For any of you lurkers out there who read Steven and wonder what he’s talking about, this is an excellent, basic-level understanding of what the Orthodox church is, how it came about, and what the ikon controversy boils down to.

Also, again, your objection to icons seems very thin–and your argument seems to make nonsense of semiotics of any sort. In general, we rever a symbol and thereby rever the thing symbolized. No one would say “stop saluting the American flag. That’s treasonous.” No earthly king would say “stop saluting an image of me. That’s treason.” And everyone knows that flag burning is an attack on the US. Everyone knows that if you put an image of someone on your toilet paper you are insulting that person. In every other area honor given the sign is given to the signified, and dishonor given the sign is given the signified. For your argument to have any merit, it must take this fact into account. “We should give honor to the thing signified.” Is not an argument against giving honor to the sign.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-10-012-v

What do you think?

see also James Jordan:

http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/open-book/no-28-concerning-halloween/

Also: unless you think the state should force people to participate in the sacraments/worship, there would by necessity be a church court to deal with dereliction in those things.

And, even though we may not want to make one form of government a mark of the church, I think it would be hard to argue that government of some form is not necessary for a church to be a church. Jesus commanded communal self-discipline (Matt 18:15ff) just as much as he commanded baptism and the Lord’s supper… not sure by what logic we could conclude that the first is not essential while the later two are.

So perhaps it would be permissible, in the event that the state becomes Christian, for the state to do some of the things the church might have done in a minority position (punish theft, for example), but I don’t think that would imply that a church could be not “en-polis-ed” (that is, having some sort of corporate self-discipline) and still be a church.

Grist for the mill.

But again, none of this contradicts your point.

Not that this changes the basic point that the church is not a polis in the full sense until the eschaton. Leithart’s point would seem to be consistent with Hebrews, too, which talks about us “coming to Zion” in worship, implying we’re not always Zion in our day to day lives (or at least not in the same sense, etc.).

Good post!