A Smoldering Wick in the Darkness

I grew up in a strict, fundamentalist Christian tradition. Most churches in my denomination didn’t celebrate Christmas and Easter (though that is now changing) because they were deemed pagan vestiges that had been arbitrarily Christianized by the apostate Catholic Church.

My family embraced those holidays, but my church did not — so much so that at church we’d sometimes defiantly sing Christmas carols out of season, just to demonstrate our theological independence. (“Silent Night” doesn’t land quite the same when you sing it in the middle of July. Neither does “Joy to the World.”)

I never quite believed our exclusive theology, at least not all of it. But I hadn’t been exposed to the alternatives. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I encountered historic Christianity as a curious adult, not as a child who couldn’t fully comprehend what I was seeing. The practices of other churches were all new to me, and one in particular changed me forever.

My first year in law school, when I was 23 years old, I went to an Easter Vigil. Or, to be more precise, an evangelical version of the Catholic Service of Light. The church of the smoke machine can sometimes imitate the church of incense.

It began in darkness — symbolizing the darkness of death during the days after Christ’s crucifixion — and then the pastor lit a candle. High church Christians — Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, for example — may recognize this as the paschal candle, the symbol of Christ’s resurrection.

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David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” You can follow him on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).

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