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War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin
In the second decade of the sixteenth century medieval piety suddenly began to be attacked in some places as "idolatry," or false religion. This study calls attention to the importance of the idolatry issue during the Reformation.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 27, 1986
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About the author
Carlos M.N. Eire
9 books38 followersAuthor also writes under Carlos Eire
A scholar of the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, Carlos Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History & Religious Studies at Yale University. He received his PhD from Yale in 1979, and taught at St. John’s University in Minnesota and the University of Virginia before joining the Yale faculty in 1996.
A scholar of the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, Carlos Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History & Religious Studies at Yale University. He received his PhD from Yale in 1979, and taught at St. John’s University in Minnesota and the University of Virginia before joining the Yale faculty in 1996.
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February 15, 2013
The issue of idolatry, particularly idolatry in worship, does not come up much in sermons or theological works today. Men will talk of idols, but they usually mean idols of the state or idols in men’s hearts. But it has not always been the case. Eire takes us back to a time when idolatry in worship was one of the greatest concerns.
Eire makes a strong case that an important theological idea in the years leading up to the Reformation and in the Reformation itself was idolatry, particularly idolatry in worship. He does a great job of showing how the teaching that many of the Roman Catholic practices were idol worship took root throughout Europe and eventually led to wholesale rejection by Protestants of icons, statues, the Mass, etc. He surveys the way this idol worship was rooted out by different Protestant communities. Sometimes it happened by physical force of the leaders. Sometimes it happened by physical force from the people. Sometimes it happened by laws being passed by the leaders. He also shows how the teaching on idolatry evolved from Erasmus, Karlstadt, Luther, Bucer, Bullinger and many others until it reaches a culmination in John Calvin and his teachings.
The last several chapters on Calvin were thought provoking. First, Eire shows how Calvin’s teaching on the subject was preceded by humanist strains of thought that influenced his thinking. Lefevre was a contributor to Calvin’s theology of idolatry as were many others, though none systematized the teaching on idolatry like Calvin.
Second, he explains Calvin’s view on idolatry. The emphasis falls on Calvin’s view of man’s propensity to idol worship. Man cannot see an image without being enticed to worship it. Man’s weakness takes center stage, as does God’s glory, which man is always seeking to deface by worshiping idols. This leaves no room for compromise in worship.
Third, Eire discusses Calvin’s view of Protestants living in Roman Catholic countries who refuse to abandon Catholic worship. Calvin calls these people Nicodemites or simulators: people who pretend to be Roman Catholic, but really are not. He warns this group that you cannot separate the heart and the actions. We are whole people. Therefore one cannot claim to be worshiping God with their heart, while bowing before idols with their bodies. He encourages these people to lead quiet lives, but refuse to compromise, even if it means persecution or exile.
Finally, and perhaps most intriguing, was the chapter on how Calvin’s refusal to compromise on idolatry led to revolutions and the wars of religion. He shows how John Knox, Pierre Viret, and other men who learned from Calvin eventually took his uncompromising view of idolatry to mean that a civil ruler who promotes idolatry could be, and in some cases must be, overthrown. Calvin himself did not teach this. But his followers took the seeds he planted and used them to promote political revolution and armed resistance.
As with many history books, there is little application. Eire hints here and there at whether or not he thinks certain things were right or wrong. But overall he is trying to show how important the idea of idolatry was to the Reformation and how that view of idolatry eventually led to political upheaval. I have not read much on this subject, so my conclusions are tentative. But what he said seemed to line up with what I know of Calvin’s teaching. Although I think Eire sees Calvin's failure to compromise as bad, whereas I see it as good.
Here are some questions that came to my mind while I was reading: Do we take our worship and our compromises in worship as seriously as we should? How should we view Roman Catholic worship 450 years after the Reformation? We are certainly in a different cultural time where the great threat is statism, not Roman Catholicism. But does that make their actions in worship any less idolatrous? How should we view those who refuse to leave compromised churches and denominations, yet claim to follow the living God? What about those who stay in denominations that teach sexual heresy or refuse to believe the Bible is God’s Word? Finally, what is or should be the connection between politics and the worship of God? What obligations do we place on our rulers with regard to the worship of God?
