10 PAGAN Traditions of Mainstream Christianity!

 Do you, as a Christian, consider God to be the ultimate authority? Do you consider the Bible to be His written Word and therefore, likewise, the ultimate authority?

Does your church? Does your church base all its doctrines, to the best of its knowledge, on God’s Word? Or does it instead follow the traditions of men? Worse yet, does it follow pagan traditions masquerading as Christian ones?

God’s Word says, “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deut. 12:32).

Jesus Christ spoke to the religious leaders of His day, quoting Isaiah the prophet, “In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat. 15:9). Has very much changed from that day to this?

Given the differing doctrines and the many disagreements among the churches out there in this world, it logically follows that they can’t all be right. Most of them must be “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, for Jesus told us, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are MANY who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are FEW who find it” (Mat. 7:13-14).

Indeed, Jesus and all His apostles warned that there would be mass apostasy. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves” (Mat. 7:15). They warned of “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:13). “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you” (2 Pet. 2:1). “But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13).

God’s Word tells us that Satan the Devil “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). How can he do that? Because he “transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). Just like all the false prophets, teachers, and apostles that he sends out into the world, he pretends to be what he isn’t: a messenger of truth.

Since Satan deceives the whole world, since there are MANY who follow the way of Satan and FEW who follow the way of God, then it’s no surprise that Jesus told us many Christians won’t be in His Kingdom (Mat. 7:21-23):

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

22 “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’

23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Who would call themselves by Christ’s name? Christians! Who would Satan try his hardest to deceive? The people of God! And who would he send false teachers and false apostles among? The people of God.

So let’s take a look at some of the apostasies and unbiblical doctrines taught by mainstream Christianity over the last 1,900 years, since the time that Jesus and His apostles warned of mass apostasy.

We’ve covered many of these pagan doctrines in more detail previously. In such cases, you’ll find links to those more in-depth studies below.

1. Heaven and Hell

Most churches teach that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. The good spend eternity floating on the clouds, playing harps. The bad spend eternity in the flames of hell, getting stabbed by demons armed with pitchforks.

In contrast, as we’ve noted before, God’s Word says that the righteous and the wicked all die alike: “All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous and the wicked” (Eccl. 9:2). It goes on to tell us, “The dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun” (Eccl. 9:5-6).

Jesus Christ plainly told us, “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven” (John 3:13). In Acts 2:29, over a month after Jesus’ resurrection, the apostle Peter declared, “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” He added, “David did not ascend into the heavens” (Acts 2:34).

Instead, the Bible speaks of the dead as simply being asleep. Of being at rest. They know nothing; they have no consciousness. The martyr Stephen, at his death, “fell asleep” (Acts 7:60). King David “fell asleep” (Acts 13:36). All our forefathers “fell asleep” (2 Pet. 3:4).

Jesus taught that, at the time appointed by His Father, “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (John 5:25). And again, “The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28-29).

The righteous will inherit eternal life. The wicked will perish forever: “They are deceased, they will not rise. Therefore You have punished and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish” (Isa. 26:14). They will be burned to ashes (Mal. 4:3) in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14-15).

Nowhere does the Bible speak of the wicked being tortured throughout eternity. Such a concept is alien to God’s character. Our Creator shows mercy even to the wicked (Luke 6:35-36), and He “will not remain angry forever” (Jer. 3:12). No, He will simply destroy the wicked, and they will be forgotten.

There’s no concept of heaven and hell in the Bible, but there is in paganism. Every pagan religion has included a paradise ruled over by the “good” gods and an underworld ruled over the bad gods. Throughout pagan mythology, one finds fables of torture and misery in the underworld. Mainstream Christianity learned these ideas from paganism, not from the Word of God.

No, folks, our old friends and likable relatives aren’t looking down on us from the clouds and smiling. Our old enemies and unlikable relatives aren’t looking up at us from the flames of hell and crying.

They’re all asleep! They feel no pain nor any fear, but are simply at rest. They will awaken only when Jesus Christ calls them forth from their graves.

Further Reading: What Happens When You Die?

