Avoiding the Piety of Rome & Ricky Bobby

It's the most unauthorizedly visual time of the year!

No one (as far as we know) advocates that Presbyterian and Reformed elders conduct special November and December home visits to determine whether members are displaying manger scenes with all the characters of the Nativity present and accounted for. What might be reasonable though is for elders to inventory their own church buildings and worship spaces and rightly order them by removing images of the Second Person of the Trinity.

How might these elders have come to the conviction that images of any Person of the Godhead do not belong in their churches? A plain reading of the Second Commandment might suffice. Or maybe one of the expositions of that commandment found in the Westminster Standards:

Q. 109. What sins are forbidden in the second commandment?

A. The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God hath appointed.

Now, let us allow that many Presbyterian Church in America elders have (by way of “Good Faith Subscription”¹) unsubscribed to portions of the Standards, the one quoted above being among the most (un)popular in this respect. Nevertheless, (allowable personal reservations aside) the constitution of the church remains and ought to guide the practice of every elder, session, and congregation, at least in their public worship and public representations.

Apart from the letter of the Scripture and the Standards there are theological and practical, commonsense considerations concerning images that every elder ought to take seriously. Theologically, whole-Christ Christology argues against images. If we would not have Jesus portrayed on a cross in our church buildings (as on a Romanist crucifix), why would we have him as a plastic or porcelain statue in a crib? He is truly God and truly man—no image can portray him truthfully. He is now seated in heaven in a glorified body; his present and eternal likeness has not yet been revealed to us. We “do not now see him,” but “shall see him as he is”—this is our eschatological, future hope.

Imaging him now is a shortcut that seeks to immanentize the eschaton and may short-circuit our Christology. It also caters to our fallen sentiments and personal preferences. And so we come to Ricky Bobby, the main character of the farcical and irreverent (if not sacrilegious) 2006 comedy Talladega Nights, which we don’t necessarily recommend that you see. Intentionally or not, the writers of this screenplay portrayed the sinful downside of popular, image-driven piety as well as has ever been done. While saying grace (before a meal that only a #PresbycastEats food review could love), the narcissistic and vapid Ricky reveals that he prefers an oddly specific (8 pounds, 6 ounces!) version of Jesus—the pudgy, non-threatening, cute baby version common to the seasonal piety of greeting cards, Precious Moments figurines, and—yes—nativity scenes.

But we don’t need a personalized Jesus, mentally assembled and false. Nor do we need a snippet view, an imagined snapshot, or a partial conception of Jesus, but one as full as the Bible’s witness to him: the whole Christ, the God-Man in all his offices and glory as revealed by the whole Bible. Reformed people ought to know better, but our doctrine of sin and the fall means we can’t be altogether surprised that our hearts’ idol factories still run, belching smoke that obscures Christ’s glory and the Bible’s truth.

“BUT WE DON’T WORSHIP THE IMAGES!” Let’s think for a moment about this common retort to the Reformed standards’ visual-doxological strictness. How well do we control what we worship? The Bible and the honest self-examination of mature saints scream NOT VERY WELL. This fact also argues against the so-called pedagogical use of images which assumes we can tell people (usually children), “This is your savior. He is truly God and truly man. This picture will help you understand this, but please don’t worship him by or through this image…not even a little bit.” Common sense (of any century) would like a word. We should also ask if the Holy Spirit needs the assistance of artists or technicians to bring the word to bear, to teach us “all things.”

Speaking of common sense, if we understand that the worship of images is not good, the Larger Catechism’s teaching (as quoted above) prohibiting the making of images of any person of the Trinity seems eminently reasonable. It also seems to reflect the plain teaching of the Second Commandment. To riff on a line from a different movie, if you make it you might worship it. So don’t make it.

Why are images still apparent in some Reformed churches, homes, publications, or video streaming histories? Not, we trust, for worship. Not for pedagogy…if we have thought deeply about it. So, for decoration? For sensory pleasure? Because of tradition? For merely aesthetic reasons? Marketing? “Outreach”? Relatability? The problem with any of these reasons (reverence aside) is that we still see the images, and so do unbelievers. We communicate something to others² with the images we hang, post, and watch. And if we’re honest, we know that the images³ of Jesus we have are not accurate, not true. Maybe we simply like them. We ought to ask if the God of Truth likes them.

Many may ask, are images really that big a deal? What’s the harm? These are odd questions for believers familiar with the Old Testament. The concern may seem disproportionate—no doubt God’s punishment of false worship seemed a bit much to the children of Israel, too. Some might also protest that our image-free piety is just weird. Keep Reformed worship weird, we say, so long as the weirdness is biblically regulated.

So what if likenesses of Baby Jesus disappeared from our churches? Would the removal (weeping and gnashing of teeth aside) not provide an opportunity to teach who Jesus really is and what the Bible and our biblical standards teach about how he is to be worshiped? Now, there’s a helpful pedagogical use connected to images.

THE AVOIDABLE ABSURDITY OF ERROR: This internet image purporting to be of the mantle of a grandma who mistook a Star Wars Jedi knight character for Jesus may not be real, but it’s not hard to imagine that it is.

1. “Today, many candidates are stating differences with the second commandment, specifically as it pertains to images of the human nature of the Son of God. Beyond any doubt, there has been disagreement about this subject in the history of the Church. However, entrance in the PCA is dependent on whether such a view undermines the system of doctrine of the Standards. Candidates with a difference at this point must explain that and how they differ with Larger Catechism #109, which teaches that the second commandment forbids ‘the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons’ in worship or outside of it. It further states that all false worship is ‘spiritual whoredom’ (WLC 110). These words within the system of doctrine itself would make allowing the difference catastrophic. A church may not allow spiritual whoredom among its ministers.”
https://pcapolity.com/2022/10/24/of-doctrinal-standards-good-faith-subscription/

2. We also communicate something to ourselves. We download lots of fodder for the further making of personal, mental images—a thing also prohibited by WLC 109. Many presbyters disagree with this clause in particular, but we suspect few have thought carefully about it.

3. There are, in fact, two authorized images of Jesus: baptism and the Lord’s Supper.