War Against the Idols is a really good book that provokes a lot of questions, but does not give many answers.
Eire makes a strong case that an important theological idea in the years leading up to the Reformation and in the Reformation itself was idolatry, particularly idolatry in worship. He does a great job of showing how the teaching that many of the Roman Catholic practices were idol worship took root throughout Europe and eventually led to wholesale rejection by Protestants of icons, statues, the Mass, etc. He surveys the way this idol worship was rooted out by different Protestant communities. Sometimes it happened by physical force of the leaders. Sometimes it happened by physical force from the people. Sometimes it happened by laws being passed by the leaders. He also shows how the teaching on idolatry evolved from Erasmus, Karlstadt, Luther, Bucer, Bullinger and many others until it reaches a culmination in John Calvin and his teachings.
The last several chapters on Calvin were thought provoking. First, Eire shows how Calvin’s teaching on the subject was preceded by humanist strains of thought that influenced his thinking. Lefevre was a contributor to Calvin’s theology of idolatry as were many others, though none systematized the teaching on idolatry like Calvin.
Second, he explains Calvin’s view on idolatry. The emphasis falls on Calvin’s view of man’s propensity to idol worship. Man cannot see an image without being enticed to worship it. Man’s weakness takes center stage, as does God’s glory, which man is always seeking to deface by worshiping idols. This leaves no room for compromise in worship.
Third, Eire discusses Calvin’s view of Protestants living in Roman Catholic countries who refuse to abandon Catholic worship. Calvin calls these people Nicodemites or simulators: people who pretend to be Roman Catholic, but really are not. He warns this group that you cannot separate the heart and the actions. We are whole people. Therefore one cannot claim to be worshiping God with their heart, while bowing before idols with their bodies. He encourages these people to lead quiet lives, but refuse to compromise, even if it means persecution or exile.
Finally, and perhaps most intriguing, was the chapter on how Calvin’s refusal to compromise on idolatry led to revolutions and the wars of religion. He shows how John Knox, Pierre Viret, and other men who learned from Calvin eventually took his uncompromising view of idolatry to mean that a civil ruler who promotes idolatry could be, and in some cases must be, overthrown. Calvin himself did not teach this. But his followers took the seeds he planted and used them to promote political revolution and armed resistance.
As with many history books, there is little application. Eire hints here and there at whether or not he thinks certain things were right or wrong. But overall he is trying to show how important the idea of idolatry was to the Reformation and how that view of idolatry eventually led to political upheaval. I have not read much on this subject, so my conclusions are tentative. But what he said seemed to line up with what I know of Calvin’s teaching. Although I think Eire sees Calvin's failure to compromise as bad, whereas I see it as good.
Here are some questions that came to my mind while I was reading: Do we take our worship and our compromises in worship as seriously as we should? How should we view Roman Catholic worship 450 years after the Reformation? We are certainly in a different cultural time where the great threat is statism, not Roman Catholicism. But does that make their actions in worship any less idolatrous? How should we view those who refuse to leave compromised churches and denominations, yet claim to follow the living God? What about those who stay in denominations that teach sexual heresy or refuse to believe the Bible is God’s Word? Finally, what is or should be the connection between politics and the worship of God? What obligations do we place on our rulers with regard to the worship of God?
War Against the Idols is a really good book that provokes a lot of questions, but does not give many answers.
December 22, 2007
Modernity and the international society of states are both born from the religious wars fought between Catholics and Protestants between the time of Luther and a bit past 1648.
In beautiful prose and in graphic detail Eire shows us how Geneva was the Kandahar of its time -- from which religious (soldiers? terrorists? believers?) would make raids into Catholic areas of France. The ideas and the actions that led to the mutual blood-letting of Catholics and Protestants (of all shades and types) are reminders to us that the greatest destruction comes from a deep conviction in ideals.
does that sound familiar?
