{"id":1139,"date":"2020-02-01T14:25:28","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T20:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2020-02-01T14:25:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T20:25:28","slug":"christianity-and-paganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity and Paganism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"An area fraught with disagreement is the relationship of Christianity to what has been called paganism.\u00a0 The latter term itself presents some difficulty as it is a later coinage used to describe earlier religious forms.\u00a0 It is not a term used by the people whose practice it describes and it gathers together under one head a vast swathe of beliefs, practices, and ways of seeing and interacting with the world.\u00a0 The very concept of ‘religions’ is a later, Western European Protestant one.\u00a0 Ancient people did not think of themselves as members or practitioners of ‘a religion’ among others.\u00a0 Nor did they distinguish between ‘religion’ and other areas of life like politics, philosophy, or some secular sphere.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, paganism is used as a rhetorical foil in argumentation.\u00a0 It has become a commonplace of scholarship to identify elements of the Scriptures or of historical Christian theology or practice as having been borrowed or taken over from paganism.\u00a0 This identification is seen to somehow devalue or marginalize them.\u00a0 To reduce the Scriptures to just one of a set of Ancient Near Eastern documents is seen to neutralize their religious power and effectiveness.\u00a0 Within many Christian circles, even those who most passionately resist these scholarly claims about Scripture, the identification of later elements within the life of the Church as being in some way derived from, or even merely similar to, some element of paganism demonizes them.\u00a0 Such accusations have been leveled at core elements of the Christian faith, such as the veneration of the Theotokos and departed saints, on one hand, and against the thoroughly banal, like Christmas trees or Easter eggs.<\/p>\n

The disjunction, here, between ancient and modern ways of experiencing the world, becomes quickly clear.\u00a0 In order to understand the Scriptures and the ancient Christians, we need to move beyond contemporary categories of analysis and seek to understand them the way they understand themselves.\u00a0 Rather than approaching the discussion from the perspective of ‘religions’, what must be described is the ritual life of ancient Israel, the Second Temple period, and the early Christians in comparison and contrast to the ritual life of the other nations.\u00a0 The ritual life of the people of God in these three periods is remarkably consistent as has been previously discussed.\u00a0 When compared with the ritual life of other peoples, there are a great many points of direct continuity as well as certain areas of great discontinuity.\u00a0 Both these continuities and these discontinuities are revelatory.<\/p>\n

In the ancient world and in almost all non-Christian cultures today, some form of sacrifice is practiced.\u00a0 The most common form of this sacrifice has been the offering of incense<\/a>.\u00a0 It has likewise included, however, offerings of food and drink including both the meat of sacrificial animals, various forms of cakes and grains, and libations.\u00a0 These sacrifices were sacred meals in which spiritual beings were invited to take part.\u00a0 These general statements are generally true, but there are, additionally, a wide range of specifics shared in common in the ritual lives of all ancient peoples including ancient Israel.\u00a0 These have likewise been preserved, in various forms, within the Church’s ritual life to this day.<\/p>\n

Within sacrificial ritual, for example, here are only a few of the universal principles which have existed in all ancient cultures.\u00a0 Sacrificial animals must be young, physically intact and perfect, and preferably the firstborn.\u00a0 Other food offerings and incense must follow particular prescriptions regarding their constituents and quality.\u00a0 The officiants of offerings bathed and wore clean clothes, special to that purpose, generally of linen.\u00a0 Sacrificial elements were brought to the altar in a procession accompanied by singing.\u00a0 This marked the beginning of the sacrificial ritual per se, differentiated from other accompanying worship.\u00a0 The altar was placed within a specially delimited sacred space.\u00a0 This space was permanently determined in the case of established temples and shrines, but even when an altar was placed in a temporary position the area around it was marked out as sacred.\u00a0 Before the offering proper, water was poured over the officiant’s hands.\u00a0 The blood of an animal offering was collected and separated from the food element for the sacrificial meal.\u00a0 Offered prayers portrayed anything killed as having offered itself voluntarily.\u00a0 Portions of offerings were given to the being who was being worshipped, other portions to the priests, and others to those bringing the sacrificial offerings, generally the community as a whole.\u00a0 All of the offerings were consumed in the ritual.\u00a0 Anything which couldn’t be consumed for any reason was disposed of as sacred by carefully prescribed means.<\/p>\n

There are many other common features of worship beyond these elements of sacrificial ritual.\u00a0 The orans<\/em> position of prayer, with both hands raised apart and palms open, is attested in Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek sources among others from the earliest period.\u00a0 Antiphonal and responsorial singing are constant throughout cultures.\u00a0 This generally took place in the form of one singer or chanter leading, while others, sometimes a chorus, responded.\u00a0 Purification rituals included ceremonial washings with water.\u00a0 They also included the pouring or rubbing of other, thicker substances on the body of a person which were then subsequently washed and wiped away.<\/p>\n

