Holy Image, Holy Space: Icons and Frescoes from Greece is a spiritually demanding exhibition, especially for Protestants committed to the absence of images in worship. Our historic reading of the second commandment (“You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness.… You shall not bow down to them”) makes us suspicious. But this extraordinary traveling exhibit of icons and wall paintings, which opened last fall, gives us firsthand experience of what most of us have only heard debated and easily dismissed. Most of these objects, made between the tenth and seventeenth centuries, are being seen outside Greece for the first time. Beauty is here in abundance, but it is an austere, self-effacing beauty that regiments the senses to ends other than themselves. At the end of the exhibit is the work of Domenikos Theotokopoulos, or “El Greco.”
Can images literally share in the sanctity of those whose likenesses they bear, thus becoming windows on heaven—as the Orthodox church claims? At the very least, they represent a mystery that begs for clarification. Here Christians from other than the Orthodox tradition (myself included) must try to bridge the chasm that divides East from West in the church of Jesus Christ.
The Icon Of God
The justification for the use of images in worship was worked out over some 600 years by the same individuals and church councils whose grappling with Scripture established the foundational doctrines of our faith. During the Iconoclastic Controversy (A.D. 717–843), a dispute involving the church and state over the use of images in worship (the state being the iconoclast), images were banned. By the time the dispute was settled in favor of the iconophiles, a theology for image making had been established. In essence, the defense for icons was that Christ had come in the flesh and was the icon (eikōn or image) of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). Thus it was held that to deny the possibility that the earthly image of Christ could be painted was to deny his incarnation. He could also be painted in his heavenly body because his disciples had seen him transfigured. Saints, being human, posed less of a problem.
For the Orthodox believer, the icon was, and is, writes English theologian Peter Toon, “believed to be the channel through which the divine blessing or healing comes to the faithful.” The believer is free fully to venerate the image without becoming idolatrous. How this is accomplished was answered nearly 12 centuries ago by Saint Theodore the Studite who said, in effect, that the holiness of the “model” transferred to the image resides there apart from the wood and paint used to make it. Likewise, the veneration the worshiper bestows on the image is bestowed upon the model, not the paint. So the icon becomes a channel between this world and the next. In this way the Orthodox church deals with the prohibition of the second commandment.
Pagan Notion?
The question of transference is at the heart of the use of icons in worship: Can holiness and its beneficence be transferred from its source through an inanimate substance to another place and time? Many non-Orthodox believers see such a transfer between “model” and image as merely a restatement of Platonic philosophy. If it is not more than this, then worship with icons is reduced to a pagan notion in religious garb.
Some believers find precedent for such transfer in Scripture, as when handkerchiefs were taken from the apostle Paul to the sick for healing (Acts 19:11–12). To stand in front of some of these images—the large Pantocrator from the end of the fourteenth century that opens the exhibit, for instance—one could be persuaded that the activity of holy power continues in these objects today. One must at least grapple with the possibility. Here are some thoughts that were helpful to me:
• Through the ages, God has identified himself through his actions in the lives of people. As we look at God’s actions on and in the lives of individuals, he takes on definition in these humanly comprehensible points of reference. This may be the true function of the icon. Looking at the image, we know whom we worship because we know what God has done in the life of the person pictured. At the same time, we are reminded that God is the God of the living and not of the dead.
• To a much lesser extent, we all use images similar to the way the Orthodox use icons. Viewing a photo of a deceased loved one, it is not strange to say, “It’s almost as if he is here.” That “presence” is surely more than the paper; but are the loved one’s attributes at the same time made beneficially accessible? If she was a saint, perhaps the photo makes communion of the saints possible from our side of the divide.
• The Orthodox would say the purity of the iconic vision can be an instrument in the purification of the worshiper. Perhaps holy images can be a power for good, just as pornographic images can corrupt us.
The world of icons is one of spiritual activity. 1 John 4:1–3 enjoins us to test the spirits to see “whether they are of God.” We must do so here. To the extent the use of icons brings honor to our incarnate Lord, they pass the test. If at any point they do not, they fail.
The exhibition may still be seen in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, April 25-July 15; the Cleveland Museum of Art, September 6-October 22; and the Detroit Institute of Art, November 19-January 14, 1990.
By Edward C. Knippers, Jr., an artist living in Arlington, Virginia.
Mississippi Burning is the kind of movie that gives white trash a bad name. In it America’s South is held up to scorn. Hooded Klansmen beat up defenseless churchgoers while an obese, tobacco-chawing sheriff grins. Good ol’ boys in trucks lynch blacks and burn churches. Civil rights workers are murdered.
