Edmund C. makes a practical observation about the usefulness of holy images in combatting certain sins and the onslaught of modern culture. He’s absolutely on target, and I’ve had a couple of recent encounters as well on the subject.
I find iconoclasm especially disturbing. My father and I had a short discussion about it the other day, though I felt it necessary to drop the subject before it got heated in front of the children. He has a hobby of metal-detecting, and gave me a find for Christmas, a risen (or ascending?) corpus. He respects my decisions of faith, but does not share them. He’s become embittered by the results of his own sin (which he can’t even recognize as sin, really), and is almost walking down the road of universalism. Almost. Anyhow, I quickly identified the image as a risen Corpus, and he replied, “Oh, is that what that is!” I replied that Catholics proclaim the risen body, as well as the crucified. And he proceeded to try to instruct me on why other Christians disavow imagery. I, of course, replied that it was illogical, especially when such churches usually at least acknowledge an empty cross, and will pull out the nativity at Christmas. He declared that that’s why he’s become so much more tolerant to different expressions, because religion isn’t logical. DOH! Like I said, I dropped the subject.
It must also be added that we have had a 10 year span of separation, in which I’ve done a huge amount of maturing, which my father has yet to recognize. It can be a bit disheartening at times to still be addressed as my old adolescent self. But, recognizing it, I tiptoe very carefully about what to “get into” and what to avoid. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’ve retained the characteristics of certainty in truth, and ability to articulate and debate points I believe in. But I’ve matured enough to know when to let a point slide. It is no longer my choice to win every battle. I’d rather win the war. And people do not take being battered with the truth very well.
Days later, a friend and I were discussing recent “news” in each other’s life. She mentioned that a church I’d attended when we’d first moved here, and to which she currently belongs, had finally built their own building. To date, they’d been meeting at a local business from which they rented space on Sundays. In inquiring about the new building, she explained with seeming regret that it was a modern building with little resemblance to a church. We both acknowledged the utilitarian nature of the decision to build such a space, she with the lower costs of such a structure, and I with the greater ability for resale.
The utilitarian phenomena is hardly isolated to protestant buildings, though. Even Catholic structures are being infected with the starkness. It’s sad that in an era in which we are assaulted at every turn with seductive imagery, that we are given little for our souls to feast upon.
Likewise, I just commented to Owen that some of us express ourselves through words, and others through images. We need to spread the gospel to all people, and we shouldn’t force some to stretch to understand against their natural expression. We should be telling the Good News through every avenue available, not labeling one preferable, and one sinful.
