Reformed Protestants No Longer See Images as Idolatrous

During the Reformation, protestant churches in the Reformed tradition (as well as Anabaptists) abandoned the use of the visual in sacred spaces. This reaction was corollary to the recovery of Biblical religion and the exaltation of Scripture, which had largely been abandoned by the late medeival church in favor of an external, highly mediated form of Christianity. So, out went statues, paintings, and altar pieces. The pulpit was left and the Bible and sermon made central. It was, of course, the type of over-correction that happens in such charged times.

Yes of course, the Scripture itself is replete with image and figure of speech, but over time these elements have been downplayed in favor of the propositional in many traditions, especially American evangelicalism.

Now many Reformed churches, which rebelled so severely against the use of the sensory as distracting and idolatrous, and exalted the propositional are now acknowledging the limitations of propositional language and are rediscovering the ability of images to communicate what words can only approximate. Images (now projected by Power Point or as clips from DVDs) are finding their way back into Reformed worship.

Can they overcome the purely trendy and pragmatic usages found in seeker churches which have no real understanding of the ways in which the arts communicate?

Reformed Protestants No Longer See Images as Idolatrous - Christianity Today Magazine