A "purification of memory" in an excerpt from a Christianity Today editorial entitled "Cartoon Chaos":

Let us also remember an earlier time when Denmark and Europe were ablaze with riots over religious imagery. In the mid-1500s, Protestants were so enraged by "graven images" and the veneration of saints' relics that they destroyed churches and ran through the streets looking for priests to assault.

Centuries earlier, Byzantine Christian battles over the depiction of prophets and saints had become so violent—with thousands exiled, tortured, or killed—that the period between 762 and 775 became known as the "decade of blood."

How far we have come. Now some Protestants are among the loudest voices calling for the publication of graven images ...

Read the full editorial.