When icons become idols

Been thinking; “Icons existed long before they appeared on my computer screen”. Duh?! Hey, stay with me, I'm going somewhere with this . .

Icon is a Greek word meaning image.

It is the same word used in Genesis 1:27 : when God said, "Let us make humans in our image" and again in Colossians 1:1 5 : “Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation”. To Eastern Christianity where their use originates, an icon is specifically a sacred image which represents biblical stories or personalities, painted in accordance with Church traditions. But icons are more than pictures, they are “image windows” ... to see God more clearly, by seeing through them.

The power of an icon is to see through it ... not look to it. Just look to it, it can become an idol. Appreciate the art, reflect on the significance, "see through it", and it serves as a “window of forming my Christian spirituality”.

How can an icon become and idol?

Icons become idols when we no longer see through them as windows of reflection beyond their artful symbolism. When we allow them to become clouded we look to, and not through them. We only see what we have previously seen, expect to see and invariably will always see. Freshness and inspirations from ‘beyond’ are subtly replaced with images of achievement expectations, measurements of performance and judgmental projections into our struggle for achieving self-imposed behavioural standards. The clouded window becomes a mirror of reflection.


Our icons become idols, don’t need tearing down ... they need window-cleaning. Their very nature is to resonate with the Spirit’s voice in our reflective visualisation of God’s eternal nature in our temporal and communal life. Their voice is always ‘today inspiration’ for our pilgrimage in company with one who is, was and is to come.

When icons become our idols the problem is not them, it’s us. A fresh iconoclasm is not the remedy for misuse, and abuses of their proper use ... it's spring-cleaning time for our 'icon collection'..

The icons portrayed on the ‘walls of our worlds’ are broadly sourced. Eastern Christian communities, persons in the biblical narratives, passages in sacred text, the creation called ‘our planet’, saints in Christian and world history, or the ever-expanding engagement of ‘art’ in the breadth of its’ forms stock our galleries.