nibbler wrote: ↑Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:18 am
Because it's too hard to work Joseph Smith or the church into the center of the celebration?
I know this was put up as snark, but I do think it is close to the real reason.
Issue #1 My oldest brother went to Korea on his mission. They couldn’t start teaching with the first discussion because, gee, was it Buddha who appeared to Joseph Smith? The Mormon church starts with an assumption of Christianity. It never actually teaches Christianity. Or really seldom teaches the Christianity. Mostly it assumes Christianity, then teaches how Mormons are different. There has been some effort to improve this, but it is still a big problem. Jesus Christ is kind of in the background as we teach about the restoration. We don’t exactly teach what it was that supposedly was restored, because you are already supposed to know it.
Issue #2 we don’t really celebrate anything at church. Things get mentioned, but not celebrated. Think about how Mormons celebrate Christmas. It gets mentioned at church, but the celebration all takes place at home. Once my kids grew up and left home, I realized how much Christmas is a home centered celebration. There is so little at church. Oh, sure, the secular efforts to make you buy stuff is every where. And you can’t escape Santa and Rudolph. But the Christ part of Christmas is almost totally home based. We sing a few carols at church, and maybe have lessons for the kids, but basically nothing changes at church. We do not observe advent, in fact most Mormon confuse advent with the 12 days of Christmas because they don’t know how to even celebrate any of the religious aspects of Christmas. What are the 4 candles for advent even about? Most Mormons haven’t a clue. Let alone that the 12 days of Christmas start Dec 25 and go to Epiphany on Jan 6. I have live in Germany twice, so I got to see the celebration of more than the economic spend spend spend spree that Christmas has become in the US. Their society openly celebrates the religious aspects of Christmas that in the US is either inside the church buildings or at home, but mostly forgotten in a commercial spending spree.
It is the same with Easter. We sing a couple of carols and other than that, maybe a talk or lesson, or it gets completely forgotten. The celebration if there is any it at home.
Issue #3 I think it is the same thing as happened to the Jewish holidays when Christianity got started. They didn’t apply to the new aspects of the religion, so they faded into oblivion. For 200 years they probably kept some of the old Jewish holidays, but they faded into the background of the new aspects of the religion. They kept the same book and still believe in the God of Abraham, but the culture changed.
In our culture we celebrate May 15, as the restoration of the priesthood and July 24 as our “Exodus” celebration, and we celebrate Smith’smass in Dec, those usually get mentioned at church, and we celebrate the holidays of our larger culture along with the larger culture, but that isn’t observed at church. Just like the Christians celebrated the same holidays as the pagans in the cultures where they converted people.