I don’t approve of, let alone use, images in worship.
I not only don’t worship through icons but I warn people that it is wrong and can lead to eternal perdition. Jim Jordan (if his name matters in this connection) regularly points out that Protestants who go to Rome or Orthodoxy have sold their souls by becoming idolaters. No church I have ever pastored has ever even had pictures of God in the sanctary, let alone venerated or used them in any way in worship. And, if they did, I would have kicked up a fuss to get them removed.
I have complained that Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism tend to not even acknowledge the sacraments they have because they treat them like icons. Instead of fellowship we get “contact points.”
People who know me can attest that I, if at all possible, leave the room when the flag is being saluted because, though no one agrees with me on this, I can’t get over my suspicion that such gestures are forbidden by the Second Commandment. This, by the way, is precisely related to the fact that the visible, external, and tangible are so important in worship. Rituals entail reality even when you hold mental reservations. Iconalotry damns people to Hell even when they are pious about it. The Corinthians may “die in the wilderness” for participating in idol feasts even though they don’t believe in false gods.
Does anyone known as a “proponent” of the so-called “Federal Vision” use images? I ask, of course, for no apparent reason.
Doug Wilson uses icons in worship? Peter Leithart? Jim Jordan? Jeff Meyers? Rich Lusk? John Barach? Who does use them within that “movement”? No one. No one at all. Not from the Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference. Not from the Knox Colloquium.
Let’s keep names out of the comments.
Reading EO theology and dogmatics, I could never get over the impression that Orthodox eucharistic theology does not involve table fellowship; the holy mysteries are shrouded behind an iconostasis. The conclusions I draw from that are pretty predictable.
Instead of saints bound together by the eucharistic meal, each saint is bound to, and fellowships with, the icon.
Orthodoxy is mystery religion writ large. The practical result that I’ve observed is that the Orthodox priesthood does your religion for you.
So will this charge be made in Guy’s new book?
Well since they see the FV as a bus trip to Rome, I guess they feel free to just heap on more false charges. It doesn’t surprise me at all.
Is there a place in this discussion for the “Bible Stand” in many Evangelical churches? Not a lectern, mind you, from which the Bible is actually read, but a Bible stand, often on the (seldom used) Communion Table, on which there is a large, opened Bible, facing the congregation, for the purpose of . . . what? No one reads from it. One can only logically deduce that it is there for veneration.
Wow! I guess I understand the need to make distinctions in clear and stark terms, particularly given the polarization of the PCA these days, but the suggestion that icons may lead to “eternal perdition” or that converts have “sold their souls by becoming idolaters” is as terribly misinformed as it is uncharitable.
Whatever one wishes to predicate of the compatibility of icons with Reformed worship, their use is emphatically not idolatrous. Orthodox and Roman theologies of the practice specifically preclude this construal. Even where catechesis is at its lowest ebb, Roman Catholic and Orthodox laity are able to make the distinction between “idol” and “icon” or between “veneration” and “worship.” It was so in my case as a rather average Roman Catholic growing up.
The charge of idolatry itself is not new and is at least as old as the iconoclast controversy in the 8th Century. Ironically, iconoclasm became a logical manifestation of monophysitism and appeal to the icons as a kind of liturgical outworking of a Chalcedonian theology of the Incarnation was explicitly defended by the 2nd Council of Nicea in 787.
You might want to read a little in Theodore the Studite, St. John Damascene, and St. Maximus the Confessor on this topic. Another suggestion may be that you read the last chapter of Wilken’s’ The Spirit of Early Christian Thought.
Even if you don’t accept the rationale or the conclusions of the Council, you still have to be fair to the self-understanding of Catholic and Orthodox believers on this point. No matter how it appears to Protestant eyes, governed as they are by the grammar of Protestant confession, one really needs to attend to the foreign mode of discourse operative in different ecclesial communities and appreciate the coherence of iconography within it. Remember, the average Orthodox priest might suspect you of Eutychianism or Apollinarianism for failing to venerate icons.
Not to put too personal a point on it, but isn’t one of your gripes with your chainsaw-wielding opponents that they rush to condemn what they fail to understand?
Blessings,
Michael+
Michael, FWIW, my worries about people who know better embracing iconalatry are not the same as my worries about those raised in it (though i still have worries). Just because the Northern Kingdom was still part of the people of God does not mean that someone from the Southern Kingdom could reject the Jerusalem Temple and go up and worship at the Golden Calf with impunity. It would be high-handed unbelief.
I have read of the distinctions between veneration and worship and I think it is about like Planned Parenthoods alternative of “outercourse” to sex. Exept there is more actual difference between “outercourse” and real sex.
But, again, I regard RC and EOs as Christian brothers (a la Northern Kingdom). I still think defection on this point is almost certainly high-handed unbelief.
In no way am I an iconoclast. The idea that one must either venerate icons or destroy them is precisely the opinion I reject. One can have them in one’s living room without lighting candles to them. (Note to trollers: this is old news to this and my former presbyteries; it has been accepted).
