It is well known that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses protesting the sale of indulgences and other scandalous habits. Less known is the connection of indulgences to relics (which continue to be venerated to this day).

For no theological reason but in the interest of advertising, the Church associated the dispensing of the merits of the saints with visitation upon the relics of the saints. Popes frequently specified precisely how much benefit could be derived from viewing each holy bone. Every relic of the saints in Halle, for example, was endowed by Pope Leo X with an indulgence for the reduction of purgatory by four thousand years. The greatest storehouse for such treasures was Rome. Here in the crypt of St. Callistus forty popes were buried and 76,000 martyrs. Rome had a piece of Moses’ burning bush and three hundred particles of the Holy Innocents. Rome had the portrait of Christ in the napkin of St. Veronica. Rome had the chains of St. Paul and the scissors with which Emperor Domitian clipped the hair of St. John.  —Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther

Rome has repented of selling indulgences, but do the relics play any role in the attraction to Roman churches? Judging by the chains, glass, presentation, security and promotion of them, of course. Catholics still shell out in donation because of these and the superstitious reverence given them.

The Reformation was a great recovery of the second commandment which forbids worship of anything physical on the earth. In case we weren’t sure, Moses sinks this one deep: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Ex. 20:4-5). Just in case some religious shaman might find an acceptable artifact to worship, he uses the all inclusive “in heaven, the earth beneath, or water under the earth.” Anything. And if we wonder what worship is, he forbids the most common way: “You shall not bow down.” So the issue isn’t only what is going on in your heart; bodies matter, and bowing down in a setting of worship is worship, idolatrous explanations aside.

Indulgences are an embarrassment to Rome and they should be. But what is just as important and generationally significant is the institutional commitment of both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy to image veneration. The second commandment is crystal clear and the consequences are severe.

Evangelicals are far from setting up icons, and yet the need to recover the centrality of Word as the magisterial reformers began to do is dire. Take the content of so much modern praise music, for example, and see how it measures up to any Psalm or other song written in the Bible. Worship consisting of words isn’t the goal, but rather worship of the Word with words that accurately describe him. Only biblical literacy and Christ-centered worship can fuel the next reformation.