From Sampler to Sower

It was early Sunday morning, March 13, 2011, the Sunday that churches in the Orthodox tradition would be celebrating the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the Seventh Ecumenical Council that formally addressed the iconoclast controversy in the Church and officially affirmed the use of icons in worship.  (For more about the history and theology involved in Triumph of Orthodoxy, see my post from yesterday.)

Of course, in our Nazarene congregation (Protestant, Wesleyan, Holiness) I may have been the only one who noticed. In many ways it was stretching our liturgical muscles just to recognize it as the first Sunday of Lent. It wasn’t the first time our congregation had observed the Lenten season, but for many of our people Lent is something relatively new rather than an old and welcome friend.  (Imagine that, Lent is new!)

I was in our video booth, working on preparing the visuals for use in our worship that morning. I’ve been re-reading Leonid Ouspensky’s Theology of the Icon and I found myself thinking through our use of imagery in worship. I was struck by how far from our Protestant iconoclastic roots many of our churches have come.  There was a day when using pictures along with our worship would have scandalized our theological forebears.  Now I rarely visit a church that doesn’t have some way of projecting words, pictures and videos onto a wall or screen for congregants to see.

Somehow I doubt St John of Damascus had any idea how thoroughly Orthodoxy would one day triumph.

Or has it?

The Revival of Iconoclasm

There is little doubt much of modern Protestantism has adopted the use of imagery in worship.  In fact, we’ve made something of an industry of it. Marketing firms sell flyers, mailers and banners to get your message across to your people.  Printing companies sell pre-printed bulletin covers with full color artwork. Whole companies are devoted to providing churches all the technology and software they need to project images onto mammoth screens.  And there are websites that will sell you the pictures and videos to project.  Some megachurches even hire their own in-house graphic designers to develop and customize the imagery.

However, even with all the emphasis on visual media, we frequently operate without a Theology of the Image to guide our actions.  We rarely take the time to really think about what we’re going to project, let alone to think through why.  All we know is that the place looks pretty sparse without any pictures.

And that has me wondering, are we really living in the age of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, or the Revival of Iconoclasm?

Listen to Ouspensky’s description of churches during the period of eighth and ninth century iconoclasm:

It is important to note that iconoclasm did not renounce art as such. Iconoclasts were not enemies of art.  On the contrary they promoted it.  They persecuted only the representations of Christ, of the Virgin and of the saints.  Thus the iconoclasm of the eighth and ninth centuries can be likened to Western Protestantism, with the difference that the iconoclasts did not leave the walls of the churches bare.  On the contrary they took great pleasure in decorating them with secular subjects, landscapes, representations of animals, etc. Purely decorative shapes also played a large role…. When sacred images were removed everywhere they were replaced with animals and birds.  Constantine Copronymus had earlier served as a remarkable example: In the church of Blachernae, for example, he destroyed a series of biblical images and replaced them with “flowers, different birds and other animals, surrounded by plants, among which cranes, crows and peacocks stirred.”  The emperor was reproached for having transformed the church with such images, into “an orchard and an aviary.” (Ouspensky cites Diehl’s Manuel d’Art byzantin, vol 1, pp 365-366 for these two quotes) He also replaced a fresco representing the Sixth Ecumenical Council with a portrait of his favorite coachman (Theology of the Icon vol 1, p 116).

Landscapes. Plants. Flowers. Animals. Birds. Decorative shapes.

Sound like the Sunday morning PowerPoint at any church you know?

It certainly sounds like a catalog of the categories of default backgrounds that came pre-packaged with our copy of EasyWorship (the presentation software we use).  “Western Protestantism” is looking more and more like Eastern Iconoclasm every year.

So Many Images, So Few Icons

Tragically, though surrounded by visual decorations, our worship is still impoverished by the lack of icons. There is a depth of meaning, a connection to our history and a vital testimony to God’s sanctifying grace present in icons and absent in our imagery.  Lacking a Theology of the Image, we often make decisions about the images used in worship on purely aesthetic grounds, seeking to look good when we could be seeking so much more.

What is the difference then between art and icon?  Obviously, icons are images of holy people, whereas in other aspects of art you have other types of images such as landscapes and still lifes.  Even when the icon is depicting an event such as the harrowing of hell or the triumph of orthodoxy, the focus of the icon is on the people, not the inanimate aspects of the scene.

