The Christian Relic Nobody Wants to Talk About

Let's start with an important point here: a lot of Protestants (including several key Reformers) have seen the tradition of relics as a superstition, but the concept wasn't entirely without biblical precedent. The remains of saints and patriarchs were clearly held in high regard (see Exodus 13:19, for instance), and there are cases in both the Old and New Testaments of saints' body parts and possessions performing miracles (2 Kings 13:21, Acts 19:12). So even if you're averse to the medieval Christian habit of keeping dead people's body parts around, you can at least see where they got the idea.