In beautiful prose and in graphic detail Eire shows us how Geneva was the Kandahar of its time -- from which religious (soldiers? terrorists? believers?) would make raids into Catholic areas of France. The ideas and the actions that led to the mutual blood-letting of Catholics and Protestants (of all shades and types) are reminders to us that the greatest destruction comes from a deep conviction in ideals.
does that sound familiar?
November 28, 2017
One of the most significant changes ushered in by the Protestant Reformers was a transformation of worship. Carlos Eire compellingly chronicles this liturgical revolution, beginning with the Roman Catholic humanist Desiderius Erasmus and following the Reformed branch of Protestantism, most notably Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. Lutherans and Anglicans would not react as vindictively against images as their Reformed brethren.
Eire’s study effectively demonstrates how pervasive the cult of images was before the Reformation as well as the fissures that were being placed on the medieval church due to its expressions of piety. The laity often resented the subjection placed upon them by the medieval Church and even some of the Church’s most brilliant thinkers, such as Erasmus, criticized what they saw as distortions in devotion. Erasmus did not view medieval devotion as inherently wicked but he did think it was laced with superstition, too obsessed with the material rather than the interior life, and that the cult of the saints distracted people away from God. As we approach the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses, Eire’s book reminds us that the medieval Church would not be impervious to large-scale fractures forever.
Many people are unaware of how central the veneration of images was to medieval Christians. Eire helps readers enter into the medieval imagination. Religious pilgrimages fostered a burgeoning tourism and hospitality industry. The sale of relics became a booming business but many of the relics and holy objects proffered as authentic possessions of the saints and imbued with the sacred were fraudulent; Eire relates that pieces of the true cross “existed in almost every town and hamlet across…Europe,” not to mention other sham “items such as Mary’s milk” and “Christ’s foreskin.”
Images had helped mediate God to medieval Christians but Eire explicates that for Zwingli, Calvin and their followers “the Reformation decision consisted not so much in finding a just God, but rather in turning away from idolatry to the true God.” The Reformers, influenced by Plato, thought pure worship was spiritual and that Christians were led astray by venerating the physical; indeed, many of the Reformers saw the use of images as evidence of fallen humanity’s tendency to worship false gods and to stray from Scripture’s sure guidance regarding correct worship. The Reformers’ rejection of images was facilitated by their view of God as transcendent as opposed to immanent; Catholics believed the divine was present in the world through relics and that miracles still occurred but Calvin and many other Reformers insisted that miracles had ceased in the apostolic age. Many of Zwingli and Calvin’s spiritual descendants today are “cessationist” while Roman Catholics and many Protestants, particularly Pentecostals and charismatics, affirm God’s ongoing miraculous intervention in the world.
The second half of Eire’s book focuses primarily on Calvin and the connection between iconoclasm and authority. Many Protestants, such as Martin Luther, declared that people still had to be obedient to secular rulers and governments and decreed that Protestants could not illegally smash images; worship would be reformed and purified but this had to be accomplished first by purifying leaders’ hearts so that they would legislate changes that would remove the images.
Eire dedicates one chapter to Nicodemites in Reformation Europe. Nicodemites were privately Protestants who nonetheless still practiced Catholic piety, including reverencing images in public, particularly in countries such as France where Protestantism was much weaker than Catholicism. Calvin and other Reformers were critical of Nicodemites, instead looking favourably on King Josiah as an ideal ruler, one who aggressively tore down pagan altars and images (2 Kings 23). Given this biblical recollection, it would have been interesting if Eire had included the Reformers’ perspective on 2 Kings 5:18-19. Could the Nicodemites claimed to have been like Naaman, who sought and received pardon from God for when he would go with his master and assist him in worship, including bowing down “in the house of Rimmon?” The Nicodemites may have outwardly performed Catholic piety, but inwardly they were Protestant.
A common defence of images is that they served as a way for the illiterate to be instructed in the faith but Johan Huizinga points out that “An abundance of pictorial fancy…furnished the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture.” Roman Catholics often criticize the Reformation for introducing “pervasive interpretative pluralism” into western Christianity, but as Huizinga indicates, pervasive interpretative pluralism is not limited solely to one’s reading of the biblical text; images also require interpretation and not every medieval Catholic correctly understood the biblical scenes depicted by images. Though the Reformation did not immediately increase literacy rates, it did lead to a more educated laity as better-trained pastors taught the Bible to their congregations.
