Why Don't All Christians get Ashes Smeared on their Foreheads?

[Tcg]

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Many years ago, a friend and I were driving down the main street of a small town and noticed a few people walking around with ashes in the shape of a killing device on their foreheads. As we continued, we saw more on more with this peculiar adornment. We eventually found the source of these folks which was a rather large Christian church they were pouring out of.

Both of us had been very active Christians at one time in our lives and yet had never seen this behavior. We later learned that this was related to Ash Wednesday.

What is the significance of this activity and why don't all Christians participate?


Tcg

[bjs1]

If we define pagan “a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions” then there was a time when Judaism and Christianity were pagan, and the polytheisms of Canaan, Greece and Rome were not pagan. This would cause language to be a point of confusion instead of a means of clarification.

The origin of the term "pagan" is from the Latin paganus, which refers to the countryside. The pagan religions were the religions of the bumpkins and hicks (primarily Roman polytheism), while Christianity was the modern religion of the urbanus.

Ok, but the English word pagan refers to a follower of a polytheistic religion. It has nothing to do with where a person lives.

The Latin root is not always the same as the modern meaning. To give an example, the English word clue comes from the Greek word clew meaning “ball of yarn.” There may be a logic to how words got their modern meaning, but we still use the modern meaning.