Sign of the cross when praying

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on_the_hill

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Do Protestants make the sign of the cross when they pray? Sort of embarrassing question for a 50 year old man to ask, but I can’t remember seeing it. :confused:
 
Many Lutherans and Anglicans do. Outside of those two, I’m not sure about other individual protestant denominations.
 
It wasn’t done in any of the mainline Protestant churches I’ve gone to.
 
Episcopalians (Anglicans) and Lutherans might. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and just about all the other Protestant denominations don’t typically pray this way.
 
on_the_hill said:
Do Protestants make the sign of the cross when they pray? Sort of embarrassing question for a 50 year old man to ask, but I can’t remember seeing it. :confused:
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Lutherans often do. Anglicans often do. Both traditions have their high and low church members, members who tend toward “Catholic”, and those who tend toward "Protestant ".
When my daughter graduated from her Lutheran university, commencement was held in the gym, roughly 2000 people. At the invocation, it was a sea of hands making the sign of the cross.
It just depends
 
on_the_hill said:
Do Protestants make the sign of the cross when they pray? Sort of embarrassing question for a 50 year old man to ask, but I can’t remember seeing it. :confused:
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I do in my church and one of my pastors does as well. Many of the congregants don’t - it just was not done and is slowly making its way back. I have never seen anybody in other Protestant churches do it either. I even went to an Anglican service in Australia and no one there made the sign of the cross either.
 
Rather apropos.

The Sign of the Cross​

The most basic Christian gesture in prayer is and always will be the sign of the cross. It is a way of confessing Christ crucified with one’s very body … To seal oneself with the sign of the cross is a visible and public Yes to him who suffered for us; to him who in the body has made God’s love visible, even to the utmost; to the God who reigns not by destruction but by the humility of suffering and love, which is stronger than all the power of the world and wiser than all the calculating intelligence of men. The sign of the cross is a confession of faith: I believe in him who suffered for me and rose again; in him who has transformed the sign of shame into a sign of hope and of the love of God that is present with us. The confession of faith is a confession of hope: I believe in him who in his weakness is the Almighty; in him who can and will save me even in apparent absence and impotence. By signing ourselves with the cross, we place ourselves under the protection of the cross, hold it in front of us like a shield that will guard us in all the distress of daily life and give us the courage to go on. We accept it as a signpost that we follow … The cross shows us the road of life — the imitation of Christ. . .Whenever we make the sign of the cross, we accept our Baptism anew; Christ from the cross draws us, so to speak, to himself. . .We make the sign of the cross on ourselves and thus enter the power of the blessing of Jesus Christ. We make the sign over people to whom we wish a blessing … Through the cross, we can become sources of blessing for one another.

Pope Benedict XVI
 
po18guy said:
Rather apropos.

The Sign of the Cross​

The most basic Christian gesture in prayer is and always will be the sign of the cross. It is a way of confessing Christ crucified with one’s very body … To seal oneself with the sign of the cross is a visible and public Yes to him who suffered for us; to him who in the body has made God’s love visible, even to the utmost; to the God who reigns not by destruction but by the humility of suffering and love, which is stronger than all the power of the world and wiser than all the calculating intelligence of men. The sign of the cross is a confession of faith: I believe in him who suffered for me and rose again; in him who has transformed the sign of shame into a sign of hope and of the love of God that is present with us. The confession of faith is a confession of hope: I believe in him who in his weakness is the Almighty; in him who can and will save me even in apparent absence and impotence. By signing ourselves with the cross, we place ourselves under the protection of the cross, hold it in front of us like a shield that will guard us in all the distress of daily life and give us the courage to go on. We accept it as a signpost that we follow … The cross shows us the road of life — the imitation of Christ. . .Whenever we make the sign of the cross, we accept our Baptism anew; Christ from the cross draws us, so to speak, to himself. . .We make the sign of the cross on ourselves and thus enter the power of the blessing of Jesus Christ. We make the sign over people to whom we wish a blessing … Through the cross, we can become sources of blessing for one another.

Pope Benedict XVI
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Wow! Fantastic.
Amen
 
Very rare especially in evangelical or Anglican churches. I wished I knew about the sign of cross earlier as its a great way to know who God is which
many evangelicals struggle with. There is no doubt with the sign of the cross and just basing on this I know several cults wouldn’t even able to draw Christians away.
 
I certainly do. It’s part of my heritage as a Western Christian.
 
I recall a kerfuffle quite recently where a number of Reformed Christians were making the sign of the cross and someone (possibly RC Sproul, I can’t be sure) wrote an article or answered a question about it and pretty much squashed the idea for Protestants of a certain type. Might have been around the time the Bible Answer Man converted to Orthodoxy, I can’t remember. I saw it on a Facebook friend’s page and I’m not on Facebook to look anymore. But it’s frowned on in evangelical circles in my experience.
 
I do, along with most other Lutherans who actually read their catechisms.

…But I suppose not everyone counts Lutherans as ‘Protestants,’ for good reason.
 
As an Anglican I make the Sign of the Cross in prayer. It is also part of our Liturgical worship.
 
Inbetweener said:
Very rare especially in evangelical or Anglican churches. I wished I knew about the sign of cross earlier as its a great way to know who God is which many evangelicals struggle with. There is no doubt with the sign of the cross and just basing on this I know several cults wouldn’t even able to draw Christians away.
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I’m confused with this quote as for most of my 40 years as a Lutheran (I did not) , as well as family and friends who are evangelicals, do not make the sign of the cross but certainly don’t struggle with knowing who God is. I like to do it now, personally, as a way to remind myself of Christ’s death on the cross but one cannot make a blanket statement like that without some sort of valid reference.

Blessings

Rita
 
There’s no harm in doing so. If one really feels that making the sign of the cross gives some extra spiritual component to their prayers then go for it.

It also doesn’t hurt someone with a mind set on God if they don’t take part in such rituals.
 
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