China: Christianity’s sleeping giant

UC Observer ^ | 02/17/2014 | By Alex Jürgen Thumm

[ThanhPhero]

In Việt Nam Catholicism made its peace with Ancestor veneration. Actually with only a small change in orientation it fits well in the "Communion of Saints." Those ancestors who are saints, who are in Heaven, can be prayed to to intercede with the Father. The change is that the souls of the ancestors have no direct effect on present people. They are not gods or "spirits." Catholic household shrines look similar to Buddhist household shrines but there are no offerings to the Ancestors on them and the significance is different. Discomfort with the Communion of Saints has limited Protestant reach in a culture that sees each generation as continuous with the generations that preceded it and that will follow it.

[xone]

Discomfort with the Communion of Saints has limited Protestant

No discomfort with the scriptural Communion of Saints, just the Catholic version of it, that is apparently flexible enough to absorb ancestor worship.

[ThanhPhero]

Not ancestor worship. That does not happen. Remembrance yes. Praying for the souls of the dead ancestors, yes. Catholics and other truly biblical Christians do that. Asking for intercession of those that might be in Heaven, yes. But Protestants can’t get much past slogans.

[xone]

Praying for the souls of the dead ancestors, yes. Catholics and other truly biblical Christians do that.

You'll have to show me the scripture for praying for the souls of the dead. Once you're dead, you are judged. Heb 9:27, If you are saved you don't need prayer, if you are damned prayer can't help you.

Asking for intercession of those that might be in Heaven, yes.

Again, no scriptural warrant for that, as I Tim 2:5 shows there is one mediator between God and man, and it ain't grandma.

But Protestants can’t get much past slogans.

No, they just can't get past the scripture saying otherwise.

[ThanhPhero]

You threw out that part of Scripture because you didn’t like it. Maccabees.

[xone]

Threw out Maccabees because even St Jerome classified it differently from 'real scripture.'

Apochrypha

Catholics retain it both for the lessons of stories like Tobias and the demon Asmodeus and for verse plucking doctrinal support in the case of prayer for the dead.