These commonalities are explained by the nature of ritual as such.\u00a0 Ritual does not communicate something, represent something, or produce some affect in an audience.\u00a0 Ritual does something.\u00a0 It has no audience.\u00a0 It has participants.\u00a0 One of those participants may be the recipient of sacrificial offerings or prayers.\u00a0 Put another way, ritual works.\u00a0 Ritual elements, and rituals as wholes, produce an effect in reality, either in the world or within the participants.\u00a0 Rituals interact with the created order itself and so are written into the spiritual and physical worlds, as their interface, in the same way in which scientific and mathematical laws are written into the physical world and its created function.\u00a0 The first sacrifices that take place in the Scriptures are those of Cain and Abel (Gen 4:3-5).\u00a0 No instruction is given by God regarding sacrifice before this event.\u00a0 Sacrificial worship is taken as a given of creation and life in this age from the very beginning by Scripture.<\/p>\n

The primary difference between the worship of Yahweh and the worship of the gods of the nations, then, is not one of mode but one of the object.\u00a0 The ritual life of ancient Israel, the Second Temple period, and Christianity has always been required to be directed solely toward the Triune God, Yahweh.\u00a0 St. Paul expresses this paradigmatically in 1 Corinthians 10:15-22.\u00a0 The apostle here bases his argument against participation in idolatrous ritual on the fact that the Eucharist, the pagan sacrifices, and even the sacrifices of the Jerusalem temple (v. 18) all work the same way and all produce the same effect.\u00a0 The same communion which the participant in the Eucharist shares with Christ is shared by the participant of pagan sacrifice with the demons to which those sacrifices are offered.<\/p>\n

This distinction by St. Paul, not of ritual but of participants and recipient, explains the relationship between apostolic Christianity and the Jerusalem temple while it still stood.\u00a0 There is no command, in St. Paul’s writings or elsewhere in the New Testament, to separate one’s self from the temple and its worship.\u00a0 Christ himself participated actively in the life of the temple’s worship, protected its purity, and spoke of its legitimacy.\u00a0 Even after his ascension and enthronement, the apostles continued to manifest the same attitude.\u00a0 This is particularly true of St. James, the Lord’s brother, who presided at Jerusalem.\u00a0 The central elements of early Christian liturgical life, for example, the Eucharist and Baptism, represented fulfillments of elements of pre-existing worship and so Christians no longer took part in their older types.\u00a0 The remainder of the temple’s liturgical life, however, such as the offering of incense with prayers and various other offerings as those in which St. Paul participated at St. James’ behest (Acts 21:23-26).\u00a0 Even these elements were no longer limited to the temple, but their practice in the temple was directed toward Yahweh.\u00a0 They were no longer necessary for the Church, but nor were they unacceptable for those in Jerusalem and its environs.\u00a0 Christians could freely participate until the temple’s destruction, but since that destruction, they have had no particular need for the site for their practice.<\/p>\n

This is not, however, to say that as long as ritual life is directed toward Yahweh, the mode of ritual is irrelevant.\u00a0 It is obvious from quite early in the Scriptures that this is not the case and that a swathe of ritual practices from the other nations is not allowable in the ritual life of Israel.\u00a0 In this respect, the episode surrounding the golden calf in Exodus 32 looms large as an example of idolatrous and sexual ritual which are strictly prohibited.\u00a0 These prohibitions result in differences in practice even in the ritual elements shared by Israel and all other nations.\u00a0 As but one example, the ark of the covenant resembles in nearly every way the palanquins of ancient Egypt.\u00a0 This includes the presence of two-winged spiritual beings on its cover.\u00a0 In the case of Egypt, these were winged depictions of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys.\u00a0 In the case of the ark, these are two winged cherubim, sphinx-like creatures who guarded the divine throne.\u00a0 However, while an Egyptian palanquin displayed the image of a god sheltered by these wings, the ark of the covenant had beneath the wings only a space.\u00a0 It was within this space that God himself, the visible Yahweh, would appear in the most holy place on the Day of Atonement.<\/p>\n

These practices, however, were prohibited for the same reason that ritual practice throughout the ancient world and within the Church is so similar: they work.\u00a0 Divination, contact with spirits of the dead, idolatry, sexual immorality, and other similar ritual elements are not proscribed because they don’t work.\u00a0 The Torah is not seeking to stop people from wasting their time or following silly superstitions.\u00a0 These are forbidden because they work.\u00a0 They are forbidden because they produce actual communion and fellowship with rebellious demonic spirits.\u00a0 This communion has a corrupting effect on both participants and the created order around them in which they dwell.\u00a0 It leaves behind an ontological taint which must be purified.\u00a0 It does damage to the human person which must be healed and restored.<\/p>\n

