Baptists and many other Protestant groups often “recoil” from sacred art and iconography, because they fear its idolatrous potential and because they tend to focus pragmatically on function over form, says John D. Laing, a chaplain with the U.S. Army’s 72nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, currently stationed in Iraq, and assistant professor of systematic theology and philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Houston campus.
“Many Protestants from the conservative, fundamentalist and evangelical traditions have historically had a robust skepticism regarding the use of art in worship, because they see it as facilitating sacramental theology and tending towards idolatry,” says Laing, who is author of the recent book In Jesus’ Name: Evangelicals and Military Chaplaincy.
