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Hi Tom,
Since some Protestant
critics of the Catholic Church have — at least, in the past — argued
that Catholic worship contains pagan elements, it might make sense to look
at the responses Catholics have made to such arguments. Since I haven't
studied that area of disputation, I can't suggest any particular reading.
Maybe someone else can.
It's undeniable that people can draw parallels between elements of pagan
religion and elements of the Christian faith but this isn't altogether
a bad thing: it shows how the desires of the human heart, expressed in
pagan worship, were fulfilled by what God did for us in Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless,
Christ is different from the reborn corn-gods of paganism: His Life, Death,
and Resurrection, unlike theirs, comes with dates and witnesses. It's embedded
in human history, not set in the mist of some imagined primordial age or
eternal cycle. It happened in flesh and bone and blood, not in mere tales.
It's a one-time event that changed man and the created world forever.
Another angle: maybe Thomas Howard's book Chance
or the Dance would
be helpful. It contrasts the dead, meaningless, mechanical world posited
by atheism with the living world known to Christians, one in which created
things — yes, even things! — give praise to the glory of God.
I imagine
that his vision of the world would have some appeal to people attracted
by
neo-paganism. It's probably easy to find a used copy via Amazon.
- By the way, are your neo-pagan friends really interested in and moved
by logical arguments and clear sourcing?
I'll be surprised if you say yes:
the ones I've known are attracted to paganism because it appeals to their
imagination and emotion; whatever arguments they make are more or less
mere rationalizations but that's just my experience.
God bless!
— RC
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