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Passage: The commodification of religious art in the modern era presents a unique challenge to the concept of the sacred. When an icon intended for prayer is hung in a secular museum, its 'aura'—to use Walter Benjamin’s term—is inevitably transformed. Stripped of its ritual context, the object is no longer a window to the divine but a specimen of historical technique. Critics argue that this process devalues the religious significance of the work, reducing it to a mere commodity for aesthetic consumption. However, others suggest that the museum provides a new kind of sanctity, one based on the universal value of human creativity. In this view, the museum is the cathedral of a secular age, where art objects are preserved and contemplated with a reverence that mirrors the devotion of the past, even if the theological content has been emptied. The passage suggests that placing religious art in a museum:

1. Ensures that the object will be viewed primarily as a specimen of prayer.
2. Destroys any sense of reverence formerly associated with the object.
3. Alters the nature of the object's sanctity without necessarily eliminating it.
4. Preserves its original theological purpose for a wider audience.

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