I don't like talking about theology of any religion because it always looks like meaningless Asiatic babble.
Theology is the mathematics of your own beliefs, as is philosophy.
Except greek philosophy places gods under the logic of the worlds, and jewish philosophy aka early theology places the laws of the world under the existence of God. Not that the world may not prove God, but that God is at the heart and source of the world's laws.
Without theology you believe in something without knowing why. And since the core of christianity is believing that Jesus rose from the dead, you already have to believe something pretty extraordinary in order to call yourself a christian. If you don't know why you believe in that, what point is there in believing at all ?
Most of what is considered to be an undeniable part of Christianity, like beautiful cathedrals, joyous holidays etc is a pagan legacy. And that's not a bad thing, because when the British and American puritans tried to purge Christianity of idolatry, they got Orthodox Judaism with Jesus(This probably explains American passionate love for Israel - they see themselves in the Jews).
>Implying that the british and american puritan were the ones to hold the truth about what is idolatry and what isn't.
I grew in an exclusive plymouth brethren assembly, which is basically the pinacle of this movement. I detach myself mostly from it now.
1) They're a massive minority of christianity
2) It ISN'T orthodox judaism with Christ, there is very very few things that actually look like orthodox rabbinic judaism anywhere in christianity, what would look most like it would probably the Eastern Orthodox Church for how mystical it is. If anything, christian reformed fundamentalism ressembles more like free masonry than anything else.
3) As said above, the very multiple theories about the pagans origins of christian feast are made up, and this can be seen by few things :
- The unicity of their sources, which come from single historian or archeologists who were mocked by their conteporaries
- The historical incoherences that surround them.
Exemple : One theory suggests Easter comes from the goddess Eostra, which was a german goddess we know very little about, but which very likely was celebrated during the month of Eostremonath, which gave the name to "Easter" in english because Easter was also celebrated during this month. This goddess was first attested to by a christian author named St Bede, but since Easter was celebrated by christians way before they ever encountered germanic tribes, and since the name of Easter in other languages isn't based on the name of the month, but on the name of "passover", as in french "Pâques" (because that is when Christ rose from the dead according to scriptures), we can very easily deduct that this was made up.
I advise you not to listen to everything you hear, and to question yourself as to why there are so many different theories that nobody agrees on about the alleged pagan origins of christian celebrations