Carnaval Brasil 2023….

What did the original Carnaval look like, JBL, that made it a revelry of righteousness? I would be interested in hearing of a holy version of this festival, because I can’t really fathom one.

You attribute to me much I never said nor suggested, I have no problem whatsoever with people celebrating life whenever and for whatever reason they wish to and think that is exactly the way we were intended to live, with times for genuine gratitude and celebration.

I am more familiar with Mardi Gras in New Orleans, which is a similar fete.
But my understanding is that these are Spring Equinox fertility festivals and that the modern pagan symbolism is by no means off the mark for the original celebrations. That is why I find it odd to be a church-sanctioned revelry, although I am aware Catholicism absorbed Paganism, in a manner of speaking. Why did they not simply allow the people to enjoy their feast as they always had?

I believe there are likely millions whom could testify against your attributions of church benevolence towards “the entire array of human life” as well as to your idea that they did not enforce a great deal of behavioral rigidity on many fronts, but I’ll leave that to those more personally familiar.

My beliefs as concerns others are pretty straightforward and simple: love everyone, take care of the poor and the widowed and lead a life by example which shows others you’re different and models for them as much as is possible, the love of the Father and grace of the Son.

I don’t believe anyone was ever truly converted out of pressure, fear or coercion. I also don’t believe it is my right nor anywhere mandated to me by my Father to impose my beliefs onto anyone else – their walk is between them and God. All I can do is point the way as best I can.

I don’t think it right for any church to impose itself onto unbelievers, that is politics and not the place of the church. If a church wants to have certain rules for those who decide voluntarily to adhere, so be it, that is an accord.

Of course I do not approve of Paganism or Pagan festivals, but again, it is not for me to facilitate, crush nor change by force or manipulation the aspects of anyone else’s beliefs. You say the church changed these festivals to teach the Christian stories instead, but by following Pagan times and seasons and for the bulk of their symbolism to remain the same or similar…? How did the church fulfill Pagan beliefs via this transformation? Were the Pagans unaware of these subtleties or were then unable to continue their worship as before, only under an approved guise? How did this set them free in any way? If the Church was teaching and training the people as Yeshua did, it shouldn’t seem necessary – by all accounts he drew massive crowds wherever he went, even when he craved a bit of peace for himself.

To answer your last question, the Church imposed itself in violent ways against human beings also endowed by their Creator with free will, just as themselves, and in doing so made themselves idols. They set themselves as above the will of the Creator concerning His own creation, and still continue to do so in many manifestations, to include stealing and hoarding their histories and doling out in censored bites what they deem it proper for people to know.

It is my opinion they would have done far better to teach and train and allow the Father to change people’s hearts so they might be transformed from within rather than cutting them off from undesirable behaviors through force, yet which, within, the people still craved. Through manipulation (witchcraft, ironically) and oppression, the church taught many to love their Paganism all the more ferociously.

Let’s try this again, since my comment is not being approved.

My beliefs as concerns others are pretty straightforward and simple: love everyone, give to the poor, the orphaned and the widowed and lead a life by example which shows others you’re different and models for them as much as is possible, the love of the Father and grace of the Son.

I don’t believe anyone was ever truly converted out of pressure, fear or coercion. I also don’t believe it is my right nor anywhere mandated to me by my Father to impose my beliefs onto anyone else – their walk is between them and God. All I can do is point the way as best I can.

I don’t think it right for any church to impose itself onto unbelievers, that is politics and not the place of the church. If a church wants to have certain rules for those who decide voluntarily to adhere, so be it, that is an accord.

Of course I do not approve of Paganism or Pagan festivals, but again, it is not for me to facilitate, crush nor change by force or manipulation the aspects of anyone else’s beliefs. You say the church changed these festivals to teach the Christian stories instead, but by following Pagan times and seasons and for the bulk of their symbolism to remain the same or similar…? How did the church fulfill Pagan beliefs via this transformation? Were the Pagans unaware of these subtleties, or were they unhindered to continue their worship as before, only under an approved guise? How did this set them free in any way? If the Church was teaching and training the people as Yeshua did, it shouldn’t seem necessary – by all accounts he drew massive crowds wherever he went, even when he craved a bit of peace for himself.

To answer your last question, the Church imposed itself in violent ways against human beings also endowed by their Creator with free will, just as themselves, and in doing so made themselves idols. They set themselves as above the will of the Creator concerning His own creation, and still continue to do so in many manifestations, to include stealing and hoarding their histories and doling out in altered and censored bites what they deem it proper for people to know.

It is my opinion they would have done far better to teach and train and allow the Father to change people’s hearts so they might be transformed from within rather than cutting them off from undesirable behaviors through force, yet which, within, the people still craved. Through manipulation (witchcraft, ironically) and oppression, the church taught many to love their Paganism all the more ferociously.

I very much appreciate the reply, A E. And thanks for persevering, despite the technological mishap.

