My father's Catholic friend recently wrote the following:
"Catholics do not worship [statues and icons of saints]—they remind us, just as a photo of a man's wife or kid does. We know the photo isn't them. Also, any prayers to saints are prayers of intercession not of worship. We only worship the One True God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The intercessory prayers are just like me asking, 'Hey, Tom, I know you are a good Christian, would you mind praying for my son who….' The saints are not dead, they are alive with Christ, and are the cloud of witnesses that Paul writes about, and if they are alive with Christ, how much more effective would their prayers be!"
I can see several problems with this belief:
1. The Bible clearly says there is only one person in heaven who can intercede for us (1 Timothy 2:5), so the idea of an “intercessory prayer” to a saint is scripturally incorrect. Asking someone to pray for you is different than asking him or her to intercede, since that implies getting “in between” you and God.
2. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate dead believers – even those making up “the cloud of witnesses” – can pray for us the way a living person can. Or that they can hear our thoughts, which would be required for them to respond to our silent prayers (unless Catholics pray to saints aloud). This line of reasoning imparts to the dead attributes only God is known to have.
3. We must also not forget history. Praying to the revered dead was not a common practice among Christians until the Roman Church decided to integrate paganism with Christianity. To make that more palatable, they came up with a “Christian version” of many old pagan concepts, including praying to idols of lesser deities and/or female deities. This is where the practice of praying to saints in front of statues of saints came from; the rationale came second.
Lastly, I think Christians should fear engaging in this practice because our Father has some very strong words about idolatry, and there is a real risk of falling into the habit of treating a saint and his/her statue the same way pagans treated their minor deities and idols -- with superstition and the belief that they have special powers. Look at how some Christians idolize (pun intended) the Virgin Mary, putting her on the same level as our Savior by suggesting she, too, was born without sin and that she can appear to people in a theophany (e.g. the Marian apparition).
In other words, this idea of praying to saints seems like an obvious trick of Satan to me. What do you think? Also, what do you know about "the cloud of witnesses" passage (Hebrews 12:1)? I know Pastor Whipple taught on this topic many times, so I'd like to read your recollections and understanding of what he taught. Please leave a comment.
