The early Reformed suspicion of “image making,” says William Dyrness, was motivated by its reaction to the “externalization of piety” in late medieval practice. Calvin’s “war against the idols” attacked a hollow and perfunctory reverence for external things like relics and pilgrimages. The Reformed tradition, in contrast, actively encouraged a meditation on imagery drawn from Scripture and creation, viewing such images as important aids to the internalization of faith. This validation of an imagination focused on the increase of spiritual desire served, as a result, to legitimate the natural
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