Three Versions of the Saints
Monday, October 12, 2026
Happy Monday, my friends! Last week I introduced you to St. Thomas More and my awkward relationship to him as my confirmation saint. I intended to spend the next few weeks discussing other saints and people I draw particular inspiration from including Miguel Pro, Bayard Rustin, and others. Alas, I feel less compelled to write those essays than I do to look at several different versions of the people our traditions call “saints.” I have, at various points in my life, identified with three major traditions of Christianity. Each of those traditions—Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and TFAM/Pentecostalism—have distinctive takes on the saints.
Roman Catholicism, perhaps the best known for its theology on saints, classifies certain people as saints through a centuries-old, formal process. Though the Roman Catholic Church insists that God chooses the saints and the Church recognizes those saints, the process of canonization has been known to quickly elevate the very popular, very powerful, very well connected, or very wealthy to the status of saint. Other people languished at one stage of the process or another for so long that their title became part of their historical identity. For example, the historian and author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, St. Bede, was first recognized as “venerable” in the 9th century but wasn’t canonized until more than a thousand years later in 1899. Modern editions of his work often refer to him as “Venerable Bede” rather than “St. Bede.”
Anglicanism, following closely from Roman Catholicism, continues to recognize many of the saints who had been so elevated prior to the English Reformation, but not after. Individual Anglican bodies, including The Episcopal Church, have created means to recognize holy people in a similar way to sainthood, but without the title of “saint.” These churches maintain official calendars of remembrances which list both pre-Reformation saints and post-Reformation holy people. The Episcopal Church, for instance, recognizes Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pauli Murray, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many others. That said, the understanding of saints for Anglicans has much less to do with recognizing individuals than recognizing a group of people often called the “saints in glory” or the “church triumphant;” the people who have lived and been raised to glory by God in heaven. We, the saints and church on earth, are to aspire to the same eventual glory and use the example of the saints to attain that glory with God.
Pentecostalism, specifically the flavor of Pentecostalism I continue to live into through TFAM, names the saints in a very different way from Roman Catholicism and somewhat closer to Anglicanism. For Pentecostals the saints are all those people actively striving to follow Jesus. While there is little consensus on what might earn one the label of “sinner” or “saint,” many affirming Pentecostals will talk about the “saints” and mean everyone. The distinction between living and dead, heavenly and earthly, holy and trying your best breaks down in favor of each person being a child of God on their own path to the divine.
How do you think about the saints? Who do you call a saint or a holy person?
Let us pray: God of glory, help us be your saints now on earth. In the times we can only offer our best, lift up our best. When we struggle, grant us grace. When we act more like sinners than saints, guide us back and remind us that no saint was ever perfect and most were far from it. We ask this in the name of your son, our savior and liberator, Jesus. Amen.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben +
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