Idols Old & New
S. M. Hutchens on the Second Commandment
When our Lord took Peter, James, and John, to a high mountain, there to be transfigured before them, appearing with Moses and Elijah in the shining garments of heaven, Peter, ever the impulsive disciple, suggested that three shelters be built in their honor. And so Peter, who appears so often in the Gospels as a kind of generic man who doesn’t understand the things of God, demonstrates in his action a fundamental and natural human trait: the desire to house the divine, to hold and domesticate, as it were, his god by at once honoring him and establishing him within something of his own making.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on the ten commandments from the online archives
31.5—September/October 2018
The Secular State Without the Decalogue by James M. Kushiner
more from the online archives
23.1—January/February 2010
It’s Bent on Bringing Down the House on the Family & the Church by Douglas Farrow
30.2—March/April 2017
on Reading Don Quixote in Its Original Christian Context by Luis Cortest
18.8—October 2005
European Islam & the Doubtful Future of Christian Europe by William Murchison
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
