A Story of Augustine and White Slaves of Kent
By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:
Folks take a little bit of Native American spirituality, Celtic ways, and old Germanic folk-tales mixed with incense and booze and call it a lifestyle when all it represents is a grasping in darkness and believing in whatever you pull out.Historical Background in How to Deal With the Rising Tide of Paganism
Howdy!
The winter season has come a little early here to South Carolina. We had our first frost last week and there was snow spotted in the mountains on the last day of October. It’s currently 38 degrees as I type. As a young man I loved cold weather and relished the blessings which came with it, mainly skiing and ice skating. However, as I have grown older summer has become moreso my favorite time of year when it comes to temps and times. Being warm has its privileges. Yet it is the closing of the calendar when the fun holidays start ringing their bells. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year each have their unique place. The feasting festivals following the harvest and the battening down that was necessary for our ancestors in the winter months has not failed to continue in our less compartmentalized culture.
Those of us with northern European blood descend from folks who likewise enjoyed celebrations as the days grew shorter and colder. In fact much of what we think about when we consider pre-Christian Europe has our minds drawn towards Yule, the Solstice, and the darkness of the barren trees and wind-swept snowy moors of yesteryear. Before Columba, Patrick, and St. Olaf worked the gospel in the hearts of the men and women of the British Isles and the pagan lands of Scandinavia all of our people offered their sacrifices to Odin and the faeries, particularly as the sun set until spring. One of the things gathering steam in our own day is a growing attachment to the old gods. While contemporary Americans dabbling in such don’t have quite the gumption to go all the way with their re-adoption of the old ways (no one is slicing the heads off bulls in the middle of Fort Mill yet) there is no question that many are seeking to be reattached spiritually so that they kind of find something they feel lacking in suburban Christianity. For our prayer and worship help today we are going to begin to get into the why question, and the where. It’s important that if our desire is to warn and retrieve those wandering into the clutches of false deities that we understand where that call comes from, so that it can be replaced with truth.
The winter season has come a little early here to South Carolina. We had our first frost last week and there was snow spotted in the mountains on the last day of October. It’s currently 38 degrees as I type. As a young man I loved cold weather and relished the blessings which came with it, mainly skiing and ice skating. However, as I have grown older summer has become moreso my favorite time of year when it comes to temps and times. Being warm has its privileges. Yet it is the closing of the calendar when the fun holidays start ringing their bells. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year each have their unique place. The feasting festivals following the harvest and the battening down that was necessary for our ancestors in the winter months has not failed to continue in our less compartmentalized culture.
Those of us with northern European blood descend from folks who likewise enjoyed celebrations as the days grew shorter and colder. In fact much of what we think about when we consider pre-Christian Europe has our minds drawn towards Yule, the Solstice, and the darkness of the barren trees and wind-swept snowy moors of yesteryear. Before Columba, Patrick, and St. Olaf worked the gospel in the hearts of the men and women of the British Isles and the pagan lands of Scandinavia all of our people offered their sacrifices to Odin and the faeries, particularly as the sun set until spring. One of the things gathering steam in our own day is a growing attachment to the old gods. While contemporary Americans dabbling in such don’t have quite the gumption to go all the way with their re-adoption of the old ways (no one is slicing the heads off bulls in the middle of Fort Mill yet) there is no question that many are seeking to be reattached spiritually so that they kind of find something they feel lacking in suburban Christianity. For our prayer and worship help today we are going to begin to get into the why question, and the where. It’s important that if our desire is to warn and retrieve those wandering into the clutches of false deities that we understand where that call comes from, so that it can be replaced with truth.
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