Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sabbath, Sunday, Saturday, Lord's Day? (was Re: Law and Love) Message-ID: Date: 22 Oct 89 17:01:09 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 41 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu 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?