I think I can agree with most of what you write in your first three paragraphs, so let me go straight to the fourth. It begins:

“Of course I do not approve of Paganism or Pagan festivals, but again, it is not for me to facilitate, crush nor change by force or manipulation the aspects of anyone else’s beliefs.”

I want to pause on this for a moment. In the first place, in ancient times, the question was never about regulating beliefs. The idea of forcing another human being to believe anything, not to speak of stymieing their free will, has always been entirely alien to the original Christian teachings. But it stands to reason that the outward expression of wrong beliefs, whether in act or in public teaching, can in some cases cause damage to other individuals than the miscreant, and this is where the real question emerges: how, and when, is it right to regulate or alter these expressions?

Now, I suspect that you cannot help but agree that some amount of intervention, even at the level of law, is necessary here. I doubt you would say, for instance, that it is wrong to establish laws prohibiting human sacrifice, and, unless you correct my course, I will proceed on the premise that you agree that this kind of law is not only acceptable, but even obligatory in a Christian society.

Human sacrifice, of course, is a very extreme and uncontroversial case. But if we allow the justice of even a single intervention, the question immediately becomes where the line should be drawn. And here, we discover a great crowd of problems, to whose gravity and difficulty, it seems to me, your position does not do justice, as: Are Christian societies not obliged to protect the innocent that live within them? What of the innocent children, who might be exposed to destructive notions and practices in pagan households or communities, opening the way to an increase in socially deleterious activity over the course of generations and thus affecting the whole of the commonwealth? Or what if a Christian society, in which such things like human sacrifice are absolutely prohibited, comes into immediate contact with a pagan society, wherein such practices are still rife (as happened, for instance, when the Spanish touched ground in South America)? Is it better to attempt to approach such peoples peacably and to convert them by example over time, even while they are slaying the innocent day by day? Or still again, should charismatic liars be permitted to publicly teach falsehoods that will confuse the minds and damage the souls of simple-minded folk?

I do not pretend to have a neat and tidy answer to these questions, but I do think that it is not always easy to separate intolerable crimes (e.g. human sacrifice) from tolerable errors (e.g. this or that private theological error). One might surely wonder if the festivities we are discussing do not fall into the latter category. After all, what harm does it really do, if certain individuals go about celebrating some pagan festival in a particularly ribald or excessive way? As long as they don’t hurt anyone, or damage any property, should they not be allowed to do as they please, and take the responsibility for any self-harm on their own shoulders?

These are, I allow, entirely valid questions. But I would submit that the consequences of too great a libertarian permissiveness are becoming terribly evident in our own day, when the examples of (to name but a few) grotesque gay pride celebrations or the rampant sexuality and violence of our internet spaces and televisions and films makes for a certain social inescapable atmosphere which our children breathe in from infancy, despite the best efforts of their parents to shield them from it. It becomes clearer, year by year, why the earliest Christian lawgivers thought it best to outright prohibit pagan worship: for this worship is not an isolated evil, but inevitably becomes a common disease. All of this not even to speak of the plight of a Christian lawgiver or statesman in a secular government, who is impossibly expected to live in his private capacity as though the Gospel were true, and to act in his public capacity as though it were but one opinion among many!

Of course, it is essential to note that Christianity did not conquer the world via laws, nor through the violent imposition of its ways, but rather through the example of individual Christians, and their bearing witness to the Truth; this is, indeed, the proper means of transmitting the faith. To this extent, A E, we altogether agree. I also agree with you that, wherever men have relied on the sword rather than the Gospel to establish Christianity, they have done impious violence, not only against their fellow man, but against the very faith they claimed to be bearing into the world. Nonetheless, I think that the problems I have noted are in no way clear-cut, nor is the solution to them as simple as letting each to his own.

To much more briefly answer several of your other (very searching) questions:

“How did the church fulfill Pagan beliefs via this transformation?”

By bringing to fruition that in them which was right and good, and by eliminating that which was false and corrupting.

“Were the Pagans unaware of these subtleties, or were they unhindered to continue their worship as before, only under an approved guise?”

The pagans were indeed unaware of certain elements of this problem — not because they were fools or backwards (quite the contrary), but because they were human beings, limited by the native limitations of our human condition. The revelation of God, by God, in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ gives to human beings wisdom and perspective that it can not gain on its own. Once that revelation has been accepted by a society, nothing can remain the same; but that is not to say that everything must vanish and be replaced. Thus, the pagans could not worship as they once had, but that which was good in their worship was preserved and exalted in the spirit of Christ.

“How did this set them free in any way?”

By bringing the whole of society into greater correspondence with the Truth, and producing an upward spiral towards sanctification from generation to generation. Freedom is in Christ and Christ alone.

Once again, A E, I’m grateful for the thoughtfulness and levelness of your reply.

