Ok, I grant that a number of non-Catholics go out of the way to call the holiday “Resurrection Sunday” a few seem to have gravitated towards calling it “Pascha” like Eastern Christians do… Some of them dislike the term “Easter” wrongly thinking it connotes paganism. (Taylor Marshall has the 411 on that with today’s entry Why is the festival of Christ’s Resurrection called Easter? – it is about as “pagan” to use the term “Easter” as it is “Thursday” or “January” or “Sunday“[!] for that matter!)
All that as the case may be, it is a curiosity to me that Evangelicals and other non-Catholics who otherwise do not in any way embrace liturgical years and are quick to shun much in Catholic tradition as “Traditions of man” continue to have the dating of Easter serve as a vestigial remnant of the Catholic patrimony of their forebears. All things being equal, why don’t they just opt to celebrate it according to modern Jewish reckonings of Passover?
Any Protestants or ex-Protestants out there who ever dealt with answering questions as to why this ancient dating system is still used? Really, if you are otherwise aliturgical and without a lectionary (as many Evangelicals are) why celebrate Christmas or Easter at all? Or alternately, why celebrate them according to a calendar rather than simply choosing a Sunday every year or month or every other year or…? Why continue to use the non-scriptural dating system set up at Nicea in 325?
