Or to put it another way, it was a demarcation dispute.
Or to put it yet another way, it was bad in the same way wearing blue to a match when that’s the opposition’s colour and your team wears red is bad.
Wow, how’s that work?
Simple. I still culturally self-identify as a Byzantine Catholic although, in terms of faith, I am agnostic.
You seem to be addressing two separate issues – whether or not Catholics are praying to statues, etc. and, if they do, whether that differs from someone worshipping another god through an idol.
I don’t know if there are some idols that are worshipped in themselves rather than as representatives of some god. I do believe that it is not part of Roman Catholic doctrine to worship a representation of the Heavenly Family.
Some Christians may find that it helps them to concentrate if they can focus on an object – whether it be a statue, a candle, a stained glass, a pattern in the floor, or a cross. That doesn’t mean that they are confusing the object with the deity itself.
Also, Roman Catholics are not the only Christians who have statues of saints in their sanctuaries or who ask the saints to pray for them.
My thinking is in line with Polycarp’s. And I find that I too often do have other priorities. That troubles me as much as anything that I do wrong. I’m very self-indulgent in such a needy world.
Once you’re brought up thinking of God (or “the gods”) in a certain way, it’s very difficult to start thinking of Him (or them) any other way. If someone tries to teach you a new way to think about God, a way that’s totally different from your old way, three things may happen:
-
You’ll abandon your old way of thinking and embrace the new way.
-
You’ll reject the new way completely, and stay with your old beliefs.
-
You’ll accept parts of the new way, but mix it in with your old way.
Well, monotheism (the idea that there is exactly one God, neither more nor less) WAS a very new idea in Biblical times. Almost every race on Earth at the time was polytheistic and was in the habit of using statues and idols to represent their patron gods. The ancient Israelites were no different.
Now, Moses came along and tried to wipe out the old ways, to force the Israelites to worship one and only one God. What happened? Well, as I suggested earlier, SOME Israelites embraced the new God. Some held on to their old beliefs in secret. And many others tried to merge the new God into their old pantheon.
Remember, most ancient cultures believed in similar gods. Oh, this nation might regard the sun god as its patron, that nation might regard the sea god as its patron, and another might regard the harvest goddess as its patron, but they all pretty much accepted the existence of other nations’ gods. Heck, during time of war, the general belief was that you could NEVER have too many gods on your side, so you’d do well to offer sacrifices to as many as possible!
Many ancient Israelites took the same attitude. Moses told them “There is ONLY one God. The others don’t exist!” But many Israelites chose to believe “Well, Jehovah is our main god, our patron god, but to be safe, we ought to continue honoring all the other gods out there.”
And it gets tricky, because SOMETIMES Israelites used idols to represent Jehovah! Moses forbade that, because he saw idols (even those representing Jehovah) as an evil that would surely lead to polytheism. But when people are USED to something, well, it’s hard to get them to give it up. SOMETIMES, golden calf satues were used to represent the one God Moses spoke of… but to Moses, an idol was an idol, even if it wasn’t representing a pagan deity.
To use a more modern example of what can happen when you try to impose a new religion on a people with a very different understanding of God(s), look at Voodoo and Santeria. Catholic colonists tried to impose their beliefs on African slaves and Indians. What happened? Well, the slaves and the Indians started merging Jesus and Mary into their old spirit religions. In the end, you got a religion that included elemnts of Christianity, but wasn’t really Christian at all.
Even centuries after Moses’ death, old elements of paganism still remained among the Israelites, and priests/prophets like Elijah were constantly battling against them.
We still have idols today, and worship them with fanatical devotion. Not the kind of wood and stone, of course, but of silicone. :wally
There’s another reason why the anti-idol thing is so important in Judaism.
The traditional Jewish teaching regarding the origin of idol-worship is that the grandchildren of Adam reasoned that the forces of nature, being G-d’s messengers, were worthy of worship as well as G-d himself. This led to the fallacious thinking that humans are so much beneath G-d that the should ONLY worship the “messengers,” and this, in turn,became the anthropomorphic idol-worship we’re familiar with.
The genius of Abraham was that he recognized that G-d could be directly addressed by human beings, and moreover, that G-d is the only one in whom there is any value in addressing. When G-d then makes a covenant with Abraham’s descendants, the whole point of the covenant is that the Israelites should be a people with a special, personal relationship with G-d. Hence, idol-worship strikes at the very heart of the purpose of the Israelite covenant - they must recognize that they are HIS nation, and no intermediaries are necessary (and ineffective to boot) to address him.