Image: Shutterstock
Long ago the apostle Paul wrote, “God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21, NRSV used throughout). Preaching, he implies, is essential to God’s purposes. At the same time, Paul tacitly acknowledges that preaching hardly looks like a sensible means to God’s ends. Just words? And inevitably imperfect words at that. Foolishness! Foolishness even then.
But had Paul lived today, in a culture as visual—and as increasingly inattentive to extended verbal discourse—as ours, might he have spoken differently? Might he have said that God has decided to use the foolishness of our feature films, our advertising, and our visual art to save those who believe?
After all, we have learned to be sensitive to cultural context of both the historical possibilities constraining the writers of the biblical texts, who had never seen a movie screen or a television or a tablet computer, and the demands of our own situation. Paul said in the same letter, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). Evangelicals in particular have been quick to adopt new methods, eager to use all suitable means in the hopes of saving some. We can’t deny the power of the visual to move us, to connect with the heart as well as the head. Preachers have long been taught to speak so that people can picture what they are talking about. Images, especially moving images, compel us in ways words alone generally do not. Surely we should take advantage of these gifts.
Besides, God did make a physical, visible world. He did not choose to create solely spiritual creatures entertaining abstract ideas. He became incarnate in his world, acting in it on our behalf. In the Wisdom Literature as well as in Jesus’ parables, we are encouraged to look at the natural world to gain understanding—from the diligence of the ant, to the power of yeast, to the worry-free beauty of lilies. In the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), we speak of the Word made visible. And we consider those rare Christians who have no sacramental observance whatsoever to be practicing a truncated version of the faith.
So did the Reformers take a wrong turn when they moved decisively away from the significant emphasis on the visual in both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches? The Reformers moved the pulpit to the center of the sanctuary, where the altar had been. Some even engaged in what many of us now see as excess: smashing stained glass windows and removing artwork that had been understood at least in part as picture books for the illiterate.
It’s not that the Reformers ignored the visual. Rather, they actively worried that it would supplant the Word (and also about breaking the second commandment, which forbids idolatry). Thus, “Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone” was the rallying cry of the Reformation, and we can readily cite texts like Romans 10:17: “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.”
The Reformers believed the Holy Spirit made special use of Scripture and hearing the Word preached in bringing people to Christ in a way that is absolutely essential to faith. Why so? Historical circumstances, including corruption in the Western church that compromised its claims to authority, naturally played an important role. Protestants came to understand Scripture rather than tradition as the decisive arbiter of Christian truth. But there was and is more to it than historical circumstances. Two key issues are worth highlighting: the limitations of images with respect to conveying meaning, and the matter of personal address.
Click here for more.
SOURCE: Christianity Today
Marguerite Shuster
