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Springtime for Paganism in America Lowell Ponte Days from now, President George W. Bush, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, will officiate at a pagan ceremony outside the White House and initiate very young children into its un-Christian symbols. This ceremony, the annual Easter Egg roll on the White House lawn, has its roots in the idolatrous pagan religion of ancient Mesopotamia, the land that was Babylon and is now Iraq. Our very word "Easter" comes from the pagan Germanic goddess of spring and sunrise, Eostre or Eastre. And so, according to some scholars, does the English word East, the direction from which the sun appears to rise. Others find the origin of our word Easter in Ishtar, one of the names of the Great Mother goddess of sex and fertility of ancient Middle Eastern peoples living between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. Easter has become permeated with pagan religious symbols. The bunny, or more precisely the hare, was Eostre's symbol of fertility. In myth it had originally been a bird that the goddess magically turned into a hare, so it retained the fertile ability to lay eggs. The display and gift-giving of colored eggs was a common springtime practice among ancient Saxons, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, and other pagan peoples. Story Continues Below
Ancient Sumerians and Babylonians believed that our world itself was hatched from a giant "World Egg." Like the Egyptian god Osiris, the Babylonian deity Tammuz would be resurrected each spring in green plants. His consort Inanna's (or Ishtar's) followers celebrated his annual return from the dead each spring by wearing new bonnets for luck, making river reed baskets, and filling their baskets with brightly colored eggs symbolic of the earth-creating World Egg that fell from heaven into the River Euphrates. Another version of Inanna was the Sidonian fertility goddess Asherah, depicted with (an Easter?) lily in one hand. They lit new fires and candles, and baked hot-cross buns marked with the horns that symbolized Tammuz, and worshipped the rising sun. For an echo of this pagan cult in the Bible, see Ezekiel 8:13-16, wherein God condemns the abomination of paganism next to the holy temple itself: women at sunrise "weeping for Tammuz." From the recurring worship of golden calves to President Bill Clinton's creation of pagan witchcraft chaplains in the U.S. military, Hebrew and Judeo-Christian culture has repeatedly faced revanchist paganism. For background, read my scholarly friend Jonathan Kirsch's book "God Against The Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism," (2004, Viking Compass). One of paganism's latest forms today is the pseudo-atheism of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, both of whom seem eager to impose the values of the cult of the Left on those who do not share their gods. To install their new religion, of course, today's radical leftists must demolish and demonize the old religions. Or, to win converts more easily, they must (as other faiths have done) expropriate some of the symbols and shrines of older beliefs. Thus, e.g., today's radical leftists are using the global warming issue to impose socialism — and they are using "progressive" Christian apostates to preach that God wants enviro-socialism imposed in the name of the stewardship humans God wants humankind to have over planet Earth. Cloaked in enough pseudo-Christian propaganda, radical environmentalism could deceive millions into forgetting that it is itself an ancient pagan nature-worshipping religion….with Vanderbilt Divinity School flunkout Al Gore as its latest Druidic high priest. Christians, where in the Bible does Jesus endorse colored eggs, bunnies, bonnets, Easter baskets, lilies or other things rooted in pagan Babylonian nature religion? What, one wonders, would the Judeo-Christian God say about President Bush's annual pagan Easter Egg roll on the White House lawn? With sex you get egg roll? Another echo of ancient Babylon can be heard this time of year whenever Handel's "Messiah" is performed. Among its most famous choruses, "Every Valley," includes the words of the Prophet Isaiah: "Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." This strange expression, scholars infer, comes from Deutero-Isaiah's knowledge of the exile in Babylon that transformed Hebrews into Jews. The Babylonians celebrated their New Year with the 11-day-long Akitu Festival at this time of year around the spring equinox. Among its rituals was that the stone idols of the various gods of surrounding cities would be carried along winding dusty roads to their chief god Marduk's shrine outside Babylon, the Akitu. Isaiah was telling all with ears to hear that the Jews' God was not an idol; their one true God's divinely straight path transcended earth's ever-turning ways. By mocking the worldly limitations of pagan gods, Isaiah was telling Jews to keep their faith amid the colored eggs and other pagan temptations of Babylon. At the start of each Akitu Festival the king of Babylon would remove his royal robe and crown and put them upon a lowly beggar, who then regally enjoyed food, alcoholic beverages, and women during the festival. He could help re-enact the ritual marriage of Marduk and the goddess Ishtar to ensure a new year of fertility for the land. And then the beggar acting as king would be ritually put to death and, as the actual king reclaimed his crown and robe, royal majesty and authority would be symbolically resurrected and renewed. This ritual killing of the king — not entirely unlike what the liberal media are symbolically trying to do with their relentless, vicious coup attempt aimed since 2001 at President Bush — served a host of psychological purposes, from political catharsis to symbolic spiritual renewal. The Easter Egg roll looks like fun, with cute children and bunnies. Some Christians will rejoice that President Bush is invoking the name of Easter on the grounds of our secular government's White House. But take a moment during this celebration to separate in your mind and heart the idolatrous nature-worship pagan religious symbols others have associated with this holy day from the resurrected Christ's transcendent message: We are in this world but not of it. We have a higher, eternal allegiance.
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