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Only Sky ✒ In the last few hundred years in the West, we may observe the following progression:

Under the influence of secularization, what for centuries had been wrapped in the trappings of faith gets transformed into routine worldly convention—without a religious aroma.

Here are some examples:

  • The holy birthday of baby Jesus becomes the season of Santa Claus, airborne reindeer, and ornamental pagan pines raised in living rooms over wrapped gifts of toys, clothes, and jewelry.
  • Holy Easter Sunday, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, becomes a tableau for Peter Cotton Tail and a basket full of dyed multi-colored hard-boiled eggs and yellow Peeps.
  • The feast day of St. Valentine, a third-century Roman Christian martyr, becomes the venue of romance, heart-shaped boxes of mixed chocolates, and a clutch of twenty-four of the reddest roses anyone ever saw.
  • The feast day of St. Patrick, a fifth-century British evangelist to Ireland, becomes an occasion to wear lime-colored clothes, drink green beer, and march down Main street in a boisterous banner-waving parade only to throw up in a city gutter.
  • All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All’s Saint’s Day, becomes a carnival of costumes and grotesqueries for children begging for candy door to door.

The New Year is no different. Beginning with an air of religiosity, it eventually and inescapably becomes a secularized convention in the Western world.

Continue reading @ Only Sky.

What The Secular Shift Has Done To New Year’s Resolutions

Only Sky ✒ In the last few hundred years in the West, we may observe the following progression:

Under the influence of secularization, what for centuries had been wrapped in the trappings of faith gets transformed into routine worldly convention—without a religious aroma.

Here are some examples:

  • The holy birthday of baby Jesus becomes the season of Santa Claus, airborne reindeer, and ornamental pagan pines raised in living rooms over wrapped gifts of toys, clothes, and jewelry.
  • Holy Easter Sunday, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, becomes a tableau for Peter Cotton Tail and a basket full of dyed multi-colored hard-boiled eggs and yellow Peeps.
  • The feast day of St. Valentine, a third-century Roman Christian martyr, becomes the venue of romance, heart-shaped boxes of mixed chocolates, and a clutch of twenty-four of the reddest roses anyone ever saw.
  • The feast day of St. Patrick, a fifth-century British evangelist to Ireland, becomes an occasion to wear lime-colored clothes, drink green beer, and march down Main street in a boisterous banner-waving parade only to throw up in a city gutter.
  • All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All’s Saint’s Day, becomes a carnival of costumes and grotesqueries for children begging for candy door to door.

The New Year is no different. Beginning with an air of religiosity, it eventually and inescapably becomes a secularized convention in the Western world.

Continue reading @ Only Sky.

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