2. Christmas

Every year on December 25th, billions of professing Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus by focusing most of their attention on other things, such as gift-giving, Santa Claus, reindeer, elves, pretty lights, ugly sweaters, and evergreen trees. What any of these things have to do with the birth of Christ, we aren’t told. But it’s not just Christians; millions of atheists, secularists, Muslims, and admitted pagans celebrate Christmas, too, and in roughly the same way.

There’s zero evidence that Jesus Christ was born on December 25th, and plenty of evidence that He wasn’t. The Bible never tells us when He was born — probably because God didn’t want us to celebrate His birthday!

The Bible never makes Christ’s birthday an annual holiday, nor did He or His followers ever celebrate it. Instead, He told us to remember His death (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24). In all its pages, the Bible mentions only two birthday celebrations, and both honored pagan rulers: the Egyptian Pharaoh (Gen. 40:20) and King Herod (Mat. 14:6).

As we’ve observed previously, Christmas first appeared among church holidays in the 4th century AD — roughly 300 years after Christ’s crucifixion! In its article on Christmas, The Catholic Encyclopedia confesses that early Christians didn’t celebrate Christmas, that they shunned birthday parties of any kind, and that the pagans celebrated the birthdays of their gods.

Indeed, the old Julian calendar marked December 25th as the winter solstice, and Roman pagans celebrated the rebirth of Sol Invictus, “the unconquered sun,” on that day. Throughout history, pagans held festivities around the winter solstice, such as the Roman Saturnalia and the Germanic Yule.

Furthermore, the Christmas imagery of Santa Claus, reindeer, elves, evergreen trees, wreaths, and lights are found nowhere in Biblical teaching. These are all hand-me-down trappings of Saturnalia and Yule, as we’ve previously documented. And the devilish deities honored at these celebrations, especially the Roman Saturn and the Germanic Odin, go straight back to Baal and Molech.

God explicitly told His people NOT to worship Him in the manner that the pagans worshiped their gods:

2 You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.

3 “And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place.

4 “You shall not worship the LORD your God with such things.” (Deut. 12:2-4).

The apostle Paul warned, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry” (1 Cor. 10:14). Again, “And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God” (2 Cor. 6:15-16).

But as time passed, and all of Jesus’ apostles died, many early Christians paid less and less heed to God’s instructions. Much like the Israelites of old, the Christians began to worship God in the manner of the heathens around them. And so it has continued to this day.

Further Reading: A Most Mysterious Holiday: The Rest of the Story

3. Easter and Good Friday

Similarly, billions of Christians mourn Christ’s death with solemn ceremonies on Good Friday. In Orthodox and Methodist denominations, as well as Catholic (prior to 1955), the clergy cloak themselves and their churches in black on this day. Many denominations make it a day of fasting.

And then, on Easter Sunday, they celebrate His resurrection with a sunrise vigil, the Easter bunny, chocolates, colored eggs, and an Easter ham. Once again, they celebrate Jesus with things that have nothing to do with Him.

In reality, Jesus Christ didn’t die on Good Friday, nor did He rise from the dead on Easter Sunday. As we’ve documented previously, He died on a Wednesday and rose near the end of the Sabbath. He first appeared to His disciples on the first day of the week, Sunday, but that isn’t when He rose.

Jesus commanded us to remember His death (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24-25), but He never commanded us to mourn it. Why would we mourn Him when He is alive? And why would we mourn our own redemption that He paid for us?

God commands no mourning on His Holy Days: “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn nor weep” (Neh. 8:9). Even fast days aren’t sad days: “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place” (Mat. 6:16-18).

The memorial of Christ’s death is a solemn event, not a mournful one. It’s a time for us to give humble thanks for our Creator’s unfathomable love and devotion.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus died as our Passover Lamb on “the Preparation Day of the Passover” (John 19:14). He died just prior to a Sabbath that “was a high day” (John 19:31), meaning the First Day of Unleavened Bread. So Jesus’ death happened at the time of the Passover sacrifice and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7-8).

