Imagery or Idolatry?
"While communicating the truth verbally through spoken word and music, we carry a passion to engage our God-given senses. We desire to worship with an emphasis on the symbolism and imagery that garnishes the heritage of our faith… we never want to forget."
-An Emerging Church Website
"because of their deep spiritual hunger, postmodern people are refusing false dichotomies and flawed choices in worship. instead, they are seeking worship that is "deep, broad, and high," or as leonard sweet describes the postmodern ethos, worship that is "E.P.I.C" (experiential, participatory, image centered and connected)."
-Another Emerging Site
***Did they say "Image Centered"? I thought worship is supposed to be "God centered".
“Whatever we may think of religious art from a cultural standpoint, we should not look to pictures of God to show us His glory and move us to worship; for His glory is precisely what such pictures can never show us.”
-An Old School Theologian
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
-Exodus 20:4-6
***I think that there are questions that we need to be asking in our effort to worship God with passion and freedom. How is God worshipped? Have we crossed a line? What is the line?
-An Emerging Church Website
"because of their deep spiritual hunger, postmodern people are refusing false dichotomies and flawed choices in worship. instead, they are seeking worship that is "deep, broad, and high," or as leonard sweet describes the postmodern ethos, worship that is "E.P.I.C" (experiential, participatory, image centered and connected)."
-Another Emerging Site
***Did they say "Image Centered"? I thought worship is supposed to be "God centered".
“Whatever we may think of religious art from a cultural standpoint, we should not look to pictures of God to show us His glory and move us to worship; for His glory is precisely what such pictures can never show us.”
-An Old School Theologian
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
-Exodus 20:4-6
***I think that there are questions that we need to be asking in our effort to worship God with passion and freedom. How is God worshipped? Have we crossed a line? What is the line?
posted by goz at 7:05 PM
1 Comments:
I agree with the question. What about images that may focus more on comunicating the story than a representation of God's glory?
Examples:
Sistine Chapel
Stained Glasses or paintings representing different naratives (i.e. the Fall, the crucifixion, etc.)
Piece of art interpreting the Prodigal son.
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