Many evangelicals in the twenty-first century persist in being suspicious of images and favour sparseness in worship. The verbal is still privileged over the pictorial as contemporary praise music (lyrics and music) and sermons are the primary avenues of worship. Until recently the C&MA church I attend would host an “arts worship Sunday” every month which provided a way for people to honour God through painting. However, these were often exercises in abstract art rather than clearly painted images of Jesus or the saints. During worship images of Vancouver streets and British Columbia’s mountains and forests are projected on the screens. This demonstrates the Protestant propensity to honour God through the “Book of Nature,” but these images themselves do not connect to Christianity in an obvious way the same way a Christ Pantocrator icon does unless the observer continually reminds themselves that the images of nature are the artistry of the Creator.
At the same time, many Protestants also celebrate the use of images. Defenders of images, including Luther, argued that God meets human beings on their level, including though images. I believe images can be properly used as long as they themselves do not become idols or objects of veneration. Though the Reformers rejected Catholic excesses such as Eucharistic adoration, they still affirmed the importance of baptism and communion, which require water, bread, and wine/grape juice which are tangible, physical substances. Many Protestants also practice embodied devotion such as the laying on of hands and anointing with oil.
Eire’s study effectively demonstrates how pervasive the cult of images was before the Reformation as well as the fissures that were being placed on the medieval church due to its expressions of piety. The laity often resented the subjection placed upon them by the medieval Church and even some of the Church’s most brilliant thinkers, such as Erasmus, criticized what they saw as distortions in devotion. Erasmus did not view medieval devotion as inherently wicked but he did think it was laced with superstition, too obsessed with the material rather than the interior life, and that the cult of the saints distracted people away from God. As we approach the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses, Eire’s book reminds us that the medieval Church would not be impervious to large-scale fractures forever.
Many people are unaware of how central the veneration of images was to medieval Christians. Eire helps readers enter into the medieval imagination. Religious pilgrimages fostered a burgeoning tourism and hospitality industry. The sale of relics became a booming business but many of the relics and holy objects proffered as authentic possessions of the saints and imbued with the sacred were fraudulent; Eire relates that pieces of the true cross “existed in almost every town and hamlet across…Europe,” not to mention other sham “items such as Mary’s milk” and “Christ’s foreskin.”
Images had helped mediate God to medieval Christians but Eire explicates that for Zwingli, Calvin and their followers “the Reformation decision consisted not so much in finding a just God, but rather in turning away from idolatry to the true God.” The Reformers, influenced by Plato, thought pure worship was spiritual and that Christians were led astray by venerating the physical; indeed, many of the Reformers saw the use of images as evidence of fallen humanity’s tendency to worship false gods and to stray from Scripture’s sure guidance regarding correct worship. The Reformers’ rejection of images was facilitated by their view of God as transcendent as opposed to immanent; Catholics believed the divine was present in the world through relics and that miracles still occurred but Calvin and many other Reformers insisted that miracles had ceased in the apostolic age. Many of Zwingli and Calvin’s spiritual descendants today are “cessationist” while Roman Catholics and many Protestants, particularly Pentecostals and charismatics, affirm God’s ongoing miraculous intervention in the world.
The second half of Eire’s book focuses primarily on Calvin and the connection between iconoclasm and authority. Many Protestants, such as Martin Luther, declared that people still had to be obedient to secular rulers and governments and decreed that Protestants could not illegally smash images; worship would be reformed and purified but this had to be accomplished first by purifying leaders’ hearts so that they would legislate changes that would remove the images.