When His disciples discovered His empty tomb, it was early morning and still dark (John 20:1; Mat. 28:1). No rabbits, eggs, or sunrise service was involved in any of this! Nor were there any Easter pastries, for it was still the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So if Jesus didn’t die on a Friday or rise with the sun on Sunday morning; if there’s to be no mourning for His death, but humble thanks for His sacrifice; and if there’s no Scriptural tradition of Easter bunnies, eggs, or pastries, then where do these traditions come from?

As we’ve observed before, the Bible tells us. God showed the prophet Ezekiel a vision of the abominations of Judah. First, he looked at the gate of God’s temple, “and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz” (Ezek. 8:14). Next, “At the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east” (Ezek. 8:16).

The ancient Babylonians worshiped Tammuz, a shepherd god who supposedly died and went to the underworld, only to rise again. Every year, they mourned his death and then celebrated his “resurrection.” They even called him “the dead anointed one,” or “the dead messiah”! In like manner, the Egyptians wept for Osiris and then celebrated his resurrection; the Greeks did the same for Adonis; the Romans and the peoples of Asia Minor, for Attis.

In all these pagan religions, this false messiah was the lover of a fertility goddess called “the queen of heaven.” We read about her in the Bible, too. God said to Jeremiah the prophet, “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger” (Jer. 7:18).

As they mourned this false messiah, the pagans also honored his lover, the queen of heaven. In Greece and Rome, they worshiped her on Friday and called the day by her name. The modern name “Friday” stems from “Freya-day,” after the Germanic queen of heaven.

So the pagans worshiped the queen of heaven on Fridays and baked cakes for her. They wept over her lover each year and mourned his death, then celebrated his “resurrection” shortly afterward.

Christians, borrowing from paganism rather than from the Bible, would come to do the same. On Friday, the day of the old queen of heaven, they mourn Jesus Christ, the true Messiah. Then, they celebrate His resurrection by watching the sunrise on Sunday, much like those idolaters in the Book of Ezekiel. They bake hot cross buns and other pastries, or, as the Bible calls them, cakes. And they found a way to involve those old fertility symbols, too — eggs and rabbits — even though neither has anything to do with Jesus Christ!

Further Reading: The Easter Bunny and… Feminism?!

4. Lent

In the weeks leading up to Good Friday, professing Christians observe Lent, a so-called fast of forty days. Though the Bible mentions a few forty-day fasts, not one of them is ever associated with Christ’s death, nor did God ever command any such thing.

Abstaining from a certain type of food, or giving up some personal vice such as smoking, for forty days isn’t real fasting. The Bible nowhere mentions any such fast.

Once again, these things come from paganism. In the weeks leading up to the supposed death of Tammuz or Attis, his worshipers abstained from various foods, especially bread.

Further Reading: The Easter Bunny and… Feminism?!

5. Sunday

Since the second century AD, most “Christians” have attended church on Sunday. Some have gone so far as to proclaim Sunday to be the Christian Sabbath, forbidding any manner of work or business to be done on that day. They’ve dubbed Sunday “The Lord’s Day.”

But the Bible nowhere calls Sunday “the Lord’s Day.” It’s simply “the first day of the week.” The Sabbath, in contrast, is the seventh day: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God” (Ex. 20:8-10).

Nowhere does the Bible transfer the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day. And nowhere does the Bible command anything but working on Sunday, as one does throughout the six days of the week before the Sabbath.

Jesus Christ kept the seventh-day Sabbath throughout His earthly life. He told His disciples to pray they wouldn’t have to flee on the Sabbath day (Mat. 24:20). He disciples “rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56).

Throughout the Book of Acts, Jesus’ followers continued to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. The apostle Paul taught Jews and Gentiles alike on the Sabbath day (Acts 13:42-44; 16:13; 18:4), not on some other day. There’s not one record of ANY of Christ’s apostles ever breaking the Sabbath!

The Catholic Church freely confesses that there’s no Scriptural authority for observing Sunday as the Sabbath. Instead, they say, the church possesses authority to change the Sabbath. James Cardinal Gibbons wrote, “The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (Catholic Mirror, Sept. 23, 1893). You’ll find many such quotes in Catholic publications. And nearly every Protestant denomination has followed the lead of the Catholic Church!

God said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Mainstream Christianity says, “Forget the Sabbath. Let’s keep Sunday instead.”

