by Peter Beolingus

Created on: June 26, 2007

I have always found the use of statues, holy pictures, icons, etc. in Catholic, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox churches part of the "creative tension" of being a Christian. Let's face it: some churches overdo it. I don't feel comfortable in a church that has dozens of statues and images all over the place-it's like being smothered by the whole family album of The Communion of Saints. On the other hand, walking into a bare, austere Calvinistic church kind of makes me feel like the family has moved out, and taken all the pictures. It's not too friendly.

George Bernard Shaw, no friend of religion, once said the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant (Calvinistic) church was that in a Catholic church, you found "potential friends" in the saints who were looking down at you. They, too, had struggled and suffered and finally made the grade. They were there to encourage you to follow The Lord, not to distract you. Of course, there's always the danger of that happening.

For those who want to call statues and holy images "idolatry", they would have to take the ban on any "graven images" to include photography, paintings, etc. of any kind. The key word here is "worship". After all, The Ark of The Covenant had "graven images" in the twin seraphs on the lid. Moses used a "graven image" of a bronze serpent on a pole to cure the Israelites of a plague. But nobody confused the real purpose of these visual aids-because that's what holy images are.

Of course, in the Orthodox tradition, icons are more than just reminders-they are "windows to the spiritual realm", which I don't want to go into just now. It might behoove some Calvinistic Protestants to recall that the 7th-century A.D. iconoclasts were also Arian Christians, who denied the Divinity of Christ and The Holy Trinity. Still, I think as Catholics we should observe some decorum in the use of holy images: a few tasteful, significantly placed images, given proper reverence but not "in your face". To my taste, less is more. For example, some churches have multiple crucifixes, which I find distracting. It makes me think of the movie SUNSET BOULEVARD where the aging movie star, Norma Desmond, had pictures of herself in every available space. It's overkill.

As physical beings with both sensual and spiritual dimensions, we yearn for something tangible in our encounter with the divine. I have seen in Jewish services that people want to touch The Holy Ark with The Torah scrolls as the rabbi makes the rounds of it with the congregation. That's only natural-we can't see God, or touch Him, but our physical senses want something. The source of most of the great wars of religion have had to do with which characteristic of God we emphasize-the transcendent (above and beyond us) or the imminent (here and now, up close and personal).

Working with this creative tension, it is the obligation of every Catholic-or Christian of any denomination-to realize that God is not an "either/ or"; rather, God is "both/and". Certainly if God can speak in a burning bush, through a donkey, or by a dove, He does not mind if we use religious images for veneration, but not worship.

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