Over the last couple of days, I’ve been reading up on the Iconoclast Controversies of the 8th and 9th centuries in the Byzantine Empire. OK, I know that sounds really esoteric, but let me explain. It all starts with the Bible, with the Ten Commandments specifically, where it says, “Thou shalt not make for thyself any graven images.”  The fuller quote is this:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any 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: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:4-6

The Hebrew people were not allowed to create images of anything that became for them an idol, a carved or created image that stood in the place of God (or any supposed god.)

The first followers of Jesus, being Jews themselves, would have held to this practice of not representing God in any artistic (or handcrafted) way.  But as the faith of Christ went forth into the pagan worlds of the Greeks and the Romans, the new Christian faith came up against a culture that was full of idols, representations of gods and goddesses, and statues of political figures venerated as gods. Over the next few centuries Christianity “baptized” the use of images to depict Jesus, the Virgin Mary, angels, saints, martyrs, and even God and the Holy Spirit. Greek Christians preferred frescoes and mosaics; Roman Christian eventually created many marble statues of holy figures.

In the mid 700’s, Greek Christians began to question the practice of using these images (icons) in their worship and prayer. After a particularly terrifying earthquake, with a consequent tsunami, the emperor Justinian, surmising that God was angry with the practice of venerating icons, ordered that all religious imagery be destroyed. This caused a polarizing debate in the populace. On the one side were the “iconoclasts” – those who destroyed icons – and on the other were the “iconodules” – those who “served” or who were “enslaved to” icons. Bloody riots ensued as imperial forces went into churches and cathedrals to destroy, smash and paint over depictions of Jesus, Mary, the saints, etc. One side proclaimed, “God has forbidden the making of images,” and the other side said, “When Christ became man, the invisible God became visible, and we therefore are permitted to make visual representations of the Divine.”  And the two sides killed each other in the streets as these “icon wars” continued on and off for well over a century. Eventually, however, a compromise was enacted that allowed the use of icons, and even today in Eastern Christianity, icons are held to be holy, because, like the bread and wine in the eucharist, it is understood that they participate in the very essence of what they depict, the very essence of God.

The Roman Christians baptized into Christianity the pagan custom of making statues of their gods. Jesus replaced Zeus, Mary replaced Venus, and the many saints and martyrs replaced the many lesser gods. Over a thousand years later, the Protestant Reformers added the use of statues in places of worship to the list of abhorrent sacrileges rampant in the church. The Swiss Reformers, under Calvin, were particularly virulent in eradicating statues from the midst of the churches, sometimes decapitating them, sometimes smashing them completely. The Reformers’ reasoning? They returned to the Ten Commandments and saw there that God forbade the making of graven images, and yet such images were everywhere. Religious statuary represented for the Reformers the totalitarian rule of the Roman Church and its most pernicious corruptions. Pretty strong and inflammatory rhetoric, right?

We are seeing in the past few weeks the defacing, removal, and even destruction of statues here in the US (and somewhat in Europe). This is disconcerting and troubling to many, especially when the images being destroyed are important to our sense of history, national identity, and pride. There is a lot of soul-searching going on out there in the national psyche. What do we stand for? What do we stand against? But for Christians, this isn’t our first rodeo…we’ve been here before. Christians have questioned the place of religious and political iconography before.

Now this blog is not advocating the destruction of statues.  What it is about is drawing our attention as Christians to the awareness that to every generation comes the opportunity to examine and question the idols, the icons, the graven images of whatever kind, physical, mental or emotional, that stand between us and God, that stand between us and the image of God in others.  This blog is an invitation to take a step back and observe the time. Be neither an iconoclast nor an iconodule. Take a moment (or two) before you decide to be one who smashes or one who serves the icon. Take time to evaluate. Ask yourself, “To what am I most committed: intellectually, philosophically, emotionally, and spiritually? And how do I most want to represent those commitments? In actions? In words?”

The Hebrew prophets of old proclaimed, “The Lord doesn’t want your physical sacrifices! What the Lord wants is your hearts.” The prophet Micah asked, “What does the Lord require of you?” And answered his question, “To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”

This is a good time to ask, “What icons do I want to hang onto? What icons am I willing to let go of?” A monument just might stand in our way of seeing God. A statue just might block our view of seeing God in our neighbor. We all are called to be servants of the icon (image) of God that resides in our sisters and brothers, true icons, not made with human hands, and to dismantle that which stands in the way of justice, kindness, and walking humbly with God.