But not every portrait is an icon.  Especially in Western art there are large schools of portraiture that differ profoundly from iconography.  Even when the portrait or painting is of a religious subject, the manner of painting in these other schools strays from the pattern of iconography.  Artists in these schools use human models and artisitic techniques intended to increase the realism of the image, but that realism only captures the physical realm and fails to point to the deeper realities that icons seek to communicate.  As Ouspensky writes, a portrait “represents an ordinary human being, the [icon] a man united to God…. The icon indicates holiness in such a way that it need not be inferred by our thought but is visible to our physical eyes (vol 1, p 162).”

Icons have an entire visual language designed to communicate deep spiritual truths, truths other art forms may suggest or infer, but rarely truly describe.  The goal of the icon always is to show the subject in communion with God, made holy by God’s grace and transfigured by God’s holiness. And as we pray in the presence of icons, we are invited to participate in that communion and be transformed by God’s grace as well.

That’s not to suggest that we should never use other art forms in worship (though I’m sure there are some iconographers who would certainly suggest just that).  Rather that the imagery we use excludes the use of icons, our artistic vocabulary is limited and incapable of expressing some of the most important truths.

Developing an Iconographic Literacy

While there is a wealth of spiritual truth communicated by icons, much of that is illegible to those who have not yet learned to read what iconographer writes. Like theology, iconography has it’s own precise language for communicating spiritual truth.  And like theology, often that language is so specialized that it is incomprehensible to the average layman, especially Protestant laymen.

Of course, we emphasize the importance of developing a theological literacy in our congregations through careful preaching.  For the most part we don’t avoid theological language.  Rather when we use it, we are careful to explain it. A conscientious preacher is careful not to use theological language without taking the time to explain it in such a way that it can be understood even by the first time visitor sitting in the pews. And a faithful pastor understands that part of his role is the spiritual and theological education of the congregants entrusted to his care.

Isn’t it time that we conscientious preachers and faithful pastors begin developing not only theological, but also iconographic literacy among our people?  If we would take the time to first learn and then to teach how to read what is written in the icons, we would open up an additional and effective avenue for communicating spiritual truth to our people.

Careful Words, Careless Images

On a more general level, the Triumph of Orthodoxy challenges the way we incorporate visuals into our worship.  The kontakion on the Triumph of Orthodoxy I quoted yesterday says:

No one could describe the Word of the Father;
But when He took flesh from you, O Theotokos,
He consented to be described,
And restored the fallen image to its former state by uniting it to divine beauty.
We confess and proclaim our salvation in word and images.

It is the last line of that hymn that has been haunting my thoughts for the last week: We confess and proclaim our salvation in word and images.

As a pastor I am a careful wordsmith. Hours of study and preparation go into planning the words I speak on a weekly basis to my students.  I give careful consideration to the things that I say so that I need not be ashamed of how I handle the Word of truth, because words matter.  Words communicate.  I regularly confess and proclaim our salvation in words.

I’m sorry to say that frequently I do not give equally careful consideration to the images that are used in worship.  There was a time I did much better at this, when I had more time to give to the preparation of the visuals for our worship.  But often the images are chosen based on some superficial questions:

1. What is in the background database
2. What has the aesthetic “look” or “feel” I’m going for?
3. What didn’t we use last week so we don’t get into a visual rut?

As a result, a lot of our imagery is plants, flowers, landscapes and decorative shapes — visual junk food, fast and convenient.

I confess and proclaim our salvation in word, and use images so hopefully the words won’t look so boring.

See the problem?

In many ways our Protestant ethos of sola scriptura lends itself to such visual carelessness.  After all, it’s Scripture alone that counts, right?  What we fail to remember is that the truth of Scripture has long been written not only with words on pages but also in images and icons that are faithful to carefully communicate biblical truth.

What would happen if we gave the same careful consideration to the images and icons we display that we give to the words we say?

What would happen if the visuals we use were chosen, not for their aesthetic appeal, but for the truth they communicate?

What would happen if we began to recognize that for centuries imagery has been as essential to Christian kerygma (proclamation) as the spoken word?

How much more effectively could we preach the truth if we did so not only in word, but also images?