The Church of God has always found reasons to find all kinds of things "pagan" in the world around us. One of the most idiotic things the church did was to change the words in some of the hymns we sang, including the Battle Hymn of The Republic.
Bye-Bye Lilies
"The Easter Lily, the flowery symbol of Easter, which turns up at church altars everywhere that day, is actually not a Spring flower. It was a pagan phallic symbol that represented a sexual reproductive organ. It obviously reflected on the fertility aspect of the celebration.""...pagan symbols of sex and fertility, like little trees decorated with orbs and bulbs); the vernal equinox, called after Ishtar (pronounced "Easter") and accompanied by symbols of sex and fecundity, like rabbits, and eggs, and the lily flower, which the pagans thought looked like a sex symbol."
GTA, gave a blistering attack sermon at the feast. Mainly, focusing on sex symbols and lilies. Near the end of the sermon, he asked everyone to open their hymnals, turn to page 54, and then mark through the word "lilies" replace it with the word "autumn". This got Christ out of the middle of the pagan lilies.
Then the great lily purge started. Our pastor announced at church a few weeks later; "no more lilies were to used in church floral arrangements". My mom threw away some clothing which had lily designs on them.
In the mid-60s we moved to another church area. A woman committed the lily transgression showing up to church services wearing a lily corsage. She was instructed by a DIC to remove it, she complied. My father told me about an attack speech given in Spokesman's Club the member destroyed all the lilies on his property.
In 1970 we moved to Atlanta. Carl McNair was surprisingly a little more liberal. No more than 2 or 3 lilies in the church's floral arrangement were OK. However, the pastor in St. Louis had a floral arrangement removed from the stage due to the detestable flowers being a presence in the church. Citing; "a stench in God's nostrils."
In the mid-80s when I started attending church again I noticed this taboo was no longer enforced and the church had gone whole-hog pagan.
Reposted from Facebook, with permission