Civil rights veterans such as Julian Bond protest the film’s historical revisionism. He told star Gene Hackman in a “Nightline” interview that the film had reduced a complex and tragic juncture in America’s history to “Rambo vs. the Klan.” He pointed out that the FBI—which emerges as the hero—was dragged kicking and screaming into the civil rights battle. “They were wiretapping and spying on Dr. King and the marchers, not the Klan,” said Bond.
Indeed, Mississippi Burning could be as misleading to the historically untutored as The Last Temptation of Christ was to the biblically illiterate. The mixture of fact and fiction, of history and slam-bang action, treads dangerous ground. A sense of the overwhelming bravery and dedication of southern blacks who fought the system that threatened their lives is sorely lacking. It would appear that white folks solved the problem they had created.
In spite of its shortcomings, Mississippi Burning is a powerful reminder that America’s recent past is little different from the anguish of South Africa today. One gains a visual representation of the poverty and numbing humiliation of third-class citizenship in the pre-civil rights South.
All film is fiction. No one should watch a movie to learn Truth. At best, a good film is a stimulant, a conversation starter—a springboard to greater understanding. If Mississippi Burning gets us talking and thinking about our past, it will have accomplished more than most popular films.
By Stefan Ulstein.
ARTBRIEFS
Dino Goes to China
In the days of China’s Cultural Revolution, the government sent concert pianists into the countryside to pick rice. Now musicians play for top Communist officials in the Great Hall of the People. More hair-raising are the recent performances of gospel pianist Dino (Kartsonakis) before 5,000 astounded Chinese in Beijing and Canton. Times are changing.
Dino’s Liberace-style antics at the keyboard were a big hit for those who watched the first officially sanctioned gospel concerts in China since the Communist revolution. By means of a TV special, “Dino Live in Beijing,” Dino will reach more than 600 million Chinese with concerts. And now the Chinese want more.
Dino traveled to China as part of an annual tour entitled “Love China.” Accompanying Dino were 108 American lay evangelicals, who furtively handed out Bibles and conducted open-air services in numerous choice spots, such as atop the Great Wall. “We felt embraced by the Chinese people,” says Dino. “The gap between America and China was bridged by our concerts.”
CIVA’s Wild Kingdom
In the eyes of some Christians, the name CIVA evokes some bizzare and intriguing images. As well it should.
Intriguing images are the meat and potatoes of Christians in the Visual Arts—a group of artists that seeks to speak to two unlikely bedfellows: the Christian community and the world of modern visual art.
“The purpose of the network,” says painter Ed Knippers, who edits CIVA’s newsletter, “is to help the artist who feels strange in the art community because he or she’s a Christian, and strange in the Christian community because he or she’s an artist.”
To soothe this peculiar neurosis, CIVA offers a biennial conference where artists can get it off their chests and listen to others do the same. The theme of the conference scheduled June 22–24 in La Mirada, California, will be “Narrative in the Visual Arts,” a topic Knippers feels is a strong point for Christians because they have a story to tell—unlike some artists. “Visual arts have lost the power to set the agenda,” he says. “As a result, too many people end up being apologists for modern art to the church, rather than apologists for the church to the world of modern art.” CIVA, he adds, “is to encourage Christian artists in their work so that it’s clear they’re not alone.”
For a copy of the conference brochure, write Biola University Art Department, La Mirada, California 90639.
Soul Man
With its 1978 album, This Time Thru, the DeGarmo and Key Band brought respectability to Christian rock. Now, 12 years later, the keyboard wizard of this dynamic duo, Eddie DeGarmo, has recorded a solo album destined to take Christian contemporary music into new frontiers of sound and savvy.
Feels Good to Be Forgiven (ForeFront) is an amalgam of everything that makes the Memphis sound worth hearing repeatedly: a soulful rhythm section, backup singers, keyboards, and a voice whose raspiness conveys at once the hurts and hallelujahs of life on Earth.
Forgiven was a lifetime in the making. Memphis born and raised, DeGarmo grew up with “funkified” gospel/r&b/soul sounds that became second nature. But not until the recent death of his father in a car accident did the timing of the solo project seem right.
“The music and lyrics were therapeutic,” DeGarmo says. “They expressed my feelings. They helped put my life in perspective.
“This album is for the Christian who knows that life with Jesus isn’t necessarily one long joy ride,” he told CT. “I guess that means it’s for everyone.”
By Dan Coran and Harold B. Smith.
