Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 178.  Wed 11-06-91 23:51  (NO KILL)  (MAILED)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Mark Pham
 Subject: icons & statues

³ Sir, my question is: having icons and statues that represents the Lord
³ Jesus Christ...is it offensive to God?  Is it glorifying God?
 
Dear Mark,
 
Most Christians today and throughout church history have used statues
or pictures of Christ and the saints to awaken devotion, banish
distractions, and focus attention in prayer.  Nestorians, Monophysites,
Orthodox, and Catholics do so - in fact all Christians except the
Protestants, who appear too late in Christian history to bear credible
witness to Christian usages.  To establish valid practice, it is
necessary to appeal to the actual usage of Christian churches.  St.
Paul sets down a necessary principle in 1st Corinthians 11:16, where in
effect he says, "If you want to quarrel about this, be my guest - but I
have declared my teaching, and I appeal to the churches of God, which
support it."
 
Scripture does not forbid nor discredit the use of statues and
pictures of Christ and the Saints.
 
Exodus chapter 20, verses 4-5, says:  "You shall not make for
yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or
serve them."  This commandment is repeated in chapter 34, verse 17.
It is repeated with considerably more detail in Deuteronomy 4:15-31.
 
This commandment protected the Hebrew people from falling into
idolatry.  Their neighbors on all sides were idolaters and their own
ancestors had been idolaters.  Abraham, the great forefather of their
race, was an idolater before he believed in the One God who revealed
Himself to him.  The monotheism of the Hebrews was entirely unique and,
until the Babylonian captivity, the Hebrews showed a remarkable talent
for backsliding into idolatry.  The Golden Calf episode of Exodus 32
was only the first instance.
 
The polytheism of that time and place was strongly geographical.  Every
place was considered to have its own indwelling deity, strongly
protective of his or her own turf and people.  The Hebrews after Egypt,
recent and shaky converts to monotheism, were a people on the move.
They came into the Promised Land very cautiously, timorously even.
Their enemies, of course, they could handle by slaughter.  But the
local gods?  The temptation was to try to placate them by a little
worship on the side.  Not so as to abandon Yahweh, you understand, but
just to play it safe, you know?  And in this way they fell again and
again into idolatry.  God's commandment forbade them to try to make any
kind of visual image even of Himself.  If they did so, they would
inevitably come to think that the One God was only one among the many,
by whose images they were surrounded.
 
However, the commandment did not entirely exclude all images and image
making.  The Lord commanded Moses to order the fabrication of two
cherubim (angels) hammered gold to set upon the lid of the Ark of the
Covenant (Exodus, 25).  The golden lampstand was decorated with golden
flowers and almonds.  The ephod (vestment) of the high priest was to
have a fringe of bells and pomegranate.  The latter were likenesses
made of twisted colored yarn.  Later, when poisonous snakes attacked
the people as a punishment for their complaining, the the Lord ordered
Moses to make a bronze serpent and to et it upon a pole.  "And every
one who is bitten, when he sees (the bronze serpent), shall live"
(Numbers 21:8).  Ironically, this bronze serpent later became an idol,
worshipped by the Israelites, and had to be destroyed (2 Kings 18:4).
 
By the time of Our Lord, the Jews seemed to have overcome their
tendency to slide into idolatry.  Jesus Himself casually handled coins
bearing the image of the Roman Emperor (Mark 12:15-17).  Yet the
Emperor was officially regarded as a god and routinely worshipped by
the pagans of the Empire.  Evidently Our Lord perceived no threat to
his disciples' devotion to god in such graven images.
 
Since earliest times we Christians have just as easily and casually
used such visual aids as pictures and statues in our devotions.  They
focus our attention and keep our minds from wandering.  We would never
think of worshipping them, and we think it quite peculiar of anyone to
suppose that we do.  One might just as well suspect an affectionate
family of worshipping the pictures of their loved ones on their
mantelpiece.
 
In this matter, as in many others, a fundamentalist and literalist
reading of Scripture leads to grotesque conclusions unworthy of the
Word of God.  If the exclusion of graven images is absolute, we must
empty our pockets.  All coins must go - they bear upon them graven
images.  Dollar bills carry a graven image of the Holy Trinity (the eye
within the triangle).  Our national symbol, the eagle, was originally a
symbol of the Roman god Jupiter.  Even smile-faces and comic strips
violate God's commandment, as do the pictures of family members we
carry in our wallets.  Where does one draw the line?  Well, the line was
drawn long, long ago by Christ's Church in her legitimate traditions -
that Church which is the pillar and foundation of truth (1st Timothy
3:15).
 
Thank you for using our service, Mark.  Please come again.
 
                                Sincerely in Christ,
 
                                Father Mateo