Gairney Bridge

A few years ago, someone asked me one “Ash Wednesday” what I was giving up for lent; I replied, “Romish superstitions.” Well this is is far, far worse.

I saw this morning on James White’s website an short entry about the thriving business of selling Roman Catholic relics. In the article, White writes:

There are few things more repulsive to the life-long Protestant than relics, and nothing more creepy than entering an old style traditionalist Roman Catholic church filled with skeletons and bones and the like. The relic trade continues to this day, despite how often modern Roman Catholics try to sanitize this glaring example of gross superstition and unbiblical idolatry. … The relic trade was well worthy of Erasmus’ scorn half a millennium ago, when he rightly noted that one could build an entire ship out of all of the “genuine fragments of the cross.” Bottles of Mary’s milk and feathers of the Angel Gabriel were a dime a dozen then, and were just as much of a fraud as they are today. But what is worse is that the theology that gave rise to this gross superstition remains in Rome today. Ask the faithful flocking to Fatima or Lourdes or any of the other of a thousand shrines today. Ask the people on their knees praying to dead bones. And then be reminded: Rome remains as much of an opponent to the gospel of grace as she has ever been.

Note one of the pictures included on the site. How inspiring!

White references another blog entry that relayed the story.  That author references a story in Forbes that speaks of the thriving industry and focuses on an antique dealer in Manhattan:

For example, at this store the skulls of martyrs are sold for $4,500, the teeth of saints go for $300, and for a mere $975 you can get what is purported to be a tiny splinter from Jesus’ cross. Recently a stone that is supposedly from the site of the transfiguration was sold for $430,000.  Gulp.

In fairness, the Forbes article does state that this not an accepted activity (officially) by the Roman Catholic church. In practice, however, there seems to be a bit different:

Catholic canon law now plainly forbids their sale. But the door to buying them is left open by an injunction that Catholics “rescue” relics. If, for instance, a Catholic sees a relic in a pawnshop, he or she is obliged to buy it, so that it won’t be used for blasphemous purposes by a nonbeliever. The Vatican itself owns what it believes to be a fragment of the table from the Last Supper and marble stairs that are the same ones Jesus ascended on His way to appear before Pontius Pilate. Asked if the Vatican’s collection is one of the best in the world, a spokesman says, “Yes, it is that.”

Of course, I’m sure that if one pressed matters, we could probably find a whole bunch of superstitious Protestant practices as well. I have a few in mind, but I will refrain from opinions for the time being. Any thoughts about Protestant superstitions (not including the ones borrowed from the RCC) that need to be stamped out?