word and image pt (i)

Part 1 of 2.  Taught by Ann Brown, at UCCF South Team Days March 09.

We are people of the Word, saved by an historical Saviour and called to verbally communicate the gospel; yet we live in an image-driven culture.  And there is a long-standing suspicion of the image in our protestant church.  What are the roots of this nervousness?  How should we engage ourselves with this culture?

1. What are the roots of this nervousness?

Post-Reformation, many churches were stripped bare of any imagery, and made completely bare.  As Protestants, we are heirs to this tradition, so we do well to examine it.  During the Reformation, waves of iconoclasm (burning of images) swept across Europe.  One of the first outbreaks was in Wittenberg, shortly after Luther nailed his theses to the door in 1517.  He, however, didn’t incite the violence; in fact, he tried to stop it.  But many people emptied the churches of the visuals of the old order, perceived as the idolatry of Roman Catholicism.

Images weren’t always despised in Christendom.  Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory in the 7th Century gave a role to images.

Images are useful for “the illiterate, who read in them what they cannot read in books”

- Gregory 600AD.

Compare this with our culture – people can read, but don’t like it!  They prefer the visual.

Images continue to cause enormous debate in Roman Catholicism.  In 790-792 AD The Caroline Books were introduced (referred to by Calvin and the Reformers).  They argued that images should be used, but only in very definite ways; for purpose of instruction, to promote piety, in memory of past events; but wrong to burn incence or lights before them in worship or adoration.

Martin Luther in 1522 argued that iconoclasm was wrong, referring to Exodus 20:4-5 and Leviticus 26:1:

“We are free to have them or not; If only the heart does not cleave to them, or put its trust in them.”

Religious art flourished in Luther’s Germany, especially woodcuts; during the Reformation, images changed and were reformed.  An example is Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Wittenberg Altarpiece:

This has ordinary people in it.  It includes Luther!  Instead of the iconography of the medieval altarpiece, these were contemporaries that could be recognised.
This is an example of a new type of religious art surfacing around this time – very radical and contemporary.

Zwingly disagreed with Luther.  He thought they were a distraction; the emphasis should be on the word invisible and heard, over the image visible and seen.  Calvin agreed:

“All who seek visible forms of God depart from him…”

In faithful preaching of the Word of God “Christ is depicted before our eyes as crucified.  From this one fact they could have learned more than from a thousand crosses of wood and stone”

However, none of the Reformers were opposed to The Arts in general:

“the invention of the arts is a gift of God, by no means to be despised.”

- Calvin

Outside the church, the Reformation helped form a remarkable and distinctive visual culture – for example, it was a key age of Dutch painting.

Rembrandt, The Mennonite Minister Cornelis Claesz.  Anslo in Conversation with his Wife, Aaltje 1641.

This painting highlights the pre-eminence of the Word over the image:

“The pages stir, rise, flutter with light and life.”

- Simon Scharne (BBC)

Rembrandt always gets at the psychological depth of the person.  See the wife – in a moment of suspence, caught between hope, apprehension, understanding.  A feminist reading argues: left to right shows supremacy of husband over wife, and word over husband; husband is bullying wife.   Ann Brown suggests in contrast to consider the candle snuffed out (usually symbol of someone died), the wife clutching handkerchief, the husband opening up Word of God and comforting her.

Jacob van Ruisdael, Windmill at Wijk dij Duurstede 1670.

The picture is aesthetically pleasing to us; but the 17th Century person, versed in the bible and in emblem books (which contained thoughts, bible verses, images), would recognise that as the wind makes the windmill move, in the same way the Spirit gives life.  So here, there is no wind, the women may not be able to grind their corn; but there is light shining through and thus hope.  So learning to read Dutch painting reveals a subtext; they invite us to move beyond just looking at a painting of the natural world to a reflection on deeper values.

Britt Wikstrom, Cathedral of Suffering, 1994.

Based on Amnesty International’s Declaration of Human Rights; an indictment of suffering.  The layout immediately reminds us of Calvary.  Man in middle, a woman mourning, a child crouching protecting his head; yet God has broken into this world of suffering – an immediate opportunity to explain the gospel.

“Paintings are philosophy on canvas”

- Ann Brown

2. How should we engage ourselves with this culture?

(i) Recognise the shift

There is a danger that as people of the Word we are separated – by an enormous gulf – from a culture dominated by the visual.  There has arguably been a real shift to the visual in our culture in the last 50 years, accelerated in the last 10-20.  The average age of a radio discussion programme is now 55-60.  Note also the change in newspapers today compared to 50 years ago – there’s been a huge shift in layout, and dependance on images rather than words.
Two questions for you: what’s your favourite book, and what’s your favourite television programme?  Instinctively we find it much easier to answer the latter.  That’s a crude test, but perhaps suggests we are more visually wired.

Jacques Ellul in ‘The Humiliation of the Word’ pushes this further:

In an image-saturated culture, “the word is humiliated by the image.  It is devalued and treated with contempt.”

“Since our culture traffics in images, should all our communication and ministry be shaped according to its dictates and preferences?”

Handout & Discussion: Review by Groothius on Arthur Hunt.  A decrying of a move away from the Scriptures towards a more visual culture (in church).

(ii) Recognise our reaction

Attitudes to the surrounding culture: which one are we?
- Suspicious Separation
- Assimilation and over identification
- Engagement/cultural apologetic/cultural transformation