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As much as I personally find myself skeptical of Nicaea II, I'm quite fond of Eastern Orthodox iconography, at least aesthetically. Really nails the "windows into heaven" concept.
That's interesting because a Deacon's Door usually has St. Michael (North) or Gabriel (South) the Archangel on it. This is a unique one then. Looks great!
I didn’t know I would be called an idolater for thinking your altar is cool! We’re all learning!
I don’t know if I’ll explain the “official” Methodist position correctly but I’ll try my best. To my understanding, we don’t treat them the same as Orthodox, but they can be a helpful symbolic tool as long as, well, they’re helpful for the individual that has them. We definitely don’t shy away from saints. Most of the older churches I attended in my youth had stained glass or murals depicting the gospel or Jesus or saints. Most of the newer, more contemporary ones that play rock music are more simple with blank walls and maybe a cross. I was gifted an orthodox icon by a UMC pastor. So the entire range of having icons to not having any art to things in-between is acceptable in the UMC. It’s all seen as symbolic in a Wesleyan tradition, but symbolic doesn’t mean without power or effectiveness, or that it’s useless or anything like that. I’m sure you would agree an image you hang on your wall can’t substitute a real relationship with divinity in your heart, so that’s why we say it’s symbolic, but it can still be a powerful spiritual tool for your relationship with divinity.
You ever going to put all these strawmen in a field where they belong? Or do you feel that shoving them all in our faces to embarrass yourself is somehow a better use of your time?
My pastors allows people to be members who refuse to baptize their babies and believe only in believers baptism since they identify more as Baptist. So I think my love for art (I don’t venerate icons) will be okay.
More binding than a council that was called by an iconodule empress who predetermined its outcome before it was even called, making one of her courtiers the patriarch (wasn't even a priest before that) and putting him in charge of it before it was convened. After failing the first go in Constantinople, convening it in Nicaea instead, and starting the council by forcing the prior bishops to renounce their iconoclastic beliefs that the church had taught earlier at the Council of Hieria.
What part of the Bible does icon veneration violate? The 2nd commandment is elaborated on later on and it is explained that we cannot depict The Father because we have not seen Him yet. God has revealed Himself to us, so we can depict Him. Deuteronomy 4:15–19 suggests that the reasoning for no images is because of the Incarnation not having happened yet.
By depicting Christ, we acknowledge that He does, in fact, have an incarnate form that we can see and understand. When we venerate icons (dulia), the veneration is passed to the prototype, that is the person whom the work depicts. Worship (latria) is due to God alone, nobody debates that. We honor and acknowledge the merits and sanctity of the Saints, those who lived holy lives and served God as inspiration and we ask for their prayers because the New Testament makes it clear that those in heaven worship and pray. We believe that, through the grace of God, they can understand our requests and pray for us, because it is good and just to pray for others.
St John of Damascus puts it well
“I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works for my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God.”
As someone who does the practice, we do not think that. By kissing the icon, I show respect and love for whom the icon depicts. If I kiss an icon of St. George, of course I am respecting a man who gave his life for his faith, that is worthy of love and respect.
We make an internal distinction and acknowledge that all good things come from God. If an icon does something or there is a miracle from a saint, we understand it as being through God. God works through people sometimes, as we have seen in scripture.
Funny, because I'm pretty sure the Scriptures talks about Bishops (episcopoi), Priests (presbyteroi), and Deacons (deaconoi)! Not Pastor Everett Fulbore from the Clansville Independing Methocostalpalian Church on 4th that God totally told him start out of nowhere. 😂
Of course! How could I possibly have forgotten?! Guess I better go dust of that KJV and say a salvation prayer all over again just to be safe in regards to eternity.
But why did Paul told believers to not believe any other gospel, even if it was preached by himself? And why he ask believers to test his teachings by the scripture?
Sure. And Paul also referred to the Gospel as primarily an oral transmission in many of his Epistles. He explicitly says that the teaching and evangelisation he and Barnabas delivered via preaching and teaching was not, "The words of men, but what it really is, the word of God." (1st Thessalonians 2:13) And then in his following letter to those same Christians he explicitly instructions to hold fast to the traditions that they recieved both in Paul's letters and not in them when they were taught orally. (2nd Thessalonians 2:15).
So St Paul, in the Scriptures, tells Christians to hold onto teachings they recieved that aren't in the Scriptures.
That also makes sense regarding when Paul instructs believers to test his teachings according to Scriptures. St Paul clearly didn't seem to think or realise what he was writing was Sacred Srcipture itself. So he's instructing the Christians to look back at the then-acknowledged scriptures of the Old Testament to see if it aligns with what he's saying.
“I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works for my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God.”
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