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[Newbie]

Full disclosure: I was raised in a heavily Christian household, but I am now an atheist, though I read the Bible a lot because I find the book itself fascinating.

I ask this question because one of my cousins just posted one of those crappy share-whore meme pictures to Facebook that's about 40% JPG artifacts. It said that "whenever you carry a Bible, the devil gets a headache, whenever you read it he flees, whenever you live it, he screams" etc. etc. Got me thinking, in the Bible isn't the only thing that keeps Satan's power out of your life just your faith and not the actual symbols of your faith? To my knowledge there isn't a place in the Bible where a symbol of faith scares away a demon or Satan. Every time I remember demons being cast out of someone, it was done solely with faith and the demons fled.

Do you think some Christians confuse the concept of Satan with the concept of Dracula, that he's somehow scared of cross symbols or the physical bindings of the Bible (like if you walk around with a pocket Bible, then it acts like wearing a garlic necklace around vampires)?

[jimwalton]

No, the Bible doesn't have any real power over the demons/Satan. First of all, there is no record of any such thing/power/action in the Bible itself, where a scroll or religious icon was used in power over Satan.

Secondly, the thing that comes closest to a religious power icon in the Bible is the Ark of the Covenant, and the Bible specifically shows us that it had no intrinsic use in battle to bring victory, no value as a spiritual power talisman, and no worth in and of itself. The Bible makes clear that God was the being with power, not the item.

Thirdly, the Bible is notoriously anti-sacramental. The *objects* of the Bible—altars, ark, tablets, priests—hold no supernatural or unearthly power. God is the only "holy" person. Things are merely things, and only God is God. Judaism has always been this way, and the proof of that is that after the temple was smashed, the ark lost (or hidden), the people scattered, the priesthood unemployed, Judaism kept right on ticking without missing a beat.

So you're right. There isn't a place in the Bible where a symbol of faith scares away demons or Satan. And, as such, Satan and Dracula have nothing in common. You can't scare Satan away by holding up a silver cross.

[Zap Utopia]

Where do you think this concept of "holy symbols" came from? Christianity in general has been traditionally against adopting tenets of other religions like relics from Catholicism, and I find it silly to think that this concept that the physical Bible holds supernatural power came from secular things like the Dracula mythos.

[jimwalton]

Wow. It's so early in history that's a tough one to pin down. The ancient cultures worshipped idols: material things imputed with spiritual power. It's a misunderstanding of spirituality and spiritual power. We see it in the Bible in Ex. 32, the Golden Calf fiasco. In 1 Samuel 4 (esp. v. 3), the people make the mistake of thinking the Ark of the Covenant was some kind of lucky charm to bring them victory. All that was mistaken. It's as you say: Christianity is against sacramental relics and personnel.

I'm sure you're well aware that Christianity started off as a most rare phenomenon: no temple, no sacerdotal priesthood, and no icons. Such things don't fit either the historical or theological context of original Christianity. Unfortunately, Christians very shortly backslid from this and became extremely so, but you won't find this anywhere in the Bible. Truly sad.

[Zap Utopia]

That's why this question has fascinated me to much in the past few days. I'd love to know where this idea came from and how it infiltrated the current church. First I thought it might have been Dracula and other fiction lores like it, then I thought it might have been when Christianity split from the Catholic church into its own sect that some of the members still believed in the concept of relics and imported that idea into the church culture. Then you brought up the part about the Ark being used in war to guarantee victory (like a lucky talisman), which I had completely forgotten about.

I just thought of a non-religious comparison: the American flag. Americans treat their flag with such reverence like it's some kind of religious relic, so much so that I think burning a flag is still illegal. They confuse what the flag stands for with the concept behind it. Albeit, they're not assigning supernatural power to it, but the principle is the same.

[jimwalton]

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that most of the problem started when Constantine institutionalized the church. (I'm not as widely-read on church history as I should be.)

The early apostolic church was able to divest itself reasonably well from Judaistism, but even then the issue was conforming to the Law of Moses, not iconography or sacramentalism. This is obvious in Paul's writings.

The Church Fathers then took the baton, and we start to see official church positions (offices such as bishops and elders). They fought doctrinal battles (Docetism, et al.), but mostly battles for survival against a hostile Roman empire. A number of believers were martyred. In the furnace of persecution, the church grew like wildfire and began to be perceived as competition and even a threat to all things Roman (especially Mithraism, but plenty of others).

In 312, Constantine saw his now-famous vision and made Christianity a legal religion of the empire. While official persecutions ceased, official interference escalated, and the injection of politics into doctrinal discussions was intensely corrupting. The Spirit-filled community of the followers of the Way soon became an imperial hierarchy full of rules, pomp, ritual, iconography and sacramentalism. What follows is centuries of regrettable history.