{"id":13986,"date":"2017-09-13T16:28:54","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T23:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13986"},"modified":"2017-09-13T16:28:54","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T23:28:54","slug":"visually-faithful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/visually-faithful\/","title":{"rendered":"Visually Faithful"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What do an iPhone, a cloud column, and a Star Wars mug all have in common? Perhaps as we journey together through this post, we might discover the connection between these images. We step onto the path, first, by recognizing our earthiness as humans, connected as creatures to one another, the rest of creation, and our Creator. Along the way, though, we\u2019ve forgotten our creature-liness. Though we follow Jesus, we\u2019ve inherited some fantastic baggage from our Puritan predecessors. Eyes closed to pray, straight orderly pews, our Puritan worship became inwardly focused, a \u201cturn your [spiritual] eyes upon Jesus.\u201d As William Dyrness notes in Visual Faith<\/em>, images within Reformation worship settings \u201cnecessarily played no role; in fact, they were usually perceived as a distraction from the inward focus on the preaching (and sung) Word.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Our ancestors succeeded in turning spirituality inward, gnosticly focused on the subordination of sacred space and aesthetics to the preaching of the Word and the \u201cverbal dimensions of spirituality.\u201d[2]<\/a> And for better or worse, the Restoration Movement, of which I\u2019m a part, has its roots in the Enlightenment and Great Awakening, and thus has traditionally valued this piety of inward-focused worship over holistic worship, to the extent that my own memory of church includes a \u201cchart outlining the ages of salvation history\u201d because \u201conly in the form of a chart could the order of the world be made clear\u201d.[3]<\/a> Thankfully, those charts have disappeared from our buildings, but our worship spaces remain utilitarian auditoriums for audiences, rather than sacred spaces with visible reminders of God\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve noted before, cultural contexts are dynamic, always changing. Conversing with my teenage son, I asked him to respond to this quote from Dyrness:<\/p>\n

The Protestant imagination has been nourished uniquely by the spoken and written Word, and therefore, we tend to think that everyone must be spiritually and morally nourished in the way that we (and our forebears) have been. Surely these verbal means are of critical importance. But our children\u2026 have been raised in a different world; they are often uninterested in our traditional word-centered media. Instead, they are looking for a new imaginative vision of life and reality, one they can see and feel, as well as understand.[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He emphatically agreed, we discussed for a bit how he and his friends prefer visual experiences to audio ones (or the combination of the two, such as a concert), then he returned to playing games on his iPhone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This visual emphasis unfolds as well within the church community I am newly serving. A sparse worship space, with few sacred symbols has long been satisfactory.[5]<\/a> But with the assimilation of many younger, visually and symbolically oriented members, we are recognizing the value of incorporating graphic images into our space. As I serve in my new role within this vibrant community, I hope to recall us back to the early Christian community\u2019s images, which gave \u201ccorporate expression to the faith of these\u00a0communities.\u201d[6]<\/a> This community believes that God has given us what we need to live and serve God faithfully in this place. If that is true, then even the visual expressions we share are valuable. We\u2019ve begun using art from our community on our bulletins occasionally (last week\u2019s was a finger painting of our garden in front of one of our apartment buildings, done by kids in our daycare). We\u2019re collaborating on Advent devotionals, which partner daily devotions with artwork and poetry from our church. And our communion plate and goblets were created by a potter in our church who also \"\"<\/a>makes unique Star Wars mugs.[7]<\/a> Madeline L\u2019Engle believes that \u201cthe discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, rite, is an effort toward wholeness.\u201d[8]<\/a> If that is true, then can cooperative art for a faith community be an opportunity for mutual wholeness as well? As we collaborate on these expressions, I want us to imagine the worship space itself as an opportunity to draw us to God and one another.[9]<\/a> We\u2019re forming an aesthetics team to look at the implicit theology of our space\u2014do we keep the artificial plants? Add banners to our brick walls? This feels like it has great potential to be both fun and formational.<\/p>\n

Through creating, we can better reflect on the story of God at work in scripture, in the Church\u2019s past, and in our present. Images and action were essential to people inscripture understanding and relating to God. Abraham\u2019s alter to sacrifice Isaac wasn\u2019t just a mental image of sacrifice in his mind; it was mountain stones ritually stacked. The Israelites didn\u2019t simply follow a cloud pillar \u201cin their hearts\u201d but relied on it for GPS directions. And Thomas didn\u2019t just symbolically stick his fingers in the risen Jesus\u2019 side; his hand touched the resurrection flesh. God truly dwelt as human among humans\u2014incarnated. \u201c[T]he visual experience of God\u2019s people was to accompany and elaborate God\u2019s Word to them\u2026. If one of God\u2019s purposes in the Old Testament is to prepare [God\u2019s] people for the actual appearance of God in the incarnation, we can see how vital the visible aspect of God\u2019s presence had to be,\u201d suggests Dyrness.[10]<\/a> If that was true in ancient times, can it not be today as well?<\/p>\n

L\u2019Engle reminds us, \u201cThe journey homeward. Coming home. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. The journey to the coming of the Kingdom\u2026. The purpose of the work, be it story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet toward home.\u201d[11]<\/a> If we believe that the revelation of the good news of God coming near must perpetually be contextualized, then for the visually-oriented iPhone generation, actual images such as community crafted communion objects are tangible reminders, as real as cloud pillars, that God dwells among us as the Holy Spirit among God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> William Dyrness, Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue<\/em> (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 54.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 59.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 21.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Dyrness calls these spaces \u201cunimaginatively empty\u201d (22).<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 26.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> I should clarify that our communion goblets are not<\/em> Star Wars themed, though that would be\u2026 interesting.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Madeline L\u2019Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art<\/em> (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980), 70.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Simone Weil suggests \u201cthere are three ways people are drawn to God: through affliction, religious practices, and by the experience of beauty\u201d (Dyrness, 22).<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Ibid., 84.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> L\u2019Engle, 162-163.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do an iPhone, a cloud column, and a Star Wars mug all have in common? Perhaps as we journey together through this post, we might discover the connection between these images. We step onto the path, first, by recognizing our earthiness as humans, connected as creatures to one another, the rest of creation, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[80,1019,289,1020,1022,1021],"class_list":["post-13986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-cloud","tag-dyrness","tag-journey","tag-lengle","tag-star-wars","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13988,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions\/13988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}