Instead of feeling inspired or lifted up, some anti-Catholic religious folks get a case of the "oogies" when they encounter religious icons and statues, believing them to be idols.Having been raised in an anti-Catholic home, I recall as a young person seeing a portion of midnight Mass on television once, live from the Vatican. Seeing all those "graven images" was almost frightening, because I felt I was witnessing real-life, modern-day paganism -- the very practices God had hated and condemned for thousands of years since the beginning of human history. I thought I was peering into the sanctuary of Satan.
What I didn't understand, however -- but now do -- was that the commandment against making "graven images" is in the context of worshiping false gods. It is an extension of "You shall have no other gods before me."
Here it is in Exodus 20:2-5 (NKJV):
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.If you read this in a narrow, literalistic way, you might conclude that anything carved to look like something else violates the commandment. This would include anything from the decorative owl carvings I own to the national memorial at Mount Rushmore.
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image—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; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
But when the commandment speaks of a "carved image," it is synonymous with an "idol" (the word used in the NIV). An idol is, or represents, a false god -- something that is worshiped in the place of the true God. That's why even Protestant churches teach that anything that comes between you and God (money, sex, fame, power, possessions, etc.) is your "idol."
Carved images were never strictly condemned in Scripture, not even in religious settings. Quite the opposite -- God commanded them to be used by the nation of Israel.
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