Do the dead pray for us?

In Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright notes that there is no biblical warrant for supposing that the faithful departed are actively engaged in praying for us.  In particular,

We should be very suspicious of the medieval idea that the ‘saints’ can function as ‘friends at court’, so that, while we might be shy of approaching the King ourselves, we know someone who is, as it were, ‘one of us’, to whom we can talk freely and who will maybe put in a good word for us.

This practice calls into question

the immediacy of access to God through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit which is promised again and again in the New Testament…If you have a royal welcome awaiting you in the throne room, for whatever may be on your heart and mind, whether great or small, why would you bother hanging around the outer lobby trying to persuade someone there, however distinguished, to go in and ask for you?  To question this, even by implication, is to challenge one of the central blessings and privileges of the gospel.

Veneration (and invocation) of the saints is an idea more pagan than Christian.  It has its roots in the world of late Roman antiquity, with its panoply of gods, lords, demi-gods and heroes.  But it has no place in Christian thought and practice.

Should we pray for the dead?

Not quite so straightforward are Wright’s views on praying for the dead.  Even though we should not pray to the departed saints, we may (he suggests) pray for them and with them:-

Since both the departed saints and we ourselves are in Christ, we share with them in the ‘Communion of Saints’.  They are still our brothers and sisters in Christ.  When we celebrate the eucharist they are there with us, along with the angels and archangels.  When then should we not pray for and with them?

The Reformers opposed praying for the dead because they saw this as bound up with the notion of purgatory.  But if we (rightly) get rid of the idea of purgatory, then

I see no reason why we should not pray for and with the dead…that they will be refreshed, and filled with God’s joy and peace.

This strikes me as being a rather extraordinary lapse.  In the very section in his book where he insists that ‘it’s vital to ground one’s beliefs in scripture itself’ Wright comes up with a notion for which he does not even attempt to provide any scriptural support.

Wright, T. (2011) Surprised by Hope. SPCK Publishing.