Tuesday, May 17, 2005
For All the Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed
I've been protestant, rc and eo and am probably protestant again.
I'd like to offer the perspective of a scholar I've recently (the past 2 to 4 months?) discovered. (Thanks Nate!) on the subject, and he very well (with grace) states what I currently believe on the subject.
From For All the Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed
"This, we note, contains the emphasis of the Eastern Orthodox Church (that the saints of old do not reach fulfilment without us) -- even though, of course, Hebrews is talking about the Old Testament saints. And we also note that, however important the saints may be, however much they are surrounding us, it is still on Jesus himself that one fixes one's eyes.
What I do not find in the New Testament is any suggestion that those at present in heaven/paradise are actively engaged in praying for those of us in the present life. Nor is there any suggestion that we should ask them to do so. I touch here on a sensitive nerve within the devotional habits of a large section of the church, but this point of view deserves a fair hearing.
It is true that, if the saints are conscious, and if they are 'with Christ in a sense which, as Paul implies, is closer than we ourselves are at the moment, there is every reason to suppose that they are at least, like the souls under the altar in Revelation, urging the Father to complete the work of justice and salvation in the world. If that is so, there is no reason in principle why they should not urge the Father similarly on our behalf. I just don't see any signs in the early Christian writings to suggest that they actually do that, or that we should, so to speak, encouarge them to do so by invoking them specifically. Likewise, there is certainly no reason in principle why we should not pray for them -- not that they will get out of purgatory, of course, but that they will be refreshed, and filled with God's joy and peace. Love passes into prayer; we still love them; why not hold them, in that love, before God?
I put it like that, as a cautious question rather than as a firm statement. But there is one particular aspect of the invocation of the saints which troubles me much more deeply. The practice seems to me to undermine, or actually to deny by implication, something which is promised again and again in the New Testament: immedicacy of access to God through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit. When we read some of the greatest passages in the New Testament -- the Farewell Discourses in John 13 --- 17, for instance, or the great central section (chapters 5 --- 8) of Paul's letter to the Romans -- we find over and over the clear message that, because of Christ and the Spirit, every single Christian is welcome at any time to come before the Father. If, then, a royal welcome awaits you in the throne room itself, for whatever may be on your heart and mind, great or small, why bother hanging around the outer lobby trying to persuade someone there, however distinguished, to go in and ask on your behalf? 'Through Christ we have access to the Father in One Spirit' (Ephesians 2.18). If Paul could say that to newley converted Gentiles, he can certainly say it to us today. To deny this, even by implication, is to call in question one of the central blessings and privileges of the Gospel. The whole point of the letter to the Hebrews is that Jesus Christ himself is 'our man at court', 'our man in heaven.' He, says Paul in Romans 8, is interceding for us; why should we need anyone else?
When we step off such firm biblical ground, no matter what traditions may suggest, we are always at risk. Explicit invocation of saints may in fact be -- I do not always say is, but may be -- a step towards the semi-paganism of which the Reformers were rightly afraid. The world of late Roman antiquity found it difficult to rid its collective imagination of the many-layered panoply of gods and lords, of demi-gods and heroes, that had been collecting in the culture for well over a thousand years. The second century church began, quite understandably, to venerate the martyrs as special witnesses to the victory of Christ over death. These martyrs had already been seen as special, as early as the book of Revelation. Once Christianity had become established and persecution ceased, it is not a large transition for the church to nominate for 'veneration' others who, though not martyred, had nevertheless been notable Christians in other ways. But the whole process of developing not only hierarchies among such people but also elaborate systems for designating them (cannonization and the like) seems to me a hugh exercise in missing the point."
I'shalom
I'd like to offer the perspective of a scholar I've recently (the past 2 to 4 months?) discovered. (Thanks Nate!) on the subject, and he very well (with grace) states what I currently believe on the subject.
From For All the Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed
"This, we note, contains the emphasis of the Eastern Orthodox Church (that the saints of old do not reach fulfilment without us) -- even though, of course, Hebrews is talking about the Old Testament saints. And we also note that, however important the saints may be, however much they are surrounding us, it is still on Jesus himself that one fixes one's eyes.
What I do not find in the New Testament is any suggestion that those at present in heaven/paradise are actively engaged in praying for those of us in the present life. Nor is there any suggestion that we should ask them to do so. I touch here on a sensitive nerve within the devotional habits of a large section of the church, but this point of view deserves a fair hearing.
It is true that, if the saints are conscious, and if they are 'with Christ in a sense which, as Paul implies, is closer than we ourselves are at the moment, there is every reason to suppose that they are at least, like the souls under the altar in Revelation, urging the Father to complete the work of justice and salvation in the world. If that is so, there is no reason in principle why they should not urge the Father similarly on our behalf. I just don't see any signs in the early Christian writings to suggest that they actually do that, or that we should, so to speak, encouarge them to do so by invoking them specifically. Likewise, there is certainly no reason in principle why we should not pray for them -- not that they will get out of purgatory, of course, but that they will be refreshed, and filled with God's joy and peace. Love passes into prayer; we still love them; why not hold them, in that love, before God?
I put it like that, as a cautious question rather than as a firm statement. But there is one particular aspect of the invocation of the saints which troubles me much more deeply. The practice seems to me to undermine, or actually to deny by implication, something which is promised again and again in the New Testament: immedicacy of access to God through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit. When we read some of the greatest passages in the New Testament -- the Farewell Discourses in John 13 --- 17, for instance, or the great central section (chapters 5 --- 8) of Paul's letter to the Romans -- we find over and over the clear message that, because of Christ and the Spirit, every single Christian is welcome at any time to come before the Father. If, then, a royal welcome awaits you in the throne room itself, for whatever may be on your heart and mind, great or small, why bother hanging around the outer lobby trying to persuade someone there, however distinguished, to go in and ask on your behalf? 'Through Christ we have access to the Father in One Spirit' (Ephesians 2.18). If Paul could say that to newley converted Gentiles, he can certainly say it to us today. To deny this, even by implication, is to call in question one of the central blessings and privileges of the Gospel. The whole point of the letter to the Hebrews is that Jesus Christ himself is 'our man at court', 'our man in heaven.' He, says Paul in Romans 8, is interceding for us; why should we need anyone else?
When we step off such firm biblical ground, no matter what traditions may suggest, we are always at risk. Explicit invocation of saints may in fact be -- I do not always say is, but may be -- a step towards the semi-paganism of which the Reformers were rightly afraid. The world of late Roman antiquity found it difficult to rid its collective imagination of the many-layered panoply of gods and lords, of demi-gods and heroes, that had been collecting in the culture for well over a thousand years. The second century church began, quite understandably, to venerate the martyrs as special witnesses to the victory of Christ over death. These martyrs had already been seen as special, as early as the book of Revelation. Once Christianity had become established and persecution ceased, it is not a large transition for the church to nominate for 'veneration' others who, though not martyred, had nevertheless been notable Christians in other ways. But the whole process of developing not only hierarchies among such people but also elaborate systems for designating them (cannonization and the like) seems to me a hugh exercise in missing the point."
I'shalom
