Sola Scriptura?

Acrylic and collage on canvas, 18" x 24"

2025. This piece engages the turbulence of the Reformation—specifically the Bildersturm ("image storm") of 1522, when reformers stripped churches of their art, fearing idolatry. Martin Luther, fresh from Wartburg Castle, returned to Wittenberg to preach his Invocavit sermons, urging restraint: “We don’t pray to images—but neither are they our enemy.”

At the center, a cropped Last Supper is scratched and scraped; disciples’ faces are erased with a Dremel tool, while Jesus remains—his gesture seen through a fragment of stained glass shaped by the Golden Mean. Collaged woodcuts of iconoclasm are labeled “Bildersturm – Wittenberg 1522.” Satirical signage reads: “No Unauthorized Art” and “Bulletins ONLY – We need room for the copier.” Across the bottom, fluorescent orange shouts “SOLA SCRIPTURA!” ("word alone") as if graffitied by overzealous reformers. In the corner, Luther turns mid-thesis to interject: “Hey—I never said to trash the art.” But the relationship had already been made awkward.

This is a lament—and a call to reimagine the church as a place where artists belong. Protestant spaces often echo with the silence of stripped walls. Can the table be truly full if beauty is exiled?