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hn160
Guest
Pastor Weedon hits it right on.
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stevekehl
Guest
Praying for the dead is more for the comforting of the living than for the soul of the departed. Protestants believe that God judges only based on the person’s life.
Hebrews 9:27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
And …
2Corinthians 5:6 Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord 7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight); 8 we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
Prayers may be offered for the person at their funeral, as I said, they are more for the grieving than for the dead.
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gcnuss
Guest
Andrew,
We most certainly pray for the departed. As an example, the following is the commendation prayer from our funeral liturgy.
And, on All Saints ’ Day we raise up in prayer the names of those in our congregation who have died in the past year as well as others among the departed whose names are given by friends or family for remembrance.
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AbideWithMe
Guest
That’s a beautiful prayer, Pastor.
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Contarini
Guest
I think that’s unfair. For many Protestants it’s a genuine conviction–it’s no more “callous” than, say, the Church’s refusal to allow divorce and remarriage or same-sex unions.
However, theologically I agree that the absolute prohibition most Protestants have is rather odd. At worst, it would seem a harmless practice that can’t hurt. But to many Protestants, praying for the dead at the very least implies views of the afterlife that they consider heretical, and at worst could be a form of necromancy, because it could lead, for instance, to the belief that the dead can appear to you and ask for your prayers. This last view is held by the more hardline, fundamentalist Protestants, but it is something I have encountered on occasion. The former is perhaps the more common objection.
Edwin
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Kristin234
Guest
Now I get what you mean. Thanks
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Kristin234
Guest
You are right, Kaddish is not a prayer for the dead. It is a prayer to God and it is all about glorifying Him. So those who are mourning are basically saying “even with the death that occurred in our life you are still an awesome God.”
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colliric
Guest
All that means is that to God, time effectivly doesn’t exist(“a thousand years are like a day” as scripture puts it). God does not change(nether does his love for us), he is the one constant in all of our lives. The idea of time is for the benefit of Man, as we are born, we grow, we die. We live our lives… we hopefully move on to something better. Who knows if we only get one chance? All that scripture says on the matter is that one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth…
If God wanted to, he could destroy the world as it is now and start right over again…But well, the fact he hasn’t is part proof that he loves in someway all lifeforms that live on this planet. Remember when he destroyed Sodom, he first put the proposal to Lot that he wouldn’t destroy it if any goodness and love remained there…
Perhaps in our “heavenly bodies” we live somekind of new, and better life at peace wiith God in the new heaven and/or on the renewed earth?
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colliric
Guest
The dead CAN APPEAR TO YOU and ask for your prayers… when your in a state of dreaming!!!
This has happened to me on several occassions.
That’s why frankly I’ve never understood why some protestants would flat out refuse to pray for the dead. On first hand experience, it does happen a dead person can appear and ask for prayers, although obviously not in the way that would be considered “necromancy”, which would be physical manifestation of the person’s spirit and exceptionally sinful/evil.
I have met some other protestants(and also some Catholics too) who wouldn’t pray for a particular person or two, but that’s different because they already belived that specific person was actually in heaven(not suprisingly I’ve never come across this type of person not praying for a soul they thought might have gone to the other place… they will pray harder for that one!) and saw it essentially as a kind of “leap of faith”. So there are some protestants who are doing it for that reason, which is fine to me, it’s kind of already a prayer anyway in that sense that they are hopeful that person is already there. They would normally pray for someone else who they didn’t know much about(or didn’t know the circumstances of that person’s death), but that particular person mabye they saw how peaceful that person was at the time they died, believed they lived a holy life, etc.
But there are other protestants who just refuse(no real reason given), even if they didn’t know the person or their lifestyle.
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Contarini
Guest
I don’t dispute this. In fact, the first clear instance of Christian prayer for the dead (in the Martyrdom of Perpetua) is in response to such a dream.
I’m simply making the point that some conservative Protestants regard this as a form of “necromancy,” and since in Catholicism prayer for the dead seems often to be accompanied by this kind of communication between the dead and the living, that’s one of the reasons that some Protestants regard it as not just pointless but actually demonic.
Actually, a lot of the stories I’ve read from the Catholic tradition don’t involve dreams–I think you’re making a concession to Protestant concerns here that the Catholic tradition as a whole would not make, but I could be wrong. I don’t think such an appearance–not in dreams–would have to be physical. I suppose it depends on what you mean by physical.
Edwin
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twopekinguys
Guest
I think you may have hit the nail on the head with this.
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Kristin234
Guest
I regard it as a form of necromancy and it scares me. To me I see it as you are communicating with the dead and I think that is demonic. I don’t have a problem with Catholics praying for the dead. My fiance’s entire family are devout Catholics and I have seen it many times and it does not bother me. What freaks me out is when I begin to hear stories of people saying that they saw a loved one’s spirit talking to them telling them to pray to them or telling them to pray to them and they will tell God what they want. I have heard a ton of stories like that.
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JustaServant
Guest
Why do you immediately associate the dead with demonic?
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twopekinguys
Guest
Then you probably won’t like my story.
Just about 2 weeks (give or take) after my father died, he called me on my cell phone. He just told me that everything is OK, not to worry, and that was it.
Pssssst…Who is that behind you?
As far as Catholics praying “to” anyone, it is merely for intercession. We believe they are just as much alive in heaven as they were here on Earth.
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rfournier103
Guest
2 Maccabees 12:41-46 Could be a reason why. Almost all Protestants don’t have this in their bibles.
41 All then blessed the ways of the Lord, the upright judge who brings hidden things to light,
42 and gave themselves to prayer, begging that the sin committed might be completely forgiven. Next, the valiant Judas urged the soldiers to keep themselves free from all sin, having seen with their own eyes the effects of the sin of those who had fallen;
43 after this he took a collection from them individually, amounting to nearly two thousand drachmas, and sent it to Jerusalem to have a sacrifice for sin offered, an action altogether fine and noble, prompted by his belief in the resurrection.
44 For had he not expected the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead,
45 whereas if he had in view the splendid recompense reserved for those who make a pious end, the thought was holy and devout.
46 Hence, he had this expiatory sacrifice offered for the dead, so that they might be released from their sin.
The reason this isn’t in their bibles is a whole other topic with threads on this subject springing up fortnightly.
I will pray for your stepfather. Very sorry for your loss.
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SonCatcher
Guest
- If they are with God in Heaven, then they aren’t dead. They are more alive than us.
- Necromancy is the attempt to acquire subversive information from the dead. Catholics forbid this.
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Kristin234
Guest
Did you not read my entire post?
- I said I do not mind praying for the dead.
- Praying to the dead is demonic. The Bible tells us not to communicate with them.
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Kristin234
Guest
They are dead to me. Alive in Christ but dead to me. The Bible even calls them the dead in Christ.
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Contarini
Guest
Right. You’re illustrating the point I made. I think your position is simply wrong–it denies the truth that Jesus harrowed Sheol.
But we’re unlikely to reach an agreement on this because of different Biblical hermeneutics and different views of the value of tradition.
Edwin
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Contarini
Guest
Right. But in Christ is the point. Jesus harrowed hell–the dead are now under His authority. So “communicating” with the dead in Christ for the purposes of praying for them or in some other way that remains under Christ’s authority is not demonic.
Edwin
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