Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: cms@dragon Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Shroud of Turin Message-ID: Date: 23 Apr 91 06:59:00 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 104 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) writes: > Back many years ago I discussed icons/statues etc. with a Roman Catholic > friend. He suggested that I view them as "visual aids" to help > worshipers visualize and focus on that which could not be seen. I can > accept that. Icons and the like still are not right for me, but if > contemplating a statue helps you to come into union with God I won't > take your statue away. Thank you! I have a little statue of Mary sitting in my room, which helps me to focus my attention on the Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception, and the meaning of her Immaculate Conception which is the whole life, death, and resurrection of her Son. What Chuck said about "eye and ear" is essentially correct; the Bible helps us to touch the Word of God, statues and pictures help us to visualize the Word of God. To take away icons and statues would be akin to taking away the Bible. Indeed, I've been in few Protestant churches or Protestant homes without _some_ visual images. For example, I've seen few Protestant churches without a cross on top of the church or on a door. The cross is a visual image; are there any Protestant churches that deny even a cross? The only difference, as I see it, is that Catholic images are much more elaborate, and Protestant images more sparse or abstract. A Church, whether elaborately ornate, or bare, is still a physical building wherein one goes to worship God. I would submit that the church itself is a visible image that most people, Protestant or Catholic, would be hardpressed to give up. I took a course in Humanities through the Arts in which one of my topics of study was church architecture. You should notice the similarities and differences between Protestant and Catholic architecture (inside and out). It's fascinating. The point is that Protestants need visual images to connect to God, too; they're images are more subtle -- you must look for them harder. > Similarly, I suspect this is why we have paintings on the walls of the > Sunday School. Children need something to grab hold of and build > concepts around. Waving your hands and saying God is everywhere is > confusing for most adults, let alone your typical 5 year old. > Unfortunately, this leaves a lot of people with a distinct feeling that > God is an old man with flowing white hair, and a stern expression > sitting on a cloud. ;-) ....keeping a tally book of all the pluses and minuses that go on in this world such that everything works out to some arbitrary point of zero that we call "fair." :-) > It's been my experience that as the grades progress, the number of > "visual aids" on the walls decreases. Is your experience similar? As a Catholic, I would say that our images grew more sophisticated. I also took a course at my Episcopal Church called the Bethel Bible Study Series in which visual images played a primary role in memorizing many, many concepts (abstract as well as concrete). For this reason, I would say that Catholics maintain a stronger oral tradition than Protestants (no play on words intended). The Catholics have always maintained a strong oral tradition primarily because so many Christians were illiterate. The Protestant Revolution occurred at just the right time -- literacy was on the move. At any rate, visual images help an illiterate culture memorize many key concepts of the Christian faith. When literacy rose, and Protestants stressed internal literacy for the purpose of Scripture reading, it seemed logical that Protestants would feel less need for visually-oriented memorization. I didn't read this anywhere, this is my guess. It went hand-in-hand with the theology of certain reformers. It wouldn't have succeeded without the increase in the literacy rate. At the same time, however, I would say that the increase in the literacy rate increased the complexity of certain devotions; many devotions began using Scriptural readings in conjunction with the devotion, for example, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, etc., along with the images. Reading Scripture in conjunction with an image, as my Bethel course taught me, causes one to call to mind the picture when hearing the Scripture, as well as as calling to mind the Scripture upon seeing the picture. For example, whenever I read the resurrection passages in the NT, certain favorite pictures always pop into my mind; similarly, whenever I see a certain picture, I can often quote the Scripture passage it represents. > My pastor this last Sunday brought one of her favorite paintings for use > in the sermon. It shows Jesus walking on the road to Emmaus with two > disciples. As she pointed out, the painting isn't historically > accurate, it shows Jesus and the disciples walking down a shady lane in > a forest of maple trees. The key, is that the painting communicates to > an audiance who can identify with a shady forest lane. It communicates > the peace and calm the disciples may have felt walking with Jesus. I have this painting hanging in my living room. I like it because it appears to be a man and a woman walking next to Jesus carefully listening to his teachings. If we're talking about the same painting. If it's Emaus, I could be wrong about one of them being a woman. However, I put it on my wall precisely because the picture contained a woman as well as a man listening carefully to Christ; I had in mind Mary who "took the better portion." Sincerely, Cindy Smith emory!dragon!cms "A picture is worth a thousand words." [Certainly the Reformation occured around the time when printing became widespread, and reading the Bible was important. But the Reformers tended to stress the Word as preached. The pulpit was used critically as a tool for both education and propagandizing. I agree that Protestants have tended to stress the Word, and Catholics visual images, but I think the Word as used by Protestants should be thought of as heard at least as much as read. --clh