Cy Kellett welcomes Catholic apologist Trent Horn as they dive into a thought-provoking discussion about the use of sacred images in worship. Addressing a question from an evangelical listener, Trent clarifies the Catholic perspective on images, drawing from Scripture and the early Church’s practices to explain how these elements enhance rather than detract from worship.
Transcript:
Caller: I’m an evangelical Christian, and I grew up in a tradition where the use of images was always seen as something that was idolatrous. I think back to, I believe it’s Acts 22, when the apostle Paul sees all the worship that the Greeks are partaking in and all the idolatry that’s going on, and he’s disturbed in his spirit.
And, you know, my question is essentially, I don’t see any indication that the Apostle Paul would be okay or condone or encourage the use of sacred images of Christ or of saints in our worship services and liturgies. And I’m wondering if you can speak into that question.
Trent: Sure. I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. In Acts 22, I know that at one point Paul does say that maybe, maybe it’s here. No, I don’t think it’s in Acts 22. He says that the Lord does not dwell in houses made with human hands. So you’re right, of course, that Paul is, I mean, First Corinthians is Paul’s very clear about his denunciation of idol worship. He says that an idol has no real existence because these gods do not exist. These idols lead people away from God.
But I don’t think it would follow from that that Paul would oppose any use of an image in relation to worshiping God. For example, the Book of Acts also records how a handkerchief was taken from Paul’s workshop that was on his body and it was used to heal other people. So here we have an image. We have a tactile object that is associated with a holy individual that is used for healing others. And Paul never rebukes that. He never says, “Hey, just stop doing that. Stop taking rags out of my workshop and using them to heal people.”
People understand that similar to the bones of Elijah in the Book of Ezekiel, that relics related to holy people contain God’s ability to work through these to effect various good ends. Now, that’s different, but we’re on a similar track here. Relics are, of course, different than images, but we’re both dealing with God making himself known in the world through different material means.
So I agree with you that you shouldn’t worship an image as if that were God right in front of you. But if you have it to remind you of something that’s holy, I don’t see the problem here, because we see Josephus talks about, and the Old Testament talks about how there were images that adorned the temple in Jerusalem. Or in Numbers, chapter 21, God told Moses to make a golden serpent for the people to look at, to be healed from the plague of serpents that had attacked their encampment.
So I think it’s the context, not just the image in and of itself. Do you see what I’m saying?
Caller: Yeah, I think I do. And I think I messed up the scripture reference. I think I was thinking, if I may just really quick tag on this, the situation where they have the situation with Diana where Paul offends the sensibilities of the Greeks.
Trent: Well, I know that some people, like in Acts 19 and others, that when Paul was preaching the worship of Jesus to Greeks, they were abandoning their worship of idols. And that enraged the idol makers because obviously now they couldn’t sell their product to customers.
And so there, once again, we’re talking about idols to other gods that are receiving worship that belongs to God alone. But the church has long held that an image… And I attend a Byzantine Rite church. And so the church that I attend is filled, filled from floor to ceiling with images from the Gospels. I love it actually for my 4-year-old because, you know, sometimes Byzantine services can be, you know, an hour and 20 minutes long or something like that, an hour 40 in Lent.
But honestly, he just looks at it; it’s like a comic book inside the church and he just looks at the stories of Jesus. My favorite comment of his is he asks, “Why was there a bat giving Jesus a banana?” And that was where the devil’s giving a… asking Jesus to make a loaf of bread. That’s neither here nor there; that’s just a personal observation.
But I think that when we use our intuitions when it comes to the use of images, I don’t think there’s a problem. So for example, do you think that it’s wrong for a non-denominational Protestant church to have a Nativity display outside during Christmas?
Caller: To be completely frank with you, the tradition, or I guess the tradition that I’ve been raised in, there have been people that have had disagreements about that, which is why I think…
Trent: What do you think about it? What do you think?
Caller: I personally am conflicted because I definitely see the point of… It’s a reminder of something that God has done. And I am not offering worship to the Nativity set or to the baby Jesus in the Nativity set. So I frankly, I don’t think that it’s an idol.
Trent: Yeah, and I would agree with you. Now, if somebody thought that baby Jesus was right there in their little town’s nativity set, that’s going to get problematic. So I think that that same logic, we can extend it to the use of imagery or statues in Catholic worship.
Another example might be wearing a necklace with a cross on it, just wearing a simple cross on a necklace. Or in a church, like, what do you think about a church that has just a single cross at the front of the assembly? I mean, that is an image, right?
Caller: Yeah, I’ve always interpreted that as a reminder.
Trent: Okay, great. Well, then I think that we’ve got a lot of room here. I tell you what, if you give your email to our call screener, so stay on the line, give your email to our call screener, I’ll send you my book, *The Case for Catholicism*. I can email it to you. I have a whole chapter on the intercession of the saints and includes a subsection on venerating images and the debate about images you may find to be helpful.
So I would enjoy sending that to you if you could give your email to our call screener.