Once again, Christianity borrowed this tradition from paganism. The Mithraists, those old sun-worshipers of Rome and Persia, worshiped the sun god on the first day of the week, “Sun-day.” Or, as the Roman Emperor Constantine, the first “Christian” Emperor, called it, “the venerable day of the sun.” In AD 321, he issued an edict that reads, “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.”

And mainstream Christianity has continued to do so ever since, breaking the Sabbath and honoring a day of its own choosing. A day it borrowed from the pagan sun worshipers.

Further Reading: What Day Is God’s True Sabbath?

6. Veneration of Mary and Saints

Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, and Anglicans alike revere Mary, the mother of Jesus. They call her the Queen of Heaven, pray to her and sing hymns to her, name churches after her, dedicate shrines to her, and give honor to statues and images of her. Many of them (especially Catholics and Orthodox) hold that she remained a perpetual virgin, and Catholics assert that she also lived a perfect, sinless life.

Though accorded a lesser status than Mary, other so-called saints receive veneration, too. It’s supposed that dead saints dwell in heaven and that they watch over the faithful on earth. Many are deemed “patron saints,” that is, guardians of a specific town, region, or class of people. Patrick, for instance, is the supposed patron saint of Ireland, Nigeria, the city of Boston, and a lengthy list of other places, as well as of engineers and paralegals.

Of course, all these things are utter nonsense. None of these ideas have any Scriptural basis whatsoever.

Scripture contains zero examples of God’s servants praying to or seeking protection from anyone other than Him. None of the prophets prayed to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. None of the apostles prayed to John the Baptist, to Mary, or to Joseph. Jesus Christ taught His disciples to pray to God the Father, not to any mortal man.

As we’ve already seen, the righteous dead are not in heaven, but are asleep in their graves. How foolish to pray to the dead who know nothing! As God spoke through Isaiah the prophet, “Should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isa. 8:19).

After Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Bible never again speaks of her as a virgin. And how could she be? She was a wife and a mother of other children! Mark 6:3 and Mat. 13:55-56 identify four brothers of Jesus Christ (James, Joses, Simon, and Judas), adding that He had sisters as well. Mark 15:40 identifies Mary as the mother of James and Joses, and the apostle Paul spoke of James as “the Lord’s brother” (Gal. 1:19).

Moreover, God’s Word tells us that “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), and, “the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe” (Gal. 3:22). The Book of Ecclesiastes tells us, “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Eccl. 7:20). To assert that Mary, or any human being apart from Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life would be to deny the Word of God!

All these ideas come from, again, the pagan religions encountered by early Christianity. The pagans worshiped the queen of heaven, as we’ve already seen. In addition, the Greeks and Romans worshiped Artemis (or Diana), a goddess they believed to remain a perpetual virgin even after having sexual affairs!

The pagans venerated patron deities in much the same way that “Christians” would come to venerate patron saints. The Greeks believed Athena to be the patron goddess of Athens. Many Romans held the “Great Mother,” Cybele, to be the patron goddess of their city. Augustus Caesar thought Apollo to be his own patron god.

The early Christian church made little secret of its scheme to substitute the “saints” for the gods and goddesses of the pagans. Around AD 600, Pope Gregory I laid out his strategy for proselytizing the Anglo-Saxons, writing to his missionaries, “Tell Augustine that he should by no means destroy the temples of the gods but rather the idols within those temples. Let him, after he has purified them with holy water, place altars and relics of the saints in them. For, if those temples are well built, they should be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God” (Letter to Abbot Mellitus, Epistola 76, PL 77: 1215-1216).

7. Hippie Jesus

For many centuries, most artistic depictions of Jesus Christ have portrayed Him as something of an emaciated hippie. A long-haired, effeminate creep.

Yet the Bible indicates that He looked like an ordinary man whom no one would pick out of a crowd. “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isa. 53:2). When the soldiers came to arrest Him, they didn’t know Him by sight; they needed Judas Iscariot to single Him out (Mat. 26:48-49; Mark 15:44-45).

