Although both «lungs» of the Church of the Christ have experienced the tuberculosis of
iconoclasm (indeed, the very term «
iconoclasm» comes from the struggle of the Greek Church
against the attempts of a Greek emperor to ban icons), the Greek version of
iconoclasm was much influenced not only by imperial fiat but also by the surrounding sea of Muslim culture, whereas the
iconoclasm of Western Puritanism was born out of Calvin's reliance on Old Testament Law.
Eire first made his mark as a historian in 1989 with The War
Against the Idols, a study of Reformation
iconoclasm and the theology that underlay it.