[Joe 6-pack]

"A missionary would use that to illustrate the Scriptures that he would then recite from memory."

And some Freepers would accuse them of worshiping graven images ;-)

[muawiyah]

Once you got paper and widespread literacy the Protestant Option, of course, became quite popular.

Memnonic statuary, carvings, architectural forms, drawings, paintings, mosaics ~ were, in their own time, valid forms of conveying information, or assisting the illiterate in receiving it (and using it themselves).

Visual technology is still valid for the use of conveying information ~ even religious information.

Now, a reconciliation of various schools of thought on the matter of the prohibition on "graven images". Some argue that the point in ancient times was to suppress worship of the gods of nature ~ so no more Zeus with lightning bolts. Even in the times of Greek hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East people continued to mix and match statuary with infanticide. Treatments for infertility were just as primitive and crude so a "graven image" might well be nothing more than a "device" and not a "god" at all ~ maybe a representation of a demigod?

With Islam they went so far as to suppress the drawing of plants. One might suppose desert people thought of jungles as godlike.

So, does the existence of a statue or picture inside a church imply the occupants worship the statue or picture?

I doubt it. After all, if that were the case Chinese could never become Christians ~ even their writing is based on pictures.