Replies

What is interesting about the statues you posted is that unlike catholics I don’t see people bowing to them nor praying to them to intercede.

God did say that making these idols/images would draw people to worship before them.....which was what the pagans did.

Additionally, regardless of what denomination these statues are affiliated with..I’ve never known any of them to urge praying or requesting it’s membership to ask prayer of these departed people to pray for them.

>>.I’ve never known any of them to urge praying or requesting it’s membership to ask prayer of these departed people to pray for them.<<

A distinction totally lost on Catholics.

"What is interesting about the statues you posted is that unlike catholics I don’t see people bowing to them nor praying to them to intercede."

TRUE--- and that IS interesting. The spiritual heirs of Luther, Calvin, Waldo and Wycliffe abandoned the Biblical customs and practices of bowing before kinsmen; priests, prophets, kings; holy places (like Jerusalem) and holy objects (like the Ark of the Covenant) #65 ---( worth a look). Some have strayed so far that they can't even distinguish between bowing and adoration anymore. The abandonment of the Biblical language of gesture is an immense cultural loss.

Incidentally, we don't pray "to" pictures to intercede. That would be silly silly: art objects don't intercede. We believe the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much; and of course, it doesn't stop availing much if that righteous person has passed into the life to come, where they are with the Triune God forever.

"God did say that making these idols/images would draw people to worship before them.....which was what the pagans did."

TRUE--- and the making of idols will do just that, because that is what idols are intended for. But that's not what statues, bas-reliefs, icons, painting, stained glass, tapestries, banners, frescoes, mosaics and murals are for That's why these are not forbidden; specifically, idols are forbidden.

"Additionally, regardless of what denomination these statues are affiliated with..I’ve never known any of them to urge praying or requesting it’s membership to ask prayer of these departed people to pray for them."

TRUE, natch. But I put those pictures there for confirm the fact that it's not the making of statues/images that is forbidden. It's not even the honor given to the great men of the Reformation that is forbidden. What's forbidden is: idols.

Never heard of anyone burying a statue of Wycliffe upside down in their yard, either.

And apparently you have to be careful not to inadvertently put it in your neighbor''s yard, because, well, ol' St. Joe might help them instead of you:

http://saint-josephstatue.com/Where_to_bury_a_St_Joseph_statue.html

Now Mrs. D, I know this evidence will be dismissed as superstition not officially sanctioned by Rome. But this is how many in the Catholic community, outside the bubble of FR, relate to these things, and there is a material difference between that and the typical Protestant use of statuary. It's the sacramentalism at work. Protestants are generally less inclined to assign neoplatonic sympathetic relationships between material objects and their supposed archetypes. But the divergence of Rome from generic Christianity happened in part, IMHO, because the Greek apologists ingested too much Plato. It's one of the main reasons why the sacraments came to be seen as efficacious conveyances of grace. In Greek theurgy, there is a bond between the representation and the reality, a bond that goes beyond mere representation and enters the realm of forming mystic bridges to the divine.

This is alien to Biblical theology. This mode of thinking antedates the Greeks, though they refined it to a sharp point, and might even be part of why God early on forbade the use of statuary in connection with deity as a general principle. People just naturally have a hard time avoiding superstition and magical thinking. It's part of being born sinners. Even after their dramatic rescue from Egypt, the children of Israel made themselves a golden calf, though they tried to steer clear of trouble by associating it with worship of the true God, Who was appearing to them only indirectly in the mountain. They were trying to build their own bridge to God. But God did not approve.

Exodus 32:4-5 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (5) And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.

So we see that dressing something up a violation of God's commands as being done "to the Lord," does not sanctify it. If anything, it makes it worse. The command had been given. They had to know it was wrong. Did they really think God would wink at it if they tried to pass off their "golden bull" as a representation of the true God?

Similarly, Nadab and Abihu were not specifically forbidden to offer incense before the Lord, but in doing so they violated this positive assertion of how that worship was to be conducted:

Leviticus 9:7 And Moses said unto Aaron, Go unto the altar, and offer thy sin offering, and thy burnt offering, and make an atonement for thyself, and for the people: and offer the offering of the people, and make an atonement for them; as the LORD commanded.

Note the only one given a command to approach the altar was Aaron. Yet in chapter ten, when his sons take it on themselves to offer incense on their own "creative" impulse? Boom. Not approved. Death penalty.

So while we as believers have considerable liberty on things that do not pertain directly to the worship of God, it appears God is quite insistent that we worship Him in the manner he prescribes for us. When we build our own "creative" bridges to God, without His explicit permission, there is a risk of that bridge becoming a substitute for the real thing, despite our best intentions. It seems so much simpler and safer to me to just avoid that risk and draw within the lines He has provided us for divine worship.

Peace,

SR