Should Christians Worship Sacred Images? John of Damascus & Icons

The Church of Christ tends to be pretty averse to religious imagery. It's rare for Churches of Christ to display artwork depicting Jesus, the saints, or even biblical scenes outside Sunday school classes. It does happen, but usually it's an accident indicating the building was purchased from a denomination. It's possible this situation arose from our anti-Catholic roots. 

I grew up hearing that Catholics worshiped idols of Mary and the other saints. Eventually, I began to suspect that wasn't the whole truth and that the issue was more complicated than I'd been led to believe. However, it's always been hard for me to see much of a difference between the way pagans and Catholics interact with their figures. However, I've only recently become interested enough in this topic to start seriously researching, and I decided to read an ancient classic on the topic. John of Damascus' 'Discourses on Sacred Images' was written around AD 730 as Eastern Christians were coming into contact with their new Muslim adversaries. Islam condemns religious images as idolatrous, and they therefore condemned Christians for venerating images of Jesus and the saints.

Byzantine emperor Leo III reigned during John's era, and he supported a wing of Christians who embraced iconoclasm (the belief that images and icons are sinful). In John's three-part work in defense of sacred images, he sought to secure a practice he claimed was passed down from Jesus and his apostles. According to John, the whole church had practiced the worship of images since its founding, and thus the anti-image movement was an unholy "innovation" threatening church unity.

Underlying the debate about sacred images is the question: "What is worship?" Do Catholics and Orthodox really worship images? According to John of Damascus, the answer is "yes," but the real source of misunderstanding is about the meaning of worship and what can be worshiped. John argued there are numerous kinds of worship due to various people and objects. He defined worship using five components: fear, desire, honor, submission, and humiliation. I've never personally heard anyone in the Church of Christ attempt to define the meaning of worship, and it occurred to me that this was a very unfortunate oversight.

According to John, there's one form of worship that should only be directed towards God, and that form of worship is called "latreia" (Greek): "The first kind is the worship of latreia, which we give to God, who alone is adorable by nature" (page 104). Non-latreia worship, or veneration, can be directed towards all kinds of things: angels, authority figures, children, lovers, pets, photographs, places, etc. John wrote: "I honor all matter besides, and venerate it" (page 16). John cited several instances of this: Abraham worshiped the Hittites after buying the cave of Machpelah, Jacob worshiped the coat of many colors after thinking Joseph had died, the Israelites worshiped the bronze serpent in the wilderness, Joshua worshiped the Angel of the Lord, and various people worshiped pharaohs and kings. Different forms of worship can and should be given to non-divine figures. Honor should be given to whomever it's due. 

The argument, then, is ultimately about what God sought to forbid when he issued the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:  "You shall not make for yourself a carved 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." Did God mean to ban images and icons? If so, did that ban carry over into the New Testament?

John of Damascus argued that God never banned the use of sacred images in the way that Catholicism and Orthodoxy use them, he was specifically banning the production and use of idols. John wrote: "God, who enjoins Israel not to make any graven thing, likeness or image of anything in heaven or on earth, also orders Moses to make carved cherubim" (page 128). God instructed Moses, Solomon, and Ezekiel about temples filled with images of trees, bulls, and angels. God gave Moses the model for the tabernacle, including cherubims, not long after issuing his ban on graven images in the Ten Commandments. Did God contradict himself? Of course not, so we should modify our understanding of what God forbade among the Israelites.

John also argued that any prohibition issued by God against the Israelites should be considered in light of the Israelites immaturity and weakness in relation to their idolatrous neighbors. Christians, however, have matured out of this weakness and are no longer in need of any ban. We now understand the truth that fleshly images are good, if used correctly, because Christ came in the flesh and became the ultimate image of an invisible God. 

Most of Christendom agrees that religious images are acceptable. There are a few exceptions, including parts of the Church of Christ, but almost every denomination for thousands of years has admitted the usefulness of images. If nothing else, religious art has been regarded as "books for the illiterate," and John pointed out that words are simply abstracted images. The only difference between a religious painting and a biblical narrative is the nature of the mental reconstruction one's brain has to perform. Both portray ancient events with no modern witnesses.

The deeper controversy surrounding images is the question of whether Christians should worship them. The term "veneration" has also been used to distinguish the kind of honor given to images in high church traditions from the latreia worship that's directed towards God. The Church of Christ is united on this question in that we reject any worship or prayer directed towards images. 

John of Damascus gave numerous reasons why he believed images should be worshiped over the course of his three-part book. I'd like to review some of those I found most compelling and relevant. 

Jesus is God's image. John argued that if Christians direct their worship towards Jesus then they are, in fact, directing their worship towards an image. This is a tricky issue. Technically, Jesus is God, but there's also a sense in which God's true nature is immaterial and therefore Jesus' fleshly form can only be an image of God. Jesus said that seeing the Son means seeing the Father who sent him. What exactly did he mean by that? In my opinion, the validity of this argument depends on deeper theological evaluation. 

True worship always leads back to God. Humans may worship authority figures and other beings and objects, but even that worship ultimately points back to God. If a Christian bows to a king, for example, he or she is acknowledging that person's God given authority. Viewed properly, then, a Christian only worships God. John of Damascus used the biblical example of worshiping angels as an example of people worshiping God through the messenger. The messenger becomes God because he carries God's words. He's the ambassador of God and therefore carries the authority and office of God. John wrote: "Neither Joshua nor Daniel worshiped the angels they saw as gods. Neither do I worship the image as God, but through the image of the saints too, show my worship to God" (page 101).

