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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Tearing down walls > Ethical Absolutes in the Context of Image and Word | Forum Quick Jump
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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 8/22/2002 7:14 AM (GMT -6) |   | Just to add a couple of things in response to D.O.L. from the "Theological Q&A Street Preaching" thread.
Just on reading and society? Non-literate peoples tend to exist in static unchanging societies, whereas literate societies tend toward rapid change and technological growth. That is, technological, economic and social progress become possible. Go figure eh? According to one scholar, reading has shaped our civilization like no other factor and a major impetus for this has been the Bible. That is, that may very well have to do with the effects of the Reformation on our society.
Having said that, some worry that "graven images" may still possibly tempt God's people to abandon God and his Word. In our case, the graven images are electrons on cathode ray tubes. In other words, the warning (command?) is the same, but the situation is different. Hey Greg, Modes, Electra, Semeia, Icon, and others...to paraphrase Jesus' words, "He who has ears to hear?"..."Hear me now and listen to me lataaar!" 
Sidebar:Could it be that Christianity is also a very important reason, if not the only reason preceding the decline of a civilization?End of sidebar 
Here is another question(s). Can educational and intellectual progress continue if visual imagery supplants reading, or will the new information technologies, ironically, subvert the scientific thinking that created them, resulting in anti-intellectualism and mass ignorance? Can Biblical faith flourish in a society that no longer values reading or will these new images lead to manifestations of the most primitive paganism?
OK. One more question. Why would God instruct his people back in the Old Testament (can this injunction carry over into the new, a continuity?)on how they were to symbolize or not symbolize their faith/experience? It may be that this injunction, strange as it is, to place it in as a part of an ethical system, assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of culture.
Here were a people being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity, but could very well be unfit to do so by drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in concrete, iconographic forms. But the biblical God was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter into a culture. Remember, this does not mean that all visuals are equivalent. I am not against icons or visuals per se.
But it would seem that "word centered" people think in a completely different mode from "image centered" people. Here are some differences between word and image in the context of television:
1. Reading demands sustained concentration.
2. Reading involves (and teaches) logical reasoning.
3. Reading promotes continuity, the gradual accumulation of knowledge and sustained exploration of ideas.
Whereas television, on the other hand:
1. Promotes a very short attention span.
2. Involves (and teaches) purely emotional responses.
3. Fosters fragmentation, anti-intellectualism and immediate gratification.
It may not be, as some worry, that we need "quality programming" (although, this is a question in itself, I still maintain that we do) but that the real problem is in the properties of the form itself! Language is cognitive, appealing to the mind. Images are affective appealing to the emotions.
With television, one can dislike what they see, but they cannot disagree with it. For i.e. there are no ways to show that the feelings evoked by the imagery of a McDonald's commerical are false, or are even true. Such words as true and false come out of a different universe of symbolism altogether. Propositions are true or false. Pictures are not.
This should speak to Christians as to the responsible use of images whether in church settings or in the arts.
But there may be more consquences, such as undermining authority, the loss of a sense of history, hostility toward science, pleasure-centeredness and the emergence of new values based on instant gratification and the need to be continually entertained.
And this is how it works with "televangelism." It could be that evangelicals have been seduced by the "electrical graven images" of television and the kind of spirituality that it encourages. On television, religion, like everything else, is presented quite simply, without apology and as entertainment. As one scholar has noted,
"Everything that makes religion an historic, profound and sacred human activity is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theology, and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence. On these shows, the preacher is tops. God comes out as second banana.
But this isn't the only problem for televangelists. Just as the children of Israel were tempted by their neighbours graven images and thought-forms these embodied, we too are tempted to conform to the world rather than the word. To the shallowness of TV theology rather than the spirituality of the Word. Evangelicals want God to speak to them in visions and inner voices rather than in the pages of His Word. We believe the Bible, but we do not read it very much.
Christians need to be conscious of how image-centered culture is pulling them in non-Christian directions.
Brandon
"Sharing a prison cell unites you much more powerfully than sharing a conference table."--Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War
Edited by - BBBCanada on 08/22/2002 12:29:52 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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