Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them …

I have often wondered why, if God made the heavens and all of life, why then we worship their creator, yet with man made things, we forgo their creators and worship the thing instead. Why do we switch to the created instead of its maker, contrary to God’s creations? Why the difference?

It seems the answer lies in the dictum that to see a media’s impact, you need look at how it is used.

With God and divinity, even though all ‘his’ creations are part of our daily lives, they surround us all, the same cannot be said of God directly. Nature does surround us, God though encompasses nature and us. The divine realm is beyond, something we strive to reach and understand. For regardless of our offerings, sacrifices and prayers, we cannot show a cause- effect relationship with our incantations and hopes. Not that miracles don’t exist, but that simply we can’t prove that we have had a hand in calling for their occurrence. The divine remains beyond us. Out of reach.

With our man-made created objects. We might esteem, admire and praise them, but they remain part of our daily lives. They have utility, we can do this or that with them as we please.  Hence they are not outside of our reach or realm. We don’t often worship them.

Art objects however have been stripped of this utility. Placing them on pedestals, white walls, behind glass, and such, literally and metaphorically ‘elevates’ them. They no longer are perceived as part of our daily lives, but as separate from it. We can’t influence them as an object of utility. They are beyond us and our ‘reach”. They have been transformed as enigma's and seem thus having potential to become a nexus of awe and worship.

We see this ‘separation’ in our relationships to celebrities and sports heroes. Although we encounter them throughout our daily lives via media, they remain separate from us, living in another realm we cannot reasonably expect to reach. Regardless of our puppy dog dreams, hopes or rabid fandom, we can’t influence their regard of and interaction with us. They remain forever aloof from our common lives and hence may become idols.

Our graven images can fall into one of two camps, either utility or artistic. How we interact with the image/object determines which camp it is in. We either make use of its functionality (utility), or place it out of our reach and hence separate it from our daily lives in the sense of not being able to interact directly with it (artistic). This seems key to shifting whether we potentially worship anyone or thing, and why the graven image may be idolized rather then its maker. The art image is part of our daily lives yet separate, the creator is simply separate.

These three states of interaction: separate, part of our daily lives, or part of our daily lives yet separate, that seem to be the precursor to if we can idolize anything. So it isn’t so much the image that is dangerous per se, but how we interact/view it… Is it always present but out of reach?   Then take heed.