Idols and Icons: The Sacred Image in Christian Thought and Practice

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

A study of the place of the image in religious practice, beginning with pre-Christian critique of images and continuing through the broad Christian tradition. Topics include the role of images in Greco-Roman religion, philosophical censure of representational art, Jewish attitudes toward pictorial art, Christian repudiation of idolatry, the emergence of portrait icons, the iconoclastic controversies in the 8th and 9th centuries (both East and West), the theological defense of image veneration, and the various Reformation perspectives on the role of visual art in Christian worship and devotional practice.