The word “saint” evokes many different images in the mind of men and women from all different sorts of religious backgrounds. Some people think of saints as someone acting in a particularly good or moral way in a specific moment in time, such as when a mother exclaims to another “your child is such a saint!” Others associate saints like Saint Valentine and Saint Nicholas as cartoonish figures that represent their related holiday, while others still have a medieval and archaic image of men and women walking around with Bibles in their arms and halos hovering over their heads. Yet, to Catholic Christians, saints have played a very active and very important role in the piety of a believer. However, this sentiment is not held by all Christians.
…show more content…
It is only natural for an Evangelical to condemn this practice, because they are correct in their belief that it is God alone who saves and who is omniscient over His creation, thus their belief that they should pray to God and to God alone. So the question remains: do Catholics pray to saints? However, the answer is not nearly as simple as the question. If prayer is meaning that one utters words expecting whoever is being addressed in a prayer to hear them, then yes, Catholics are praying to saints. However, if prayer is meaning that they are viewing the one to whom their prayer is addressed to be able to solve and/or absolve them of their problems, then no, Catholics are not praying to saints. In Timothy 2:1, Paul tells Christians, “first of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (NKJV, 1 Tim 2.1). Much like Evangelicals ask their friends to pray for them in times of need, or even in times of joy, so Catholics see the intercession of the saints as a similar practice of asking loved ones (saints) to pray and intercede for them (“The Intercession of the Saints”). Saints themselves will not solve their problems or take away their pain, just like those praying for Evangelicals are not in positions of …show more content…
Many Evangelicals argue that an invocation of the saints to partake an active role in the life of a believer could be considered necromancy, a strictly forbidden practice for Christians condemned by God in Deuteronomy 18:10-15. However, Christians must distinguish between necromancy, or the conjuring of a dead spirit, and prayer to the saints, an act in which a believer enters into a conversation with believers who have gone before them. Likewise, the intercession of the saints is not praying to the dead in a sense, because Christians who have died are not dead, but in reality more alive than anyone on earth. For example, the Bible says in John 11:25-26 that those who put their trust in Christ will live, even though their physical body will perish (NKJV, John 11.25-26). As Brown puts it in his book, the Cult of the Saints, saints are a vital part of the faith, because it is through them that we see “the joining of Heaven and Earth, and the role, in this joining, of dead human beings (saints)” (Brown 1). Perhaps saints form another link for believers still alive today to the spiritual realm beyond our own earthly realm, while still showing no indication of conjuring saints or asking them to perform satanic acts or displays of
It is only natural for an Evangelical to condemn this practice, because they are correct in their belief that it is God alone who saves and who is omniscient over His creation, thus their belief that they should pray to God and to God alone. So the question remains: do Catholics pray to saints? However, the answer is not nearly as simple as the question. If prayer is meaning that one utters words expecting whoever is being addressed in a prayer to hear them, then yes, Catholics are praying to saints. However, if prayer is meaning that they are viewing the one to whom their prayer is addressed to be able to solve and/or absolve them of their problems, then no, Catholics are not praying to saints. In Timothy 2:1, Paul tells Christians, “first of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (NKJV, 1 Tim 2.1). Much like Evangelicals ask their friends to pray for them in times of need, or even in times of joy, so Catholics see the intercession of the saints as a similar practice of asking loved ones (saints) to pray and intercede for them (“The Intercession of the Saints”). Saints themselves will not solve their problems or take away their pain, just like those praying for Evangelicals are not in positions of …show more content…
Many Evangelicals argue that an invocation of the saints to partake an active role in the life of a believer could be considered necromancy, a strictly forbidden practice for Christians condemned by God in Deuteronomy 18:10-15. However, Christians must distinguish between necromancy, or the conjuring of a dead spirit, and prayer to the saints, an act in which a believer enters into a conversation with believers who have gone before them. Likewise, the intercession of the saints is not praying to the dead in a sense, because Christians who have died are not dead, but in reality more alive than anyone on earth. For example, the Bible says in John 11:25-26 that those who put their trust in Christ will live, even though their physical body will perish (NKJV, John 11.25-26). As Brown puts it in his book, the Cult of the Saints, saints are a vital part of the faith, because it is through them that we see “the joining of Heaven and Earth, and the role, in this joining, of dead human beings (saints)” (Brown 1). Perhaps saints form another link for believers still alive today to the spiritual realm beyond our own earthly realm, while still showing no indication of conjuring saints or asking them to perform satanic acts or displays of