The Bible teaches that long hair is for women and not for men: “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering” (1 Cor. 11:14-15). God commanded His priests, “They shall neither shave their heads nor let their hair grow long, but they shall keep their hair well trimmed” (Ezek. 44:20).

The only exception to this rule was for a Nazarite vow. As Timothy Griffith and this writer have both pointed out previously, Jesus Christ was no Nazarite; He had taken no such vow. He drank wine (Luke 7:33-34), which no Nazarite was permitted to do (Num. 6:2-4). Instead, He was a Nazarene, that is, from the town of Nazareth.

Jesus Christ didn’t stand out from a crowd, He didn’t have long hair, and He certainly wasn’t effeminate. He spent most of His life performing manual labor, the work of a carpenter (Mark 6:3), and spent much of His ministry outdoors walking, hiking, and traveling by boat. When He made a whip and stormed into the temple, the money changers fled from Him! He was, as we’ve seen previously, a mighty Savior, a Man of power and purpose.

So why is our great Savior so often portrayed as an effeminate creep? It’s clearly a Satanic deception!

And perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the false messiahs encountered by the early Christian church, such as Adonis and Attis, were effeminate creeps. In Greek and Roman mythology, Adonis was a bisexual pervert and Attis cut off his own genitals and became a eunuch. The pagans represented some of their deities as androgynous or even as hermaphrodites. Venus, the Roman queen of heaven and fertility goddess, possessed a male incarnation called — I kid you not — Lucifer!

Just as the effeminate and repulsive Adonis or Attis supposedly died in the arms of his lover, the queen of heaven, so Christian art often depicts a dead, emaciated “Jesus” being cradled in the arms of His mother Mary — the queen of heaven. You saw one such statue at the top of this post. We’ve covered all this and more in a previous post on Easter.

And beyond all this, God’s people are not to make ANY images of Him, whether true or false! “Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure” (Deut. 4:15-16).

Further Reading: 1) Hippie Jesus  2) The REAL Jesus vs. The Fake

8. Halos

Halos often accompany the idolatrous veneration of saints and the blasphemous depictions of Jesus Christ as an effeminate creep. For centuries, “Christians” have portrayed “Jesus,” “angels,” and “saints” with glowing halos over their heads.

The Bible mentions no such thing, of course. Neither in literal descriptions, nor in symbolic imagery.

However, the pagans depicted many of their deities, especially the Roman sun god Sol, with a halo or with the rays of the sun glowing around their heads.

9. Crosses

The most recognized symbol of Christianity is the cross. You see it high atop churches, on the sides of churches, all over the interior of churches, on Bibles, on clothing, on Christian books, on the walls of hospitals, and everywhere else you can imagine. Many hang crosses or crucifixes on the walls of their homes; they also wear them on necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other jewelry. And if all this isn’t enough, many also “make the sign of the cross” with their hands and trace it over their foreheads or bodies.

At first glance, this obsession with the cross might seem to make a little sense. Afterall, the central tenet of Christianity is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Without His death, no one on earth would have a chance at salvation.

But wait a minute. The cross was an instrument of public humiliation, torture, and death. In the case of Jesus Christ, who died as an innocent Man, it was essentially a murder weapon. Do you think God the Father or Jesus Christ view the cross with fondness?

If someone murdered your son or daughter, or one of your close friends, would you adopt the murder weapon? Would you wear it around your neck and hang it on the wall of your house? Would you have it printed on your clothing? Would you kiss it, as so many kiss the cross?

And what if, instead of being crucified, Jesus had instead been murdered with a different instrument? What if, just as a thought experiment, He was lynched with a rope instead? Would you wear a noose around your neck or hang it on the wall of your house? Would you make the sign of the noose? Would you put the noose high atop all your churches?

The Bible never speaks of the cross as a literal sign or symbol of God’s people. Whenever the Bible speaks of the cross, it simply references Jesus’ sacrifice. For example, in 1 Cor. 1:17-18, Paul wrote, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

“The cross of Christ” isn’t a symbol; it’s His sacrifice. “The message of the cross” isn’t about the literal cross — the cross itself is no more than an instrument of torture and murder — the message is about Christ’s sacrifice.

