Reddit mentions of Ancient-Future Time

You know what else is a result of "man-made tradition"? That Bible you're clinging to.

Next time you're in mass or in an Orthodox service of the divine liturgy (not that I'm expecting you to be), thank them for that Bible. Because it was men who put it together, not God. Sure, God-driven men, but men nonetheless. I happen to believe that if God can work through men to put together the final canon of the Bible, God can work through men to establish a liturgy that draws the Church deeper into himself year by year.

And, uh, no. That's not what the Church is about. The Church is here to be the body of Christ himself in this world, and to change it, bringing about the kingdom of God with as much power as we've been given to do so (that is, a lot). "Meeting people where they are to serve them" could certainly be part of it, but throwing out tradition (which you don't do, I guarantee you) in favor of American Evangelicalism's freeform approach is wrong. The liturgical year is all about drawing the Church into right worship of the Lord God Almighty, not stuffy tradition.

You know, I'd invite you to read a book. The whole series is pretty good, but this one is specific for what you're talking about. Ancient-Future: Time by Robert Webber is fantastic for introducing Christians to their year. It will let you see it all in a much more beautiful light, I assure you.

Sorry for the delay in responding...

I would highly recommend reading a book on the Christian Calendar. Robert Webber's Ancient-Future Time is probably a good place to start. Webber was a professor at Wheaton and does a good job of explaining the liturgical practices of the Church through time in a way that made it easy for me as an Evangelical to understand. You will find that the majority of Christian holidays are firmly based in scripture (there are a few that are extra-biblical events from the lives of biblical people, or commemorate events in the early history of the Church---no real reason to think of them as pagan, though). That's the main problem with the idea that Christians essentially copied a pagan calendar: the Christian calendar is Christ-focused at its core. A few syncretic practices in one location or another doesn't change this. Yule logs, for example, are obviously pagan... but you won't see too many people outside of the Anglo-German-influenced world celebrating Christmas with them, like you'd expect if Christmas was fundamentally a pagan holiday (Amusingly enough, it was Yule that was changed to coincide with Christmas, once upon a time...).

The impulse to ditch Christian holidays is more or less a product of the Regulative Principle of Worship proposed by Calvinists and the Radical Reformers. Since the Bible is inspired and the only guaranteed "Christian" source, everything not mentioned therein must be done away with. Once comparative religion studies became popular in the 1700-1800s, various people started trying to back up the bans with accusations of pagan origins by connecting Christian practices with any similar pagan practices, regardless of historic continuity or lack thereof. Thus things like the Christmas tree, which developed from the paradise plays popular in Christian Germany around the time of the Reformation suddenly became somehow related to the Yule tree of ancient German paganism, or the Asherah groves of the Ancient Near East, or the greenery of the Roman Saturnalia festival, despite the fact that their development was completely independent. Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons is probably the most notorious of these attempts. A lot of these works are similar in quality to those claiming that Egyptians must have sailed the Atlantic and taught the Mesoamericans how to build pyramids. Ralph Woodrow does a decent job of addressing Hislop's work in particular in The Babylon Connection?.

Most of my sources on Christmas traditions are in German and not available in English (I lived in the Northern Rhineland for a while), but here is a decent essay on Christmas Trees, at least. You might want to look into finding a good book on Church history too, if you're really curious. I hope this is helpful.