Eire dedicates one chapter to Nicodemites in Reformation Europe. Nicodemites were privately Protestants who nonetheless still practiced Catholic piety, including reverencing images in public, particularly in countries such as France where Protestantism was much weaker than Catholicism. Calvin and other Reformers were critical of Nicodemites, instead looking favourably on King Josiah as an ideal ruler, one who aggressively tore down pagan altars and images (2 Kings 23). Given this biblical recollection, it would have been interesting if Eire had included the Reformers’ perspective on 2 Kings 5:18-19. Could the Nicodemites claimed to have been like Naaman, who sought and received pardon from God for when he would go with his master and assist him in worship, including bowing down “in the house of Rimmon?” The Nicodemites may have outwardly performed Catholic piety, but inwardly they were Protestant.
A common defence of images is that they served as a way for the illiterate to be instructed in the faith but Johan Huizinga points out that “An abundance of pictorial fancy…furnished the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture.” Roman Catholics often criticize the Reformation for introducing “pervasive interpretative pluralism” into western Christianity, but as Huizinga indicates, pervasive interpretative pluralism is not limited solely to one’s reading of the biblical text; images also require interpretation and not every medieval Catholic correctly understood the biblical scenes depicted by images. Though the Reformation did not immediately increase literacy rates, it did lead to a more educated laity as better-trained pastors taught the Bible to their congregations.
Many evangelicals in the twenty-first century persist in being suspicious of images and favour sparseness in worship. The verbal is still privileged over the pictorial as contemporary praise music (lyrics and music) and sermons are the primary avenues of worship. Until recently the C&MA church I attend would host an “arts worship Sunday” every month which provided a way for people to honour God through painting. However, these were often exercises in abstract art rather than clearly painted images of Jesus or the saints. During worship images of Vancouver streets and British Columbia’s mountains and forests are projected on the screens. This demonstrates the Protestant propensity to honour God through the “Book of Nature,” but these images themselves do not connect to Christianity in an obvious way the same way a Christ Pantocrator icon does unless the observer continually reminds themselves that the images of nature are the artistry of the Creator.
At the same time, many Protestants also celebrate the use of images. Defenders of images, including Luther, argued that God meets human beings on their level, including though images. I believe images can be properly used as long as they themselves do not become idols or objects of veneration. Though the Reformers rejected Catholic excesses such as Eucharistic adoration, they still affirmed the importance of baptism and communion, which require water, bread, and wine/grape juice which are tangible, physical substances. Many Protestants also practice embodied devotion such as the laying on of hands and anointing with oil.
June 24, 2021
Although titled "War Against the Idols", this book offers a one-sided, highly biased narrative of the conflict in question: we get to hear only one side of the belligerent parties. Eire provides a considerable amount of detail about the conceptions of several Protestant luminaries, but we are rarely given the chance to listen to the Catholic side of the ongoing debate; in many ways, it's like watching, say, a football game in which you can only see the movements of one of the teams. While this approach might be defensible, it reflects a deeply ingrained bias which the author hardly tries to conceal: throughout the book, Eire's language betrays the conviction that Catholic worship was/is indeed irrational, impure and less spiritual than Protestantism. It is no accident that Eire repeatedly calls Catholicism 'medieval piety', reflecting a theleogical view according to which Catholicism was fated to be overcome by Protestant practice and thought. As an atheist, I have no qualms with such attacks, but they often drag the book away from good scholarly practice and deep into preaching territory - especially if we are not presented with a single comment on the numerous irrationalities of Protestant belief. These limitations also prevent Eire from providing better informed anthropological readings of pilgrimage sites and icon worship: perpetuating a scriptural bias, the author is entrapped in Calvin's textual arguments and never raises his head to actually gaze at the world Protestant thinkers were trying to demolish. All in all, this is an interesting collection of materials framed by a rather unscholarly understanding of a crucial aspect of the narrative it is trying to build.
April 12, 2024
Convincingly shows that the Protestant Reformation's centeralized concern was the worship of God; a thesis that is mentioned little in broad evangelical calvanist circles and something that brings uncomfortable conversations in most P&R circles.
Anyway, lots of essential source material but little conclusion drawn. Ad fontes, yall.
Anyway, lots of essential source material but little conclusion drawn. Ad fontes, yall.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews