As far as I understand it, Christianity is a merging of Paganism and Judaism. It is the "crossroads of Athens and Jerusalem" to borrow a common expression.
By Pagan I mean "Roman and Greek thought" and not dark ritual, occult-type things that some people seem to mean when they use the term "Pagan." The NT is mostly written in Greek. And think of the term used for Christ in the opening of John: "In the beginning was* the word * . The term used for "word" here is Logos(λόγος). This is a term with a long-standing tradition in Greek and Roman philosophy (Stoicism, neo-Platonism), so in that sense "Paganism" is entwined in Christian thinking. It's not Paganism per se which Christians should be worried about, in my opinion, but the corrupting of institutions (which we've seen a whole lot of in the Roman church).
On another note, I don't think you can clearly demarcate a clear break between pre-313 AD Christianity and post 313 AD, Many of the beliefs of the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox that Baptists/Evangelicals consider "Roman paganism" were held by Church fathers before the time of Constantine. Things like "the Eucharist," "the importance of Mary" etc. This point really hit me when I started reading the Church fathers a few years ago.
As far as I understand it, Christianity is a merging of Paganism and Judaism. It is the "crossroads of Athens and Jerusalem" to borrow a common expression.
By Pagan I mean "Roman and Greek thought" and not dark ritual, occult-type things that some people seem to mean when they use the term "Pagan." The NT is mostly written in Greek. And think of the term used for Christ in the opening of John: "In the beginning was* the word * . The term used for "word" here is Logos(λόγος). This is a term with a long-standing tradition in Greek and Roman philosophy (Stoicism, neo-Platonism), so in that sense "Paganism" is entwined in Christian thinking. It's not Paganism per se which Christians should be worried about, in my opinion, but the corrupting of institutions (which we've seen a whole lot of in the Roman church).
On another note, I don't think you can clearly demarcate a clear break between pre-313 AD Christianity and post 313 AD, Many of the beliefs of the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox that Baptists/Evangelicals consider "Roman paganism" were held by Church fathers before the time of Constantine. Things like "the Eucharist," "the importance of Mary" etc. This point really hit me when I started reading the Church fathers a few years ago.