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Three churches hold a variant, differently accounted stance toward what a saint actually is in this atlas: Anglicanism, the Baptist tradition and Lutheranism. Reading each church's own account past the shared word finds two real positions, not three: two churches independently arrive at describing the identical practice, and the third refuses the category the other two are even discussing.

Remembered, Not Invoked, Twice Over

The Church of England keeps a calendar of saints and commemorates them, while its own Articles condemn the invocation of saints: they are remembered and thanked for, and they are not prayed to. The Lutheran confessions teach that the saints are to be remembered, that their faith is to be imitated, and that they are not to be invoked, which keeps the commemoration and refuses the intercession. Two churches, from two separate Reformation traditions, the English and the German, independently land on the identical shape: a calendar kept, a life held up as example, and prayer to the saint refused.

A Third Tradition Answering a Different Question

Baptist usage follows the New Testament in calling every believer a saint, so the word names the whole church rather than a class within it. This is not a narrower or wider version of the other two churches' practice; it refuses the very idea that "saint" picks out some believers rather than all of them, before the question of invoking a particular one is ever asked. The honest count for this entry is two churches independently converging on commemoration without invocation, and a third holding that the underlying question is framed wrong from the start.

Where To Read More

• SaintChristianity RolesThe category itself; three churches counted, reducing to two positions
• AnglicanismChristianityCommemorates and gives thanks for saints; the Articles condemn invoking them
• LutheranismChristianityRemembers and imitates the saints' faith; the confessions refuse invocation
• BaptistChristianityFollows the New Testament in naming every believer a saint; a different question entirely