I have struggled with this, myself.

On the one hand, it's just a book, paper and ink, etc. But, on the other, it's God's conduit for communicating Himself to man. It's very difficult to dismiss that.

Should we? Should we simply say that any physical manifestation of God's activity on earth is merely a manifestation, to be dismissed and discarded and treated as nothing, and that any attachment thereto is idolatry?

Full disclosure: I don't worship the Bible; and, while I do know that God communicates with His people through it, I believe he communicates with His people other ways, as well. And I do not believe that what we see in the Bible and God's Truth are necessarily the same thing.

My opinion is this: man is a paradox, an inseparable admixture of spirit and flesh. When we try to separate them, we run into trouble. It is as much a mistake to show contempt for the flesh as it is to show contempt for the spirit. God created both; thus, both are inherently good, and are meant to work together. Docetism is as much error as is indulgence in carnality.

I heard an anecdote once, about a Catholic priest -- it must have been in the 18th century -- who tried to bring Christ to Amerinds. They tortured him, giving him a choice between being roasted alive and surrendering his Bible to be burned instead. He chose being roasted alive; and that convinced them that he had something real to convey to them.

Rationalism is a spiritual disease, and fundamentalism is rooted in it. When we honor symbols of God and His mercy and love toward us, it is not idolatry. Our experiences of God are not subject to deconstruction, any more than were Christ's crucifixion garments. They are of a piece. When a Catholic clings to a statue of the Blessed Virgin, he is not an idolator; he is expressing his love for the love he experiences through the symbol. Really, the charge of "idolator" is thrown around much too freely; I sometime wonder if Jesus, et al., meant something completely different from the traditional notion of what idolatry means.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Redeemer of mankind; but I don't subscribe to traditional Christian teachings. I say that to be honest about who I am; and those disposed to do so may thus dismiss me without a second thought, should they so choose. (Be careful.) My experiences in life lead me to think there is more to questions like this one than may meet the eye.

For myself, I cannot bring myself to throw away a Bible. I don't regard the Bible as the last word in my life; and I don't believe it to be inerrant, as that belief is held by evangelicals. But I nonetheless regard it as holy, because I know God does speak through it to those who will hear Him through it, and has done so for centuries; and I bow before great Christians of the past who have honored it as His word. So, I will not disrespect it. I will not treat it as mere paper and ink. I really think I would die for it, like that Catholic priest of old, though it does not mean to me what it clearly meant to him.

Does that seem ironic? I wonder if it is; I suspect not.