The symbol of the cross doesn’t appear as a “Christian” symbol until the 2nd century AD, decades after most of Christ’s apostles were dead. And though apostasy was widespread by this time, the cross wasn’t. It wouldn’t be a common symbol in Christianity for another 200 years, until the 4th century AD.

For many folks, the image of the cross seems almost like an amulet or good luck charm. They view it much the same way the ancient Egyptians viewed the ankh symbol. They think it can protect them from harm, ward off evil spirits, and bring blessings.

This adoration of the cross is simple idolatry. How often people seek to worship something they can see in place of the invisible God!

The church writer Tertullian (c. 155-220) defended Christians’ use of the cross by explaining it was no worse than the idols of the pagans!

If any of you think we render superstitious adoration to the cross, in that adoration he is sharer with us…. We have shown before that your deities are derived from shapes modelled from the cross. But you also worship victories, for in your trophies the cross is the heart of the trophy. The camp religion of the Romans is all through a worship of the standards, a setting the standards above all gods. Well, as those images decking out the standards are ornaments of crosses. All those hangings of your standards and banners are robes of crosses. (Apology, ch. 16).

10. The Trinity

Few doctrines are cherished by mainstream Christians as much as the Trinity. “The triune God.” God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. The three co-equal divine beings.

And yet, the Bible nowhere teaches it. God the Father is a divine being, and Jesus Christ is a divine being, but the Holy Spirit isn’t a being at all. It’s simply the power and essence of God.

Just as man has a spirit (Prov. 18:14), so does God. God is Spirit (John 4:24), and His Spirit is holy.

In nearly every New Testament epistle, from Romans to Jude, the apostles greeted their brethren in the name of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, but never in the name of the Holy Spirit. Jude, for instance, wrote “to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:1).

Jesus taught His disciples to pray to God the Father, not to the Holy Spirit. Stephen, as he was about to die, called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59), and John 5:23 commands “that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” But nowhere does the Bible mention anyone praying to the Holy Spirit. Jude 1:20 speaks of “praying in the Holy Spirit,” but not of praying TO the Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, Mat. 1:18-20 tells us that Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is a divine being apart from God the Father and Jesus Himself, then the Holy Spirit would be Jesus’ true father, and not God the Father!

Now, it’s possible that the Trinity doctrine stemmed from a sincere misunderstanding of the Scriptures. However, it’s also noteworthy that the pagans around the early Christians believed in various divine trinities. For example, the goddess Diana, considered to be the queen of heaven by some ancients and her sister by others, was also called a “triple goddess” because she supposedly had three divine forms.

But whether the Christian concept of the trinity stemmed from that or not, it’s simply unbiblical and untrue.

Further Reading: The Truth About the Holy Spirit

Conclusion

Mainstream Christianity is founded, not on the Bible, but on the traditions of men. It adheres to the teachings, not of Jesus and His apostles and prophets, but of men who lived long after them.

Mainstream Christianity is a blend of truth and paganism. It took the truth of God and mixed it with all the pagan religions that it encountered, especially those of the ancient Near East, Rome, the Celts, and the Germanic peoples. It has been defiled by every pagan god!

Again and again, our heavenly Father told His people, “Do not learn the way of the heathen” (Jer. 10:2; Lev. 18:3; Lev. 20:23; Deut. 12:30-31). “Come out from among them and be separate” (2 Cor. 6:17). “What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor. 6:15-16).

Again and again, God’s Word warns us NOT to mix God’s truth with paganism. He said, “You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way” (Deut. 12:31), in the way that the pagans worshiped their gods. He said, “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deut. 12:32).

Modern Christianity shares much in common with the ancient Samaritans, who likewise mixed God’s truth with paganism. As we’re told in 2 Kings 17:33-34, “They feared the LORD, yet served their own gods — according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away. To this day they continue practicing the former rituals; they do not fear the LORD, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandment which the LORD had commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel.”

And what did Jesus tell the Samaritan woman at the well? “You worship what you do not know” (John 4:22). The same can be said of mainstream Christianity.

Brethren, let’s truly follow the Word of God and forsake the traditions of men! Let’s be careful to observe whatever He has commanded us, and neither add to it nor take away from it.