Dr Paul Allen

It's the pinnacle of the church year . Crowds swell. Churches add chairs, and services, and parking lot attendants. Church leaders and members look out over the brimming Easter pews and wish that all these pop-up worshippers would return in the weeks to come. But it's not likely. Conventional wisdom would suggest that these holiday hordes, once they sample the finest a church has to offer, would return for more. And the additive effect of this special day would increase the year-round attendance, year after year. But that's not happening for most churches . Why? The Easter story is the most extraordinary story of all time. Churches, large and small, do an extraordinary job telling and celebrating the Easter story, providing special music, showing the pageantry, and welcoming the worshippers with care. So, why don't the throngs come back? I suspect there's no simple answer. It's a variety of dynamics at work. A SPECIAL EVENT. Many of the people who make one a...

Image via Wikipedia Anyone encountering anti-Christian polemics will quickly come up against the accusation that a major festival practiced by Christians across the globe—namely, Easter—was actually borrowed or rather usurped from a pagan celebration.  I often encounter this idea among Muslims who claim that later Christians compromised with paganism to dilute the original faith of Jesus. The argument largely rests on the supposed pagan associations of the English and German  names  for the celebration ( Easter  in English and  Ostern  in German).  It is important to note, however, that in most other European languages, the name for the Christian celebration is derived from the Greek word  Pascha , which comes from pesach , the Hebrew word for Passover. Easter is the Christian Passover festival. Of course, even if Christians did engage in contextualization —expressing their message and worship in the language or forms of the local people—th...