Ritual has, since human pre-history, produced divine-human communion.\u00a0 It is a means of participation in the creation, both spiritual and physical, invisible and visible.\u00a0 To commune with rebellious spiritual powers has and will always be to join in their rebellion.\u00a0 This participation is corrupting and corrosive to the human person.\u00a0 It brings corruption and death into that person’s world.\u00a0 Ultimately, it results in the destruction of human persons and their world.\u00a0 In contrast, the Triune God has, since the expulsion of humanity from Paradise, used ritual as a means for human persons to enter into the communion of divine persons.\u00a0 This communion is likewise transformative, bringing healing, purification, transformation, and eternal life.\u00a0 This transfiguration happens not only to human persons but through human persons and the community of the Church, to the entirety of creation.\u00a0 When the Triune God is worshipped according to his commandments, it is the life of the world that is preserved and its salvation which is realized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An area fraught with disagreement is the relationship of Christianity to what has been called paganism.\u00a0 The latter term itself presents some difficulty as it is a later coinage used to describe earlier religious forms.\u00a0 It is not a term used by the people whose practice it describes and it gathers together under one head a vast swathe of beliefs, practices, and ways of seeing and interacting with the world.\u00a0 The very concept of ‘religions’ is a later, Western European Protestant one.\u00a0 Ancient people did not think of themselves as members or practitioners of ‘a religion’ among others.\u00a0 Nor did they distinguish between ‘religion’ and other areas of life like politics, philosophy, or some secular sphere. Nevertheless, paganism is used\u2026 <\/i> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"Christianity and Paganism - The Whole Counsel Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christianity and Paganism - The Whole Counsel Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An area fraught with disagreement is the relationship of Christianity to what has been called paganism.\u00a0 The latter term itself presents some difficulty as it is a later coinage used to describe earlier religious forms.\u00a0 It is not a term used by the people whose practice it describes and it gathers together under one head a vast swathe of beliefs, practices, and ways of seeing and interacting with the world.\u00a0 The very concept of ‘religions’ is a later, Western European Protestant one.\u00a0 Ancient people did not think of themselves as members or practitioners of ‘a religion’ among others.\u00a0 Nor did they distinguish between ‘religion’ and other areas of life like politics, philosophy, or some secular sphere. Nevertheless, paganism is used\u2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Whole Counsel Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-02-01T20:25:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Stephen De Young\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Stephen De Young\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/\",\"name\":\"Christianity and Paganism - The Whole Counsel Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-02-01T20:25:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-02-01T20:25:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg\",\"width\":510,\"height\":338},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Christianity and Paganism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/\",\"name\":\"The Whole Counsel Blog\",\"description\":\"The Scriptures in the Orthodox Church\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90\",\"name\":\"Fr. Stephen De Young\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Stephen De Young\"},\"description\":\"The V. Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds Master's degrees in theology, philosophy, humanities, and social sciences, and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. Fr. Stephen is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of four books, the Religion of the Apostles, God is a Man of War, the Whole Counsel of God, Apocrypha, and Saint Paul the Pharisee. He co-hosts the live call-in show and podcast Lord of Spirits with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/stgabriellafayette.org\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/author\/frstevedeyoung\/\"}]}<\/script>","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Christianity and Paganism - The Whole Counsel Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Christianity and Paganism - The Whole Counsel Blog","og_description":"An area fraught with disagreement is the relationship of Christianity to what has been called paganism.\u00a0 The latter term itself presents some difficulty as it is a later coinage used to describe earlier religious forms.\u00a0 It is not a term used by the people whose practice it describes and it gathers together under one head a vast swathe of beliefs, practices, and ways of seeing and interacting with the world.\u00a0 The very concept of ‘religions’ is a later, Western European Protestant one.\u00a0 Ancient people did not think of themselves as members or practitioners of ‘a religion’ among others.\u00a0 Nor did they distinguish between ‘religion’ and other areas of life like politics, philosophy, or some secular sphere. Nevertheless, paganism is used\u2026","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/","og_site_name":"The Whole Counsel Blog","article_published_time":"2020-02-01T20:25:28+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Fr. Stephen De Young","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Stephen De Young","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/","name":"Christianity and Paganism - The Whole Counsel Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg","datePublished":"2020-02-01T20:25:28+00:00","dateModified":"2020-02-01T20:25:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2019\/12\/680x450_Crop_Pilot_16114.jpg","width":510,"height":338},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2020\/02\/01\/christianity-and-paganism\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Christianity and Paganism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/","name":"The Whole Counsel Blog","description":"The Scriptures in the Orthodox Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90","name":"Fr. Stephen De Young","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Fr. Stephen De Young"},"description":"The V. Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds Master's degrees in theology, philosophy, humanities, and social sciences, and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. Fr. Stephen is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of four books, the Religion of the Apostles, God is a Man of War, the Whole Counsel of God, Apocrypha, and Saint Paul the Pharisee. He co-hosts the live call-in show and podcast Lord of Spirits with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.","sameAs":["http:\/\/stgabriellafayette.org"],"url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/author\/frstevedeyoung\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1198,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions\/1198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}