crowe@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Daniel Crowe) (10/22/89)
>[A number of our readers may find the suggestion that they are >worshipping Baal to be slightly lacking in Christian charity. If they >worship the Sun because they worship on Sunday, do you worship Saturn >because you worship on Saturday? The proper terms are, of course, the >Lord's Day and the Sabbath, respectively. In common speech we often >use the normal English words because we are speaking English. --clh] Two points: 1) The Lord's Day appears in the Bible only once, and most probably does not refer to Sunday, or the first day of the week in the Jewish calendar. In fact, it most probably refers to the seventh day, the Sabbath. The usage of the Lord's Day to refer to the first day of the week began much later. 2) Christians began worshipping on Sunday primarily because most of them had been pagans and were accustomed to worshipping the sun on that day. For these two reasons, it is appropriate to refer to the days of worship as the Sabbath and Sunday. -- Daniel (God is my judge) | "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to physics graduate student | speak and slow to become angry, for man's City College of New York | anger does not bring about the righteous crowe@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | life that God desires." (James 1:19-20,NIV)
hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (10/23/89)
crowe@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Daniel Crowe) points out that usage of "Lord's Day" for the first day of the week is not Biblical (or not umambiguously so -- the only example is Rev 1:10, and it's impossible to prove which day that referred to). He also asserts > 2) Christians began worshipping on Sunday primarily because most of them > had been pagans and were accustomed to worshipping the sun on that day. > For these two reasons, it is appropriate to refer to the days of worship > as the Sabbath and Sunday. I find these comments very strange. First, there are no real historical records describing establishment of worship on the first day. The Church generally claims that it is celebrating the Resurrection. You have chosen to accept an uncharitable conjecture instead. Furthermore, you have chosen to extend this uncharitable intepretation to modern Christians. Surely you don't believe that most of us were Sun-worshippers before we joined the Church. Of your final comment, I have to ask: In what sense is it appropriate to refer to the normal Christian day of worship as Sunday? You are obviously using Sunday with pagan connotations. In what sense is it appropriate for a Christian to refer to any day of the week in that way? Do you believe that days of the week can become permanently unholy because of pagan practices that took place on them? I normally use the words Saturday and Sunday without any consideration for their pagan overtones. At some point the history behind a word becomes irrelevant: It means what it means. But if the words had a pagan connotation for me, I would surely do as the Friends do, and use the terms First-Day, etc. Surely the belief that we should keep the Sabbath does not imply that worship on any other day of the week is a pagan act. I could understand it if you accused me simply of failing to keep the Sabbath. I cannot understand your insistence that I am worshipping on a pagan day. How can there be such a thing? Even if you think we are wrong and perhaps even sinful in failing to keep the Sabbath, do you not recognize our worship as Christian worship? Does the fact that we are in a state of sin because we reject the Sabbath make all attempts to worship pagan? This seems equivalent to asserting that God will only accept worship from sinless people. Or do you really believe that it is impossible to worship on the first day of the week?
bill@uunet.uu.net (Bill Aumack) (10/27/89)
I can not speak for the person who wrote the article, but here are my humble opinions. (And they are opinions because I can not speak for God.) God obviously accepts worship from people who are sinful. If He did not then no one could worship Him. The real question seems to be, will God accept worship from people who are intentionally not obeying His commands. If you believe the Bible says to worship on the 7th day, yet you worship on the 1st - you would be intentionally ignoring God's commands. I believe that God accepts all people know matter how much they have sinned. But I also believe that it is up to us to follow His commands as best as we are able (with His help of course). That includes His day of worship. Bill Aumack
horton@b11.ingr.com (Mac Horton) (10/30/89)
I know I said I wasn't going to post anymore, but...one little drink won't hurt; I can quit anytime I want to. I think this continuing business about a Sunday vs. Saturday Sabbath is elucidated by knowledge of what Seventh Day Adventists believe. Charles Hedrick says, in reply to something from Daniel Crowe: >Surely the belief that we should keep the Sabbath does not imply that >worship on any other day of the week is a pagan act. I could >understand it if you accused me simply of failing to keep the Sabbath. >I cannot understand your insistence that I am worshipping on a pagan >day. How can there be such a thing? Even if you think we are wrong >and perhaps even sinful in failing to keep the Sabbath, do you not >recognize our worship as Christian worship?.... I don't remember whether Daniel has stated that he is a Seventh Day Adventist or not, but certainly some of the proponents of a Saturday Sabbath are. And to see this from the Adventist point of view sheds some light on why they attach such importance to a question which other Protestants consider peripheral. Adventists believe that the change from Saturday to Sunday was the work of the Roman Catholic Church, and that the RCC (or, more specifically, the papacy) is the anti-Christ (more specifically, the "little horn" of the beast in Revelations). The change is considered to be a fulfillment of a prophecy in the book of Daniel. If you start from those assumptions, then acceptance of the change on the part of other Protestants constitutes collusion with the enemy--not deliberate, of course, but at least a very serious failure to comply with God's law-- and a serious, if not fatal, defect in the purification of the Church by the various forces of the Protestant Reformation, a sort of poisoning of the whole effort by the leftover taint of Catholicism. -- Mac Horton @ Intergraph | horton@ingr.COM | ..uunet!ingr!horton -- They arrested me for forgery, and I can't sign my name. --Furry Lewis [Note that my reply was directed, not at those who simply say that we should worship on Saturday, but to someone who said that worshipping on Sunday was pagan. I have no quarrel with groups that believe the Law commits them to worship on Saturday. Paul advises us to respect people who continue to obey restrictions, even though we know that we are free of them. I would not even object to attempts to persuade us that we should still obey the Law, though I certainly would not accept such arguments. My real objection is with people who attempt to discredit the practice of other groups by dredging up pagan asociations for practices that certainly have no pagan content now and probably never did. --clh]
crowe@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Daniel Crowe) (10/30/89)
I wrote: >> 2) Christians began worshipping on Sunday primarily because most of them >> had been pagans and were accustomed to worshipping the sun on that day. >> For these two reasons, it is appropriate to refer to the days of worship >> as the Sabbath and Sunday. In article <Oct.22.13.01.08.1989.25159@athos.rutgers.edu> clh writes: >I find these comments very strange. First, there are no real >historical records describing establishment of worship on the first >day. The Church generally claims that it is celebrating the >Resurrection. You have chosen to accept an uncharitable conjecture >instead. Furthermore, you have chosen to extend this uncharitable >intepretation to modern Christians. Surely you don't believe that >most of us were Sun-worshippers before we joined the Church. The historical records that do exist are discussed by Samuele Bacchiocchi in his book *FROM SABBATH TO SUNDAY: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity* (Rome: The Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1977, distributed in the USA by the author, 230 Lisa Lane, Berrien Springs, Michigan 49103) The book is an abridgement of Bacchiocchi's doctoral thesis which was prepared at The Pontifical Gregorian University. The book has received an imprimatur. My statement was not an uncharitable conjecture: it was based upon Mr. Bacchiocchi's research. Also, I did not mean to imply that I believe that most Sunday-keeping Christians were sun worshippers before they joined the church. Our moderator has read more into my statements than they contain. I also did not mean to imply that the only appropriate terms are the Sabbath and Sunday, but merely that these terms are appropriate. Our moderator stated that the *only* correct terms are the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. -- Daniel (God is my judge) | "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to physics graduate student | speak and slow to become angry, for man's City College of New York | anger does not bring about the righteous crowe@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | life that God desires." (James 1:19-20,NIV)