Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Shroud of Turin Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 08:05:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 33 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , mcguire@cs.tamu.edu (Tim McGuire) wrote > ... a brief look at the shroud of Turin ... He brought up some good points. However, if it > ...was written in reaction to > some "fundamentalist" and "evangelical" Christians attempts to defend its > authenticity there is another point which he didn't mention which ought to appeal to such people. One of the bigger disputes in church history in Western Europe was that between the iconoclasts (the people who wanted to smash "idols") and the iconodules (the people who saw nothing wrong with being respectful to and worshiping _through_ "images"). This clash preceded the Reformation by a century or so, and was one of the factors behind it. Now "fundamentalists" and "evangelicals" are heirs to the iconoclasts. They would be shocked (at least, I hope they would) to see a crucifix displayed in one of their churches with a statue of Jesus on it. How on earth can people who think they are taking the 3rd commandment seriously imagine that God himself would make something extraneous that could tempt people to pay it undue reverence? (I call the Shroud "extraneous" to distinguish it from things like the Sun and the city of Jerusalem.) The Catholic and Orthodox churches do not have this distrust of images, so Catholics could believe in the Shroud without strain, but "fundamentalists" and "evangelicals" should surely be _extremely_ sceptical of _every_ "miraculous image". If I may adapt a saying from the iconoclasts: "if you want to see an image of Christ, look at your neighbour". -- It is indeed manifest that dead men are formed from living ones; but it does not follow from that, that living men are formed from dead ones. -- Tertullian, on reincarnation.