Oh, shoot, I just lost four paragraphs because I forgot to copy the stupid letters! Arggh. I’m not gonna repeat it all. I’ll just say this.
Michael writes:
“You might want to read a little in Theodore the Studite, St. John Damascene, and St. Maximus the Confessor on this topic.”
I5 years ago I read deeply into EO and RO theology. I was almost there. I read all of Schmemann, Meyendorf, Hopko, and more. I can’t remember everybody right now. I was so deeply disappointed with contemporary Evangelical Presbyterianism. When I finally got around to reading Theodore, John of D, and Maximus on icons, that was it. That clinched it for me. They were so bad. The way they handled Scripture and their distorted theological and historical arguments turned me off, way off. And I was by no means ignorant of early church ways of thinking. By that time I had had a least one graduate seminary class on Patristics at a RC university.
Sorry, but I’m just being honest. I wish more Reformed men would read these sources FIRST. By all means, read Theodore, John of D. and Maximus. It’s the best thing you can do.
BTW, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t learn a great deal from my reading of EO theology and history. I did indeed. But as for icon veneration, there’s no cogent argument for it. Nothing.
Michael, you write:
“Wow! I guess I understand the need to make distinctions in clear and stark terms, particularly given the polarization of the PCA these days, but the suggestion that icons may lead to “eternal perdition” or that converts have “sold their souls by becoming idolaters” is as terribly misinformed as it is uncharitable.”
What else do you do with Exodus 20:5-6? God himself is the one who put the frightful warning on THIS commandment.
“You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
You bow down to human artifacts and you risk a lot more than the wrath of a few zealous Presbyterians.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of annulment specificly excludes the possible contrual of it as wife abandonment and vow breaking, but it still is.
Pharisaical Qorban theology specificially preculdes its construal as elder abuse, but it still is.
RE: Exodus 20:5-6
Since I was asked, I will venture a thought.
It seems to me that one really has to do the leg work of understanding the social function of idolatry in pre-exilic Israel. The data for this is available in the OT itself and it is not necessary to appeal to other Ancient Near Eastern texts, but one must actually ask the pragmatic question of what was being done when someone offered worship to an idol. Here are a few basic concepts.
1. Apostasy in the OT was not the abandonment of Yahweh in favor of an alternative God. In the strictest sense, apostasy was located in the constant impulse to blend Yahwism with the practices of the surrounding cultural deities. Hence you get compounded blessings in the archaeological data: “I bless you by Yahweh of Teman and by his Asherah.”
2. Idolatry must be located within this general schema. Images of competing deites being blended with the worship of Yahweh were the occasion of syncretism. In their pagan context, idols worked on a principle of sympathetic magic wherein the manipulation of the idol in worship was thought to coerce or cajole the given deity into doing something for the worshipper. This is the crux of Isaiah’s mockery of the idols. He is showing how powerless the deities are by appealing to how the worshippers themselves manipulate and control them by their manipulations of wood, stone, or whatever.
3. The prohibition of images of Yahweh and misuse of the Divine Name function as warnings that Yahweh cannot be manipulated or controlled by those that offer worship to him. It is the exclusivity of Yahwism and the centrality of divine freedom that are at issue in Exodus.
4. Once we move into the NT and account for the embodiment of God in the Incarnation, the ability to render an image of God becomes a necessary implication. This is true in precisely the same way that Mary legitimately bears the title, “Theotokos.”
5. Icons are thus the liturgical embodiment of Chalcedonian Christology. Because the theology (lex credendi) is embodied in worship (lex orandi) the Chalcedonian legacy is given a certain specificity and stability that I think accounts for its longevity in the Christian tradition.
6. Nothing of the central concerns reflected in the Pentateuch are operative in Orthodox or Catholic iconography. Indeed, the preservation of divine freedom and exclusivity of, now Trinitarian worship is preserved in iconography, not compromised.
7. The simplistic moves from God said no pictures, Jesus is God, therefore no pictures of Jesus, thus remains just that – simplistic.
8. Condemnations of iconography on the basis of Protestant theological grammars are illegitimate because they fail to grapple with the function of icons in their own discursive universe.
9. One need not use icons, or like icons, or find them helpful, or even agree that they are the best way of preserving Chalcedon to deny that they are idolatrous or that those who do find them so are heretical.
Michael+
No one has said that pictures of Jesus are prohibited. The second commandment says nothing about portrayals of God other than to not worship them.
The Bible is very clear that the Second Commandment applies directly to the worship of the true God, Yahweh. The golden calf at Sinai was a depiction of Yahweh. The calf shrines that Jeroboam established were shrines for worshiping Yahweh.
Magic is precisely the issue when people view icons as means of accessing God.
