Dr Paul Allen

There had been an earlier pagan critic named Celsus. Celsus was an eminently thoughtful and philosophical man, and as a typical pagan, Celsus had said, “Those Christians, you know, if you wanted to gather just a group of thugs, you wouldn’t do any better than the local church. They’re stupid, they’re not well-educated, and for them to go around constantly saying that God is interested in them, they’re like a bunch of frogs croaking in a pond, trying to get attention to themselves.” And Origen took on this critique of Celsus, this elitist attitude on the part of Celsus, and answered it brilliantly. He said, “You know, Celsus is right. Christians aren’t much. And the glorious thing about Christianity is you don’t have to be much to come to Christ, because you don’t have to change yourself in order to come to Christ, but you come to Christ in order to be changed.”

In its earliest days, Christianity had been criticized as a religion of the poor and uneducated, and indeed many of the faithful had come from the lower classes. As Paul had written, in the church there were “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” (1 Corinthians 1:26). By the third century, however, the greatest scholar of the age was a Christian. Heathens, heretics, and Christians admired Origen , and his immense learning and scholarship would have an important influence on future Christian scholarship. Origen was born in Alexandria, about 185, of devout Christian parents. In about 201 his father, Leonidas, was imprisoned during the persecution of Septimus Severus. Origen wrote to his father in prison and encouraged him not to deny Christ for the sake of his family. Though Origen wanted to turn himself in to the authorities and suffer martyrdom with his father, his mother hid his clothes and kept him from such zealous foolishness. After Leonidas...

It’s that time of year when culture warriors take up arms to keep worldly and pagan ideas from encroaching on the spiritual and biblical reason for the season. So  Sarah Palin fired a salvo  against the “war on Christmas” by “revisionists” who’re turning it into a “ winter solstice ” celebration. (This is to prepare us for her new book,  Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas , ostensibly on the same theme). But what if the pagans aren’t the “revisionists” and the late December celebrations are indeed rooted in the winter solstice? That would explain some of the odd accoutrements to celebrations of Jesus’ birth. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to make out what evergreen trees, lights, and egg-nog have to do with the little town of Bethlehem. Without being too much of a Grinch, it might be worth asking whether the real “revisionist” is actually Mrs. Palin. Though to her credit, she stands in a long, long line of revising thi...