A-Ha Moments from Calvinism to Lutheranism

In my conversion from Calvinism to Lutheranism, there were several occasions I would call “a-ha moments” - officially defined as “a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension.” Discussing some of these may help those of you wresting with the transition. For this post, we'll deal with the issue of images.

No doubt, if you are Reformed, you read the Ten Commandments and find “Thou shalt make no graven images" and say “Well, the matter is settled...no crucifixes, pictures of Christ, or other images allowed”. Well..not so fast. The Roman Catholic Church and most Lutheran churches, following Saint Augustine, combine "no other gods" with "no graven images" into the first commandment, and split "covet wife" and "covet neighbors..." into two commandments. The belief that the Reformed second commandment stood and forbid graven images manifested itself during the Reformation in the form of iconoclasm – the destruction of altars, images, and statutes. It should be painfully obvious that taking our sole cue from a bunch of marauding peasants in the 16th century is problematic. We need to take a step back and take a deep breath. The Lutheran does this by believing that the use of images is one of the many “things indifferent”, or “adiaphora”. It is not required nor is it forbidden. There is no command to use them, and even if we held to the Reformed view of the commandments, we would be hard-pressed to affirm that it means that any use of images is condemned. While thinking through this issue, one thing discovered about my own thought process was that the objection to images can also come about by a sort of of “guilt by association” argument that goes something like this syllogism: “Since Roman Catholic has false doctrine, and they use images, therefore, the use of images is bad.” Not a good place to get your beliefs! It can also come about from a sort of irrational fear that a moderate use of images will result in idolatry. This, of course, can be argued against easily. What about a computer? Certainly, a computer can become an idol if we love it more than we love God. But simply using a computer is using one of God's good gifts to us, and not sinful.

In future posts, I'll talk about some of the other “a-ha moments” I had in my transition from Calvinism to Lutheranism. By the way, for you podcast buffs, I will be interviewed soon, in time for the next Against the Winds podcast episode., where I will also discuss my transition.