas break was a huge hole in the Corps program rosters until they made some major tune-ups to their control techniques.
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