I think I haven’t adequately explained my position, and so I’d like make some clarifications. When I speak of the Church, I intend mainly the united Church prior to the Schism. I am an Orthodox Christian, and believe that the Tradition has been maintained in its fullness only in Orthodoxy, so my comments regarding the Church can also be extended to the history and scope of the Orthodox Church, as well. On the other hand, while I have tremendous respect and affection for many aspects of the (especially historical) Catholic Church, I believe that, following the Schism, it strayed in several consequential ways from the true path, and so fell into a variety of dire and overly political attitudes that in many infamous cases had terrible consequences. So, though I am bound to quibble with much of our contemporary censure of the Catholics, I think I can for the most part agree with the critiques of Catholic abuses that you have so far broached.

With regard to the Church of the first millennium, however, the use of violence was strikingly minimal, even by the standards of our contemporary peaceful democracies, to say nothing of the polities of the ancient world, where the pacifism and unarmed victory of the Christians was truly incredible. In the first centuries of the Church’s rise, which I consider to offer the historical model for Christ-like behavior in the full scope of our complicated human societies, the Church never relied on “superior weaponry and manpower”; quite the contrary. Even when it had gained universal authority throughout the Roman Empire, episodes of violence against heretics were exceedingly rare, and, when they occurred, came almost exclusively through uncontrolled mobs or through the temporal power of the Roman state — a political apparatus with a long prior history of relying on extreme brutality to put down insurrections. What is amazing is not that such violence appeared in the context of the Empire, but that it was used so sparingly.

There were, to be sure, many very prohibitive religious laws in place in Christendom, and this might be the locus of our dispute. We seem to have two different ideas of the just extent of Christian influence over the political sphere. I think you would limit it unreasonably, and that was the reason for the questions I posed in my last response. My only purpose with them was to indicate that, in many cases, a perfectly laissez faire approach to cultural or social or religious problems is impossible. I had no intention of suggesting answers to these questions, and still less of indicating how I would act were I in the position of the legislator — a role for which I feel myself profoundly inadequate, even in theory. I definitely do not support, for instance, the removal of children from parental custody, or universal censorship of un-Christian ideas, or anything of the sort. But I also do not believe that, in a Christian society, it is reasonable or consistent to, for instance, permit the absolutely free practice of pagan rites in communities within a Christian nation, or to ignore horrendous abuses which are occurring in nearby polities, or to allow clearly heretical movements to gain such social and political power that they begin to threaten the equilibrium of the Christian order. Again, it is extremely difficult to find the right place to draw these lines. My argument is only that such lines have to be drawn within, and not outside of, the legal framework of a Christian nation.

Now, having said that, you several times make an excellent point regarding our present plight, and here we are entirely of one mind: we must be wary of granting any greater power to a governmental juggernaut which is already too inclined toward totalitarianism. The last thing we need are new laws, even if the aims of these laws seem to be good and sound in and of themselves.

Unfortunately, our conversation has been a bit ambiguous, because it is not always clear when we are talking about history, and when we are talking about the present day. I think we probably largely agree on the proper attitude and strategy of Christians today; our main dispute centers on the historical attitude and action of the Church, which (as it presently seems to me) you misunderstand through a combination of (unhappily common) historical mischaracterizations on the one hand, and underestimation of the full range of complex difficulties naturally entailed by the mere existence of a Christian commonwealth, particularly in a pagan world, on the other. I suspect, though I am not certain, that our disagreement comes down to a dispute on the proper relations between “church” and “state.” It seems at times that you are proposing a neat division between the two spheres; for my part, I think that so clean a separation is impossible even practically speaking. The question is always what kind of influence of the one on the other there should be, to what extent, and governed by what principles and authority.

This was my point about the Christian statesman. We agree that “If individual church members wish to join the ranks of lawmakers or enforcement, that is their personal walk,” and we agree that it is a modern perversion to hold that “a man may not exercise his religion in the course of public office”; but I do not think you are evaluating the manifold ways in which Christian beliefs will necessarily influence and change the lawgiver’s determination of what laws are right and fitting, particularly if he lives in a nominally Christian society. I’ll limit myself to a single example: can a Christian lawgiver, in good conscience and without betraying his faith, tolerate the existence of open idolatry in his nation, or accept a legal framework which treats idolatry as if it were somehow not a crime against God, when this practice has been prohibited again and again in the strongest possible terms by God Himself, throughout both the Old and the New Testaments?

As for your closing remarks, I will even thank you for your directness, but I would have still better appreciated some clearer indication of how I missed your point, or in what way you found my responses “dissatisfying and inadequate.” I won’t try to guess at this — I’ve already made that mistake once in our conversation — so I’ll have to leave the matter lie where it has fallen, with an open invitation to you to pick it up again, should you feel, as I do, that something edifying might come of our further dialogue.

Be that as it will, I certainly return your kind closing; my best wishes to you and yours.