Pagan Symbols at Easter do NOT Celebrate Evil Things

Some Christians believe that secular and/or pagan symbols of Easter are mutually exclusive with the Christian celebration of Christ's resurrection. They want to change what has become a largely secular celebration of Easter into "Resurrection Sunday", a solely Christian celebration of the without peeps, eggs, and bunnies. Some even refuse to celebrate Resurrection Sunday, claiming that Easter was an attempt to Christianize an irrevocably pagan holiday.

Whether the peeps and bunnies are idolatrous is a good question, but the concepts behind them are not necessarily antithetical to Christian life. In fact, these symbols represent things that could be considered a precondition of the Christian life.

First, some background. The peep represents new life on earth for obvious reasons. The rabbit represents fertility since to breed like a rabbit is to have many children. Indeed, these symbols celebrate earthly life and not the salvation that Christ accomplished by dying for us at Calvary. But new life on earth isn't necessarily a bad thing because it is a necessary condition of future salvation since there cannot be salvation among people who haven't been born.

People usually think of salvation in terms of saving souls otherwise destined for damnation, thus limiting the number of those sent to hell (or the grave if you don't believe in Hell). But the famous Italian Catholic priest Padre Pio, in one of his remarks, thought of salvation in additive terms. He viewed marriage as a means to "populate the earth and paradise" with saints [emphasis mine]. The Bible seems to affirm expansive procreation--but not in the context of salvation. It presents salvation more as means of preventing people from perishing, "that none would perish," rather than a way to add more souls to heaven. The idea that one should have children just to populate heaven with more Christians is an interesting concept but is not really found in scripture. Having many children could be a way of investing in future missionaries, assuming more than two children become missionaries. This might be called salvific investing.

God blessed Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28, telling them to be fruitful and multiply. Normally, in the Old Testament, children are seen as a blessing. For example, Abraham and Sarah were blessed with their son Isaac. Job was blessed with a family due to fidelity to God after losing his previous one. Psalm 127:3 states that "Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him."*

In the New Testament, there is no conflict with child-bearing, but in some instances, it may seem that way. The apostle Paul writes that it is better for a man not to marry so that he can focus on doing God's work. Not marrying obviously means having no children in the Christian moral paradigm. But Paul's opinion is not a commandment because he permits those who cannot control their urges to marry rather than burn with passion. Paul then esteems childbearing for such people in 1 Timothy 2:15 by writing that a woman "shall be saved through childbearing; if she continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety."

We should add that opposition to the bearing of children within the confines of marriage seems to be forbidden in scripture, as in the case of Onan who deliberately tried to frustrate the act of sex in marriage and thus won the word onanism as his namesake. Pope Pius XI, in Casti Connubii (# 17), Dec. 31, 1930, states quite blatantly that “The primary end of marriage is the procreation and the education of children .” The Bible seems to echo Pius XI's sentiment that a child born and trained to serve God is a blessing. In Luke 1:14-15, an angel tells John the Baptist's mother-to-be that "thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his [John the Baptist's] birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." In other words, the Gospel of Luke seems to affirm the idea of bearing children who go on to be servants of God. But because there are no similar verses, we must consider that it is not a prime concern of the gospels at large.

At the very least, childbearing is not necessarily discouraged in the New Testament and is even commended as long as the children are brought up by a God-fearing wife. In the Old Testament children are seen as a blessing. So, the phenomenon of new life on earth should not be disdained. Furthermore, life on earth is a necessary but not sufficient condition of salvation, since believing in and living for Christ is the sufficient condition.

Indeed, pagan symbols should not overshadow Christian symbols at Easter. Maybe it is inappropriate to idolize fertility in the Spring. But without fertility, Christians would die out. They would either run out of potential pagan converts by evangelizing all of them, or they would go out of existence with only pagans left in their wake. These pagans may come across a written copy of the Bible and convert, but there will be no one around to mentor them. It seems necessary that there be some childbearing as an investment in a Christian future.Thus, the baby of childbearing should not be thrown out with the bath water of pagan symbolism.

In other words, the pagan symbols of Easter can be done away with if they are bad, but the concepts they celebrate should not be seen as antithetical to Christianity.