Pagans and Protestants Team Up Against Catholics

About this sermon

“When Protestants today decry Catholics for what they claim is paganism… they actually sound exactly like ancient pagans who denounced the ancient Christians for the same thing.” Support the channel by visiting: https://brianholdsworth.ca/help Catholics venerate the bones and belongings of saints—and to many Protestants, that looks unmistakably pagan. But there’s a problem with that accusation: actual ancient pagans condemned Christians for doing it. In this video, I look at the viral footage surrounding the relics of St. Agatha, the biblical distinction between veneration and worship, why sacrifice is essential to understanding Christian worship, and evidence for relic veneration from Scripture and the earliest centuries of Christianity. From the bones of Elisha, to cloths touched by St. Paul, to St. Polycarp’s remains, to the Roman catacombs, the Christian treatment of relics is far older—and far more biblical—than many critics realize. Timestamps: 00:00 – Are Catholics basically pagans? 00:47 – What Catholics are actually doing with relics 02:10 – What does “pagan” even mean? 03:22 – Why superficial similarities prove very little 03:57 – Elisha’s bones and miraculous relics 04:13 – Pagan sacrifice vs. biblical sacrifice 05:25 – What actually constitutes worship? 06:02 – Sacrifice changes the Catholic/Protestant debate 07:09 – The Eucharist and the veneration of saints 09:00 – The pagan emperor who condemned Christian relics 10:44 – Why corpses offended pagan religion 11:22 – Did the Apostles permit relic veneration? 11:58 – St. Paul’s miraculous cloths 12:48 – St. Polycarp and the earliest Christians 13:52 – The catacombs, altars, relics, and St. Jerome Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com Podcast Version: https://brianholdsworth.libsyn.com/