Chinese New Year and Christians (Jesus, priests, rituals, exodus)

[t3gah]

Chinese New Year is the celebration for the Chinese Kitchen God and the Money God. This celebration usually happens around late January or early February on the Gregorian calendar which is what the Western world uses. The Chinese calendar is completely different and so the exact date for their New Year's celebration varies from year to year when compared to the Gregorian calendar.

Chinese New Year - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year%27s_Eve)

According to the bible, worshiping other God's is not persmissable.

Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me."

This is a poll and Debate.

Do you think a Christian is ok celebrating Chinese New Year?

[robtex]

You do realize as a missionary (you are a cyber missionary right?) that this is a substandarded marketing strategy if you are trying to market Christianity in China or in chinese communties in the United States. The reason Christianty is filled with holidays from other religions in the first place is because missionaries in the past realized that those religious holidays became cultural customs and that finding ways to incorporate them into Christianity had a postive impact on marketing the religion with different cultures.

Inversly speaking segregating the holidays, which again became a product of the communities culture was and is synonomous with segregating the religion too. The notions you are advocating were tested by missionaries long before you were born and have led to the empire that Christianity has become today being the dominant religion with a whooping 33 % of the total world population. Hard to argue with numbers like that. Incorporating holidays as a recruiting tool has had a postitive yield and given Christianity the numbers it has today.

[t3gah]

Originally Posted by robtex

You do realize as a missionary (you are a cyber missionary right?) that this is a substandarded marketing strategy if you are trying to market Christianity in China or in chinese communties in the United States. The reason Christianty is filled with holidays from other religions in the first place is because missionaries in the past realized that those religious holidays became cultural customs and that finding ways to incorporate them into Christianity had a postive impact on marketing the religion with different cultures.

Inversly speaking segregating the holidays, which again became a product of the communities culture was and is synonomous with segregating the religion too. The notions you are advocating were tested by missionaries long before you were born and have led to the empire that Christianity has become today being the dominant religion with a whooping 33 % of the total world population. Hard to argue with numbers like that. Incorporating holidays as a recruiting tool has had a postitive yield and given Christianity the numbers it has today.

Only one little problem with those 'Christians' incorporating any pagan holiday to generate a larger Christian userbase and that is that they ceased being Christians the moment they did so. A Christian is someone that follows and adhere's to the teachings of the Christ. If you go off on you own to do your own thing you aren't with Jesus anymore. There's scriptures to back up everything in the human condition.

Those stats with the term "Christianity" are not relevant since many of those who keep them aren't real Christian's to begin with or they would know how to eliminate the false Christian data from their polls.

(2 Chronicles 15:2) Yahweh is with you, while you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

[robtex]

Originally Posted by t3gah

Those stats with the term "Christianity" are not relevant since many of those who keep them aren't real Christian's to begin with or they would know how to eliminate the false Christian data from their polls.

The poles were secular. The people conducting them asked demographical info and than asked what religion the person belonged to. No qualify questions were presented.

Interesting that you just wrote off most Chrisitians as pseudo-Christians based on rituals. That could be a thread all to itself..if a religion is the sum of the rituals prefromed by its members. hmmm.

[t3gah]

Jeremiah 17:5
Thus says Yahweh: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh.

Jeremiah 17:6
For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.

Jeremiah 17:7
Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose trust Yahweh is.

[t3gah]

2 Corinthians 6:14
Don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? Or what communion has light with darkness?

2 Corinthians 6:15
What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever?

2 Corinthians 6:16
What agreement has a temple of God with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

2 Corinthians 6:17
Therefore, "'Come out from among them, And be separate,' says the Lord, 'Touch no unclean thing. I will receive you.

2 Corinthians 6:18
I will be to you a Father. You will be to me sons and daughters,' says the Lord Almighty."

[robtex]

I read your Bible posts..didn't see new year in there.....can you please articulate how you derived new years as a non sanction or unsantionable holiday from your Christian knowledge?

[Bastet]

Originally Posted by robtex

I read your Bible posts..didn't see new year in there.....can you please articulate how you derived new years as a non sanction or unsantionable holiday from your Christian knowledge?

C'mon robtex, get with the program! "You shall have no other gods before me." Since the Chinese New Year involves such things as smearing a paper effigy of Zao Jun (the Stove Master - or kitchen god - so named due to a rather unfortunate incident involving his wife and the kitchen hearth), with honey, so that when he goes up to Heaven and tells Yu Huang (the Jade Emperor), what you've been up to all year, you'll either 'sweeten' his words, or stick his mouth shut...well, say no more. Gods aplenty, other than the Christian God. Egads! And hey, did anyone else notice the whole "he knows if you've been bad or good" thing in that little Zao Jun scenario...obviously the work of Santa...uh, Satan... It's evil I tells ya! Eeeeevaaaaal!

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by t3gah

Chinese New Year is the celebration for the Chinese Kitchen God and the Money God.

Um... no it's not. That's like saying that Christmas is a celebration for Santa Claus. Chinese New Year is a celebration of the NEW YEAR. The Kitchen God is an incidental character related to the spirit of the holiday. Yes, there is the belief that he goes up to heaven at the end of the year to report on the household. But what that means is that with the new year we assess our actions for the past year and remember that we are accountable. (Similar to Yom Kippur in Judaism.) The Kitchen God represents that accountability, just as Santa represents the spirit of giving. The idea of smearing his lips with honey so that he can only report sweet things is a subversion of the original intent, just as asking Santa for things instead of thinking about giving is a subversion.

Originally Posted by t3gah

This celebration usually happens around late January or early February on the Gregorian calendar which is what the Western world uses. The Chinese calendar is completely different and so the exact date for their New Year's celebration varies from year to year when compared to the Gregorian calendar.

February 8th this year, for anyone who is interested.