So we venerate them, because we love Christ.
= = = =
AS a shrink and as a Christian, I do not find that REMOTELY logical, plausible or functional.
Giving honor to whom honor is due is layers of magnitude different, lower from veneration.
Veneration is Jr Worship and some folks are insightful enough to own that, some are not.
LOVING CHRIST PUTS HIM FIRST, FOREMOST, ALWAYS IN EVERY REMOTELY REAONABLE WAY.
It does NOT bring Him down to man's level in the sense of attaching all kinds of fleshly doors to approach Him through. He put the flesh to death on the cross and calls us to do the same.
He does not call us to glorify the flesh through a thousand and one flesh focused images and statues.
And those who purely and independently without any preconditioning Biblically Love God out of a pure heart would never imagine stooping to insult that love of Christ by such distractions and substitutes.
As a shrink, are you familiar with the phenomenon of loving your spouse friends and relatives as an expression of your love to the spouse?