Iconoclasm – A Road to Modernization?

Abstract

My point of departure is a conflict over images in the churches in Bergen, Norway in the 1560s, around 30 years after the Reformation. This introduced a brief period of iconoclasm in Denmark–Norway, inspired by Reformed theology. Soon, however, mainstream Lutheranism took over and statues and pictures were reintroduced. The different views on images in the two Protestant confessions – Lutheranism and Calvinism – are, of course, well known, as are also the various theological arguments in the debate between them. More interesting is the practical question of how it was possible to manage without images when addressing a largely illiterate audience. Here, Lutherans seemed to have basically the same attitude as Catholics, although they differed in the exact way the images were used. Both were ‘mass religions’, aiming at including the whole population and using whatever means necessary for this purpose. By contrast, Calvinism was an intellectual and elite religion, creating tight communities of true believers in accordance with the belief in Predestination. It has therefore been regarded as an important factor in modernization theories, from Weber’s explanation of capitalism to later theories of the link between Reformed Protestantism and modern science. Although there is little to indicate that pictures are an obstacle to science, the intellectual and elitist character of Reformed Protestantism may have contributed to the scientific revolution in the early modern period. Generally, the history of iconoclasm illustrates the fact that images are a powerful medium, particularly when most people are illiterate, and that a religion that abstains from this medium is faced with the challenge of finding a replacement for it.