Is Veneration an Authentic Christian Practice?
Christianity - it is a faith in which humanity is not abandoned, but redeemed. Where creation can participate in and point to realities greater than itself—to things unseen.
Human beings understand this almost innately. We preserve the belongings of those we have lost. We lift up that which we honor. We treat an ordinary piece of wood differently from a cross. The composition of the material thing is never all that we see, nor is it all that there is.
For Orthodox Christians, icons belong within this way of understanding the world. We do not honor them as mere wood and paint, but the greater reality they represent.
Few practices make the differences between Orthodoxy and Protestantism more tangible than icons and their veneration. In 2023, Dr. Gavin Ortlund released one of his most-watched YouTube videos, titled “Icon Veneration is CLEARLY an Accretion,” with the thumbnail, “This alone will make you Protestant.”
The heart of Dr. Ortlund's argument is that:
Christians may use honorable non-living religious objects, including images of Christ and the saints, for teaching, remembrance, or aesthetic purposes. His objection is that Scripture forbids acts of liturgical reverence toward non-living religious objects, such as bowing before and kissing them, which he grounds especially in the Second Commandment.
My position is:
Scripture does not forbid the liturgical veneration of honorable non-living religious objects such as icons. I further believe that such veneration is a coherent conclusion when Scripture, Trinitarian theology, and the Church’s authority are considered together.
So the points of disagreement:
1) Do the Scriptures, like the 2nd commandment, forbid the liturgical practice of venerating honorable non-living religious objects, such as icons?
Dr. Ortlund: Yes
Me: No
2) Is the veneration of honorable non-living religious objects, such as icons, a coherent practice when Scripture, Trinitarian theology, and the Church’s authority are considered together?
Dr. Ortlund: No
Me: Yes
At several points in the video, Dr. Ortlund adds important qualifications that help clarify the precise scope of his objection. The following examples are useful for identifying where the theological disagreement actually lies. Dr. Ortlund's quotes will be in blue to help the reader identify them over other quotations:
"Icons are distinct from religious art generally, and the veneration of icons is distinct from other uses of religious art. Commemorative uses, decorative uses, didactic uses. So venerating an icon is not the same as having a painting of the Apostle Paul, preaching in Athens on your office wall or having pictures in churches. It's what we're specifically talking about is the veneration of icons. That is the issue.”¹
"Now, this is not to say that the distinction between worship and veneration or other forms of respect has no validity in any context. When a knight bows down to a king, for example, this can be an act of homage, not an act of idolatry. Bowing down to people has a different range of meanings throughout different human cultures, and it occurs in many places of the Bible. But that is disanalogous to an ongoing liturgical act of veneration directed to non-living objects.” (emphasis added)²
"So if a Christian were to kiss a Bible, that's not necessarily venerative, especially if it's not a ritual practice in the context of worship. Basically, Christians should treat physical objects like Bibles or crosses or religious art with respect and with affection.”³
These statements establish that Dr. Ortlund’s objection is not that:
Religious images like icons themselves are the problem.
Bowing itself is the problem.
Kissing or showing affection toward a non-living religious object is necessarily the problem.
The disagreement, then, concerns the ongoing liturgical veneration of non-living religious objects through such acts.
I think the most helpful way for me to formulate a response is in two sections:
The theology of veneration
The history of veneration
As I have stated in previous writings, I am only a layman in the Orthodox Church and claim no special theological qualifications. If I can contribute anything helpful to this discussion, it is not because of my credentials, but because I spent many of my formative years as a Protestant, mostly in a Reformed Baptist setting. I can therefore appreciate many of Dr. Ortlund's concerns surrounding icon veneration, as they were once my own.
Footnotes
Gavin Ortlund, “Icon Veneration is CLEARLY an Accretion!,” Truth Unites, January 9, 2023, Podscripts transcript, 6:37–7:23, https://podscripts.co/podcasts/truth-unites/icon-veneration-is-clearly-an-accretion.
Ortlund, “Icon Veneration is CLEARLY an Accretion!,” Podscripts transcript, 1:01:11–1:01:51.
Ortlund, “Icon Veneration is CLEARLY an Accretion!,” Podscripts transcript, 1:08:13–1:08:58.
Bibliography
Ortlund, Gavin. “Icon Veneration is CLEARLY an Accretion!” Truth Unites. January 9, 2023. Podscripts transcript. https://podscripts.co/podcasts/truth-unites/icon-veneration-is-clearly-an-accretion.
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