Religious images in Christian theology have a role within the liturgical and devotional life of adherents of certain Christian denominations. The use of religious images has often been a contentious issue in Christian history. Concern over idolatry is the driving force behind the various traditions of aniconism in Christianity.

In the early Church, Christians used the Ichthys (fish) symbol to identify Christian places of worship and Christian homes. The Synod of Elvira (306 AD - 312 AD) "prohibited the exhibition of images in churches". However, since the 3rd century AD, images have been used within Christian worship within parts of Christendom, although some ancient Churches, such as the Church of the East, have apparently long traditions of not using images. However there is also both literary and archaeological evidence for the early presence of images in the Church of the East tradition.

Certain periods of Christian history have seen supporters of aniconism in Christianity, first with the movement of Byzantine Iconoclasm, in which Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Emperors Michael II, as well as Theophilos, "banned veneration of icons and actively persecuted supporters of icons." Later, during the Iconoclastic Fury, Calvinists removed statues and sacred art from churches that adopted the Reformed faith.

The church father John of Damascus argued "that God's taking on human form sanctified the human image, noting that the humanity of Christ formed an image of God; therefore, artists could use human images to depict the incarnate Word as well as human saints." As such, religious imagery today, in the form of statues, is most identified with the Roman Catholic and Lutheran traditions. Icons are used extensively, and are most often associated with parts of Eastern Christianity, although they are also used by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and, increasingly, Anglicans. Since the 1800s, devotional art has become very common in Christian homes, both Protestant and Catholic, often including wall crosses, embroidered verses from the Christian Bible, as well as imagery of Jesus. In Western Christianity, it is common for believers to have a home altar, while dwelling places belonging to communicants of the Eastern Christian Churches often have an icon corner.

A cult image is a human-made object that is venerated or worshipped for the deity, person or spirit that it embodies or represents. It is also controversially and pejoratively used by some Protestants, particularly certain Anabaptist and Reformed Christians, to describe the Eastern Orthodox (and, to a lesser extent, Catholic) practice of worshipping the Christian God through the use of icons, a charge which these Christians reject. In a similarly controversial sense, it is also used by these Protestants to pejoratively describe various Catholic devotional practices such as scapulars and the veneration of statues and flat images of the Virgin Mary and other saints, which Catholics do not consider idolatry.