This leads us to another of John's arguments. The image of the king is the king. A statue or likeness of a king carries the identity of the person it's modeled after. A monarch's statue is treated as though it is the monarch: "The image of the king is also called the king, and there are not two kings. Neither power is broken, nor is glory divided. As we are ruled by one government and authority, so our homage is one, not many. Thus, the honor given to the image is referred to the original. That which the imager presents by imitation on earth, that the Son is by nature in Heaven" (page 118). When Iraqis toppled Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad, following the 2003 American invasion, they were disrespecting and symbolically overthrowing the leader it represented. The statue wasn't just another piece of art, it was specifically targeted for destruction because it carried the honor of Iraq's ousted leader. Similarly, sacred images represent the real Christ or saint, and thus directing worship towards them is legitimate just as directing dishonor towards the statue of an overthrown leader is a legitimate expression of grievance against that leader.  

How can we worship kings without worshiping saints? If Christians are expected to offer proper worship to kings, how much more should we be expected to offer proper worship to saints? If we freely offer honor and veneration to our secular leaders then what excuse do we have for not offering it to our spiritual siblings who will one day reign with Christ? The saints are more regal and worthy of worship than worldly rulers. 

John further inferred that if angels could be worshiped then messengers could be worshiped and thus saints could be worshiped. He wrote: "He who worships the apostle of Christ worships Him who sent the apostle" (page 48). Both saints and angels are servants, so why can't saints be worshiped if Joshua rightly worshiped the angel of the Lord? Furthermore, there's a sense in which all Christians can be worshiped because we all contain the Holy Spirit within us. We all participate in God's nature and thus we'll all be glorified. The Orthodox Church has expressed this in the concept of "theosis." Theosis is the glorification of a Christian into a kind of god. This godhood, however, is derived from a relationship with the one true God. Therefore, any worship directed towards our fellow Christians is really worship directed towards God. 

The Old Testament was an image, and yet the Old Testament was sacred. If Christians shouldn't regard images as sacred how should we regard the Old Testament with its images of a coming spiritual reality? We can't say Israel's temple, sacrifices, and priesthood were never sacred. They were images, but God operated through them and made them sacred. God worked through images to achieve mankind's salvation.  

We worship the images and belongings of loved ones. John quoted Saint Leontius of Naples approvingly: "Jacob received Joseph's cloak of many colors from his brothers who had sold him, (Genesis 37:32) and he caressed it with tears as he gazed at it. He did not weep over the cloak, but considered it a way of showing his love for Joseph and of embracing, him. Thus, do we Christians embrace with our lips the image of Christ, or the apostles, or the martyrs, whilst in spirit we deem that we are embracing Christ Himself or His martyr" (page 131). We commonly keep the photographs and belongings of our dead relatives and value them beyond their objective material worth. Military families might place a photograph of a slain father on the mantle and pay attention to its welfare while treating it as though it carried the presence of the lost father. John argued that this kind of worship is categorically the same as the way Christians esteem sacred images and relics. 

Many, if not most, of John of Damascus' arguments in defense of sacred images seem to center around iconoclasm's relationship to Gnosticism. For a Christian to deny the meaning and importance of sacred images represents their failure to understand the incarnation's important implications. John wrote: "I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works my salvation" (page 16). If Jesus descended to earth in material human flesh then images have been vindicated. Jesus is an image of God, and therefore spiritual natures can be imaged. Divorcing material images from spirituality denies that God's created matter can be reconciled with him. Gnosticism renders the material world a mistake without spiritual meaning, a dying corpse of sound and fury signifying nothing. Jesus redeemed nature by becoming nature. Jesus glorified nature by using parables to connect our earthly experiences to spiritual truths. Jesus brought validity and value to the material creation through his incarnation and parables. Christians should thus follow Jesus' example of reconciling the spiritual and material by creating sacred images.

Any discussion of spiritual images should address oft mentioned concerns about idolatry. Many Christians argue against sacred images on the basis that they might lead down a slippery slope into full-fledged idolatry. John of Damascus also faced this concern. He wrote: "The pious practice of the Church is not to be rejected because of heathen abuse. Sorcerers and magicians exorcise; the Church exorcises catechumens. The former invoke demons, the Church calls upon God against demons" (page 77). John argued that Christians shouldn't destroy the church's liberty to use images just because the heathen abuse images and warp them into idols. The mere possibility that images might be abused doesn't constitute a legitimate reason to anathematize a form of worship that God has not anathematized. In other words, we shouldn't limit Christian liberty from fear it might be abused. After all, the slippery slope argument is usually considered a logical fallacy. 

This issue of sacred images and worship may seem obscure and overly theological to many Christians, but it has real world consequences. Millions of Christians are faced with decisions on a daily basis that hinge on how we answer these questions. A young Chinese Christian lady once asked me whether it was permissible for her to worship at her ancestor's temple in order to honor her family. I honestly had no idea what to tell her. I didn't even know how to define the term "worship." In fact, I once bowed three times to a photograph of a recently deceased Chinese gentlemen while attending his funeral (it was foisted on me at the last moment). Was I worshiping his spirit? Honoring his memory? Or, was I just being culturally sensitive? The answer isn't entirely clear. It's regretful that most American Christians grow up without ever thinking about the meaning of worship and what can be worshiped. It's time we deepen out theology in preparation for a more complex era.