Holy sites and protestants

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I was listening to a protestant radio preacher describing his visit to the Holy Land. He was at the protestant version of Jesus’s tomb. Someone told him that it wasn’t actually Jesus’s tomb. He said he didn’t care, it was awesome being there anyway.

When I was in Lourdes I thought that the place would be enough to drive any good protestant nuts with it’s overt Marian devotion, the audacious giant golden crown, the two large icons of our two recently canonized popes, and holy water available by the gallon. Although I haven’t made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I imagine the sacred sites also have a distinctly Catholic feel with Holy Tradition on full display. I’m not sure how a visit to these places would affect a protestant’s sensibilities. It probably would make a number of them uncomfortable. No wonder they choose to stay away.
 
For me, personally, travelling is something I don’t enjoy anymore (especially flying) in the U.S. or outside the U.S.
Safety is the number one issue for me.
If I were younger, in my 30’s or 40’s, I might feel different, but I am 66.
Yes I would love to see the Holy Land and Italy. I lived in Spain when I was 20-21 in 1972-1973 and I studied the theatre in London in 1974. I would love to see the Notre Dame Cathedral in France and
where St. Joan of Arc was born.
Too many scary incidents on airplanes these days and too many terrorist attacks in Europe.
I don’t see how being a protestant has anything to do with it. Many protestants
travel to the Holy Land.
 
I like FB. My timeline is full of art, birds and charming little children with a smattering of Catholicism. It’s like anything, it is what you make of it.
 
I didn’t want to nor was I trying to change anyone’s mind. I was merely reminding them that sometimes you have to take a cruise/airplane if you want to see something that isn’t in the US.
 
I have several protestant friends that did go to Rome and saw everything they could get to. It was fascinating hearing about their trips but the best part was when they admitted to me—“there really is something about it” that they didn’t realize before going.
 
Bearself your comment is fabulous. Shame on me for not saying this up front because you are so correct. The closest Mass is in fact a Holy site. Thank you for the reminder.
 
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A lot of the Protestants I know have zero interest in going to the Holy Land. I think it’s because they see no value in Tradition (or tradition) and the emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus, along with a generally low view of the Church’s role in the Christian’s life, couple to remove them from any sense of history we Catholics have and share with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. They also have issues like “How do they know that’s where Jesus was born/burried?” As if it’s inconceivable that the most important places in the world weren’t at minimum noted, if not venerated, early on. Of course our answer is we know vicariously through Tradition, but that doesn’t sit well with any Protestants I know, regardless of the fact that we were there first.
 
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However, when Protestants from Europe and the United States (Mark Twain among them) began flooding Palestine in the 19th century, they looked askance at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

“Protestants came last to Jerusalem. And when they came, the Holy Sepulchre was occupied by other Christian denominations,” said Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay. They also noticed that the New Testament says that Jesus was crucified outside the city gate (Heb. 13:12). This church was plainly inside the city walls.

So another site called the Garden Tomb—discovered in 1867 just outside the Damascus Gate—developed a following.

The Garden Tomb is operated by a nondenominational Christian charitable trust based in the United Kingdom. However, the British tour guides who lead groups past a hill that could be Golgotha and into the empty tomb only go so far as to say it could be the actual tomb of Jesus.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ne...mpete-jesus-burial-holy-sepulchre-garden.html
Click to expand...
 
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