I Will Answer Anything You Dare To Ask

I was a teenage Jesus freak and never really lost my faith, but I haven't been involved with a church for a while and I've been thinking of joining a local protestant church lately. Here is my question. What is the difference between an idol and an artefact which are often used to adorn churches without being objects of worship. My personal view is that it is not the object itself but the way people see it. So out of two people in the same room one may admire or appreciate an artefact for it's beauty while another person worships it and thereby commits a sin of idolatry. Do you agree or disagree and why? I would like to know your reasons.

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will999 · 70-79, M

@Lynb1960 Yes, it is hard to draw an exact distinction between items of artistic value or historical significance and idols. The command which you quoted a day ago 22 Nov. Exodus 20:4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.…" seems tp apply to both. The attitude of real aficionados does seem very close to worship or adoration now that I think about it. The painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh is adored by millions of people, people with a passion verging on worship and the 1895 pastel-on-board version of The Scream, painted 1893 by Edvard Munch was sold at Sotheby's for a record US$120 million at auction on 2 May 2012 (according to Google). True, they're great works of art but does this level of attention rival faith? I think it must come close when you bear in mind everything that the word of god promises to the believer.

Lynb1960 · 61-69, F

@will999 As much as I agree with what you have said here. we must also look at it in a human sense.. God did give us free will in which, yes perhaps Vincent's works of art are treasured in all their splendor and admired, are they really worshiped as in a "GoD like sense" or are they admired because they are beautiful? There is a thin line between admiring something because of its beauty and worshiping something. the christian artifacts that stand in the Churches around the world are put there as Idols and not artifacts, if they were artifacts then why not put them in another building where all can go and look and admire them for their artistic value. If you look at the Crucifix for example, people go to church to talk to God but in actual fact they are talking to a carved man that has been nailed to a cross which has been put up on the wall as a representation of Jesus (An Idol)... We as humans need to be able to see an image, we dont just go by pure faith..

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@Lynb1960
Interesting take on it. I'd have thought they talk past the crucifix, to God - but the crucifix acts as a focal point.

I don't know the history very well, but perhaps the Old Testament strictures were devised by the Hebrew tribal elders to try to give followers the concept of a single God beyond man-made images, in a religion and social identity of their own separate from the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern, icon-rich, pantheons - and certainly separate from that of the Egyptians.

Yes, you could put Christian artefacts in a museum for appreciation simply as works of art and craft, but that would remove them from their context.

Mediaeval churches unified by the Vatican and using Latin liturgy were brightly painted and ornamented, and later more iconoclastic regimes sometimes removed or destroyed much of that art. That was based mainly on theology, but another strand came in with the Reformation and the development of Protestant and non-conformist sects.

The latter particularly, don't use excessive ornaments or icons in their own places of worship, but was there a more secular motive? Was it much more a reaction to the Catholic Church of the time, with its ostentatious displays of wealth? Certainly Luther campaigned against such money-raising schemes as Indulgences; and Methodism especially attracted poorer communities as "theirs" not needing or wanting excessively-decorated chapels they could not afford, to worship God.