Michael: pictures of Jesus are fine. They’re great. And I agree that if we don’t depict Jesus in our artwork it may have lead to a denigration of his humanity. Pictures of Jesus do help preserve the christological Chalcedonian tradition. I’m fine with that. Bring on the paintings, woodcuts, stainglass windows, even statutes, but don’t bow down to them or think you are talking to God through them. That’s the issue. Your extensive argument above is fine. But it misses the point.
And if you want to see what icon worship does to a church, spend some time in Russia. It’s all become individual shrine worship. The communal dimension of worship and the Christian faith is virtually gone. Everybody comes into the church building to do his or her own things with his favorite icon.
Mark has a great point: the Second Commandment prohibits worshiping images, not simply the images’ existence. The Second Commandment does not say, “Don’t make an image of YHWH.” It says, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image of anything in heaven above on on the earth below or in the waters beneath: you shall not bow down to them or serve them.” If we take the actual language of the commandment seriously (and I submit that would be a good thing to do), we have two alternatives:
1) All representational art is sinful, since it says “don’t make an image of anything,” not just an image of God.
2) The prohibition is against worshiping images.
Which is correct? What about the cherubim on the ark of the covenant, the cherubim woven into the curtain of the most holy place, the golden cherubim in the temple? What about the lampstands fashioned like almond branches? Whose idea were all these images? God told Moses to make these things. Will God violate his own commandment? Certainly not.
Just found this online. I guess this is what prompted this whole thing:
“. . . because of their emphasis on the ‘visible, external, and tangible,’ many proponents of FV theology have logically moved into the realm of using icons in their worship. This practice is a clear breaking of the Second Commandment.”
Not just one or two, but many. Not pictures of Jesus in a Sunday School room or a nativity scene, but using icons in worship. No footnotes, no support for this allegation. It’s just thrown out there. They may as well have said, “Many of these churches are swallowing live hand grenades in worship.” They would have had an equal amount of evidence for either statement.
I’ve got to get a paper done (Ironically, on Puritanism), so I’ll let this be my last post on the matter.
Mark,
I am, of course, aware that both Aaron and Jeroboam intended the calf to represent Yahweh. However, both the episode you cite and the story of Ex.32 illustrate precisely the phenomena I described above. The use of cow and bull symbolism in the ANE was very much associated with the competing religions of Egypt and Canaan. In Canaan, the Bull was a symbol of Baal and in Egypt, of Apis. These deities stood at the top of both pagan pantheons and were logical, if erroneous, choices for the representation of Yahweh. Its use coheres with the blended blessing I cited above.
Secondly, we may be left at an impasse on the idea of iconography as a instance of the “sympathetic magic” I describe above. Certainly this is not the understanding communicated to me in my youth. Nor is it the understanding given by my two orthodox priest-friends.
Patera,
I respect your Russian experience, but I’m not sure we should judge the validity of a practice as such by instances of abuse. Certainly, a wise pastoral move would be to either correct errors with better catechesis or with liturgical modifications. I would advise an alcoholic to stop drinking even while affirming the right use of alcohol as such. I simply object to Mark’s rule and to the condemnations that attended it.
Finally, my understanding of the sacramentality of Christian faith leads me to affirm the embodiedness of our theology in liturgy. Thus the mysteries of the faith, affirmed in the Creeds, ought to result in an embodied, liturgical compliment. Thus, kissing an icon or gazing at an icon while confessing sin to the living Christ depicted by it, is not idolatry in my estimation.
Blessings to you both.
Michael+
jatb: I have a old booklet on the topic of pictures of Jesus. It’s a bit dated and contains many infelicities, but you may find it helpful. Contact me and I’ll send you a pdf copy if you want it.
Jeff Meyers
http://homepage.mac.com/jeffmeyers/blogwavestudio/index.html
I think I see what’s happening now:
“many proponents of FV theology have logically moved into the realm of using icons in their worship”
Is the writer claiming that as a result of their logic, they have moved into using icons in worship?
If this is the case, it ought to be objectively verifiable as either true or false, and Mark seems to indicate we have every reason to believe it’s false. None of these FV guys actually do use icons in worship.
Or, does the writer suggest that they have moved into that realm, not necessarily literally, but only “logically?”
If so, I don’t think it’s warranted to accuse someone of an objective sin of idolatry because of your own belief that “X leads to Y,” when there’s no actual evidence that Y is occurring. If that’s the case, that’s a really lousy way to deal with the perceived errors of others. Warning of the slippery slope is one thing; accusing people who you think have taken the first step of being guilty of whatever is at the bottom is quite another.
I know this is an old thread now, and no one may be following it anymore, but has anyone been able to get to the bottom of this? To whom was this statement referring? Whom do they believe is using icons in worship? And where is the evidence of this?
I think some serious repentance is in order on the part of these people. The same chapter that says “thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” also says “thou shalt not bear false witness.”
John, I had an earlier version that named names. But the fact is that I don’t think I have enough weight in the denomination to get anything done. So put up the above and let it go at that.
There is no answer to your question.