I don’t see offhand the antecedents of Mormonism in Calvinist movements so much as movements such as those of the radical reformers and pietists that often diverged from, if not opposed, Calvinism. (The notion of Quakers being “ultra-Puritan” strikes be as a bit odd, if one is referring to theologic or political matters, given their vast differences from Calvinist groups such as Presbyterians in England or Separitists in New England on these subjects.) I think that one could find elements of Arminianism and perfectionism in the soteriology of early church leaders as well as elements of ecclesiology in the early church that invite comparisons to dissenting groups.

Incidently, no one in our family has ever been to Israel, nor do we have any known Jewish ancestry.

“Do we take more cues from mainstream Christianity than we’re aware of?”

I think is absolutely the case. The way we think about the atonement, the way we conceive of the sacrament, the way we resolve certain questions involving priesthood authority…so much of it borrows from longstanding and unspoken debates in Christendom. The fact that we go along, like almost all of organized Christianity, with the dating of holidays like Easter and Christmas is the least of it. (And the fact that we sometimes use the doctrine of the apostacy to suggest that those background assumptions and observances are either accidental or irrelevant is, I think, deeply wrongheaded.)

“Easter, on the other hand, has at least a quasi-official status, and is celebrated among Mormons on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.”

I wonder what we should make of that “quasi-official status”; indeed, I think it’s revealing that you feel it necessary to describe it that way. I mean, we have Easter lessons in our manuals, we almost always will hear talks on Christ and the atonement on Easter Sunday, maybe they’ll even be flowers in the chapel. Isn’t that “official”? Well, sure…except of course it obviously isn’t, in the same way that no holiday is truly “official” within the order of the church, given that we don’t have any formal, doctrinal or ecclesiastical or cultural means of ordering ourselves around or celebrating such. (Pioneer Day and Christmas, with the Days of ’47 parades and the First Presidency Devotional, are probably as close as we come.)

“I wonder why we never hear of Mormons celebrating Sukkoth, Hannukah, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, etc. (Or do we?)”

As I mentioned up in #20, we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. But we admittedly do so without the intent of Christianizing/Mormonizing it; we celebrate it the same way we celebrate Chinese New Year, as the opportunity to introduce our children to foods and stories and ideas that characterize a culture and worldview we take seriously. I doubt many other Mormons do the same, just as I doubt very few non-Jews do generally; it’s very much our personal family quirk. I have met several Mormon families that do something for Holy Week, in the same way I have met several Mormon families who make Advent part of their Christmas celebrations (in fact, they are usually the same families). As for other Jewish holidays, whether taken on their own terms or as part of a Christianizing project, the only ones I am aware of are those few Mormons who have either spent a long time studying/living in Israel, or those who (like my sister-in-law) are ethnically Jewish.

Obviously the relationship already between “mainstream” Christianity and Judaism complexifies the question of whether our orientation is toward one or the other. Not only does Easter liturgy itself hearken back to Passover (in the Romance languages the word for Easter is stilled derived from the word for Passover), but Mormons are certainly not alone among Christians in celebrating Passover–a number of other Christian groups do the same (some Catholics, some Evangelicals, etc.).

So it interests me that we’ve latched onto Passover specifically. Of the Mormons I know who celebrate their own seders, for example, literally none of them celebrate the seven-day matzah festival (avoiding food with leaven) which is already associated with Passover in the Old Testament. I don’t have enough information to draw conclusions–are there perhaps Mormons who do observe the matzah festival as part of Passover? Similarly, from what I know, other Christians who celebrate Passover also ignore the matzah festival. (Is this the case)?

And aside the fact that we’ve apparently separated (and dismissed) the matzah festival from Passover (the two may have been different to begin with anyway), I wonder why we never hear of Mormons celebrating Sukkoth, Hannukah, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, etc. (Or do we?) Passover seems to be special in that we’ve assigned it a particularly Christian interpretation (we and the rest of the Christian world).

Additionally, while Passover celebrations are popular among some Mormons, I would venture to say that the majority of Mormons do not in celebrate Passover and the festival has no official status in the Church (outside its transformation into Easter, as the quote Marjorie Condor adduced above illustrates). Easter, on the other hand, has at least a quasi-official status, and is celebrated among Mormons on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This formula, which has no basis in scripture, is, apparently not coincidentally, the very formula used throughout Western Christendom for calculating Easter.

All of this leads me to wonder: do we take more cues from mainstream Christianity than we’re aware of?

My motivation to “do” a Passover was to refocus on Christ, thus we always do ours on the Thursday before Easter, regardless of the Jewish calendar. (this also frees up our married children and their families to participate with the other sides of their families who are all doing more traditional Easter things (Easter egg hunts, etc.) Doing it on Thursday puts our Passover in the same relationship to Easter as the Last Supper was. The Last Supper was a Passover meal and it is the event where Christ, the God of the OT for LDS, brings together with particular emphasis the traditional symbols (bread and wine), that have continuing importance for us. Our Passover is very traditional (Old and New Testaments) with some Restoration elements added and not very “Jewish” at all.

One of the great things about doing a Passover ceremony is that it engages all the senses. Learning theory says that the more senses engaged the more grounded the learning. Since we are trying to reinforce, for our family, the most important event since creation, gounding that learning as solidly as possible is important to us. It is also of some interest that the Sacrament service on Sunday also engages all of our senses.

We had a great evening last night celebrating this important marker of sacred history with our family and some friends.

Personally, I identify more with the Christian narrative than the Jewish, but find them both meaningful and interesting.