Jeff Wright’s Blog One guy’s thoughts on God, His Word, His world, and issues related thereto

The Problem with Religious Images

Iconoclast is a word often bandied about to describe all sorts of movers and shakers in popular culture. This word has been applied to a young (and mulleted) Andre Aggasi, Jimmy Buffet, and Ron Paul as a means to capture their distinctive individualism within the broader context of their fields. The word itself, however, has theological roots. Reaching back to at least the Protestant Reformation (some would say further - all the way back to King Hezekia’s reforms in Jerusalem) iconoclasm refers to the Christian practice of removing (sometimes by destroying) religious imagery. Reformers Zwingli and Calvin were both noted iconoclasts, the latter taking a more gentle approach than the former. Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church considers this a form of heresy.

The motivation behind this practice is to prevent idolatry by removing physical objects made to represent God the Father, the Son,or the Spirit. This is done in order to avoid violating the second of the 10 Commandments (or perhaps the first of the nine commandments; scholars disagree if we should understand a difference between the command to have no gods before God and the command forbidding physical representations).

You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any other likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…

Exodus 20:3-4 (ESV). You can find other texts communicating this same prohibition in Leviticus (Ch. 26) and Deuteronomy (Chs. 4 and 5).

As mentioned above, Catholics consider this anti-imagery position as heretical, in direct contradiction of their willingness to venerate holy images. Martin Luther too was more open to the usage of image of the holy but was careful to note that it should never be allowed to become idolatrous.

Those like myself who hold this iconoclastic position sometimes seem like the stodgy fuddy-duddies who just want to pick a fight. It is argued that the major prooftexts for this position are located in the Old Testament; our counter is (at minimum) that not worshipping other gods is a command that transcends any division between the Testaments.

It also should be noted that the Bible also indicates that God is Spirit and thus any effort to capture His likeness is an attempt to impose upon God something that is not part of His essential nature. Others might argue that God did take physical form when Jesus came to the earth. Here, I think, is a further reason to reject the usage of religious imagery. Let me explain.

I rarely see statues or paintings that are supposed to represent God’s physical likeness, at least in Christian art (note that I could only say rarely). More often one encounters statuettes or prints that portray God the Spirit as a dove. By far the most popular subject of religious art is the second member of the Trinity, our own Lord Jesus Christ. Statues, prints, paintings, sketches, action figures, stuffed dolls – no medium is barred to the Lord (if only His churches were the same!).

I’ll set aside for a moment the tendency of man to begin worshipping physical representations of spiritual truths (see the story of the Bronze Serpent in Numbers 21 and 2 Kings 18). What I want to address directly is the diversity amongst the images of Jesus we see. Really, unless they are copies, no two pictures of Jesus look like. Right now our church's fellowship hall features four pictures of Jesus (they used to be in the sanctuary; we’re making slow progress). The biggest is Triumphant Return Jesus, featuring clouds and angelic trumpeters. The other three Jesus’ are more maudlin, featuring a Jesus whose facial expression ranges from beatific to mournful. Now, this isn’t to say that there aren’t similarities amongst the set. All four feature a Caucasian Jesus as well as one who is not a fan of weight lifting or fatty foods. The Jesus portrayed in the four prints is, however, a fan of both long hair and facial hair.

You know the one thing I can definitively say about all four?

I know for certain that, regardless of what Jesus actually looks like, He looks nothing like what those paintings portray.

The ethnicity is obviously wrong. Who knows if the weight is right. Or the style of hair? Or anything else for that matter.

So, fundamentally, those pictures say something about Jesus that isn’t true.

Let me put it to you this way: let’s say that I’m an antiquities dealer and one day I come in to our church with an original manuscript of one of the Gnostic pseudo-gospels, say the Gospel of Thomas for example. I come in very excited about my discovery and propose to the church that we frame this manuscript and hang it in the church sanctuary for all the world to see.

You aren’t going to be on board, are you? Why is that?

Yep. Because that manuscript says something about Jesus that isn’t correct, accurate, or true.

Imagine, then, if I went even further and suggested that every time we gather for worship as a church we should read passages aloud from the Gospel of Thomas. It would be even worse, wouldn't it. And yet every time someone looks at one of those pictures of Jesus they are being told something incorrect about our Lord.

So why are we so comfortable doing something in image form that we wouldn’t be in text?

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Please note: I realize this might be upsetting. You, like I, probably grew up with Jesus knick-knacks on your home's shelf. You might have some yourself for all I know. I'm not proposing that everyone who has a Jesus statuette or any church that has a Jesus print has fallen in wanton idolatry. I am, however, trying to ask if we've developed a blind spot in this area. I'd love to read your comments.

Fight Club for Jesus?

Contemporary evangelicalism has developed a real knack for meeting legitimate problems head on with awful solutions.

Case in point: R.M. Schneiderman's article Flock is now Fight Team in some Ministries in yesterday's New York Times.

The gist of the article is that growing number of evangelical churches are turning to Mixed Martial Arts as a means of reaching young men & countering the feminization of the church.

Yep. Real problem, awful solution.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

The problem here is pretty obvious to anyone remotely familiar with the Biblical account of Jesus' death and it's meaning. Christ's victory over sin, Satan, and death was won precisely by His refusal to fight.

The Jews if Christ's day wanted a conquering hero Messiah, one with a sword in his fist. What they got was a donkey riding carpenter nailed to a tree.

None of this, of course, changes the fact that Christ really is Conqueror in the ultimate sense of the word. However, it is precisely that He conquered by laying His life down in defeat that shows us the wisdom of God.

This same motif of suffering-to-victory is impressed on the followers of Christ by Jesus Himself over and over.

Any Christian model that doesn't account for this fact and takes for itself the imagery of combat in the arena as the primary paradigm for the Christian life has gone far off course.

A Christian can indeed glorify God by chosing MMA as a vocation.

A church allowing MMA to set the agenda for God's people, however, cannot.

We’re Back. Whew.

Man. Three months since the last post.

A lot happens in three months.

One third of my son's life has taken place over that span. I was awarded a degree since then. I caught up on Lost since then.

Team Conan. Avatar.

Tiger Woods.

3 months is approximately 1/5 of Lane Kiffin's tenure as the Head Coach of UT football. And yeah, that happened since my last post too.

So what caused the absence? Hackers. Some word-my-conscience-won't-let-me-use hacked the site, put up some redirect and phishing scripts, and basically turned exaltchrist.com into one of those websites.

Sorry. Wish I could have seen that coming. Wish even more that I could find the people responsible...

As a result Google categorized our domain as unsafe, blocking access to the site (which was a good call) and plunging us into a "What do we do now?!?" conundrum.

After dropping some loot at our hosting company we've now twice been assured that the site is entirely cleaned up, nicely spic and span.

It's safe to wade in to exaltchrist.com again.

Sure, there are still some formatting issues (apparently the cleanup made my pre-hack posts hate apostrophes) but on the whole we're back up an running well.

Sorry again for the problems.

Thanks for your patience.

It's good to be back.

More Underrated Scary Movies

Or, Another Batch of Last Minute Movie Options for Halloween.

With Halloween 09 lurking just around the corner I thought Underrated Scary Movies 2.0 would be in order.

First the ground rules:

These recommendations flow from three criteria:
1. These films aren't classics of the genre. You won’t see them on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB under “Highest Rated” headings; there is no Rosemary’s Baby or Halloween on my list. This criteria is good in that it increases the odds you haven’t seen it but is also bad to a degree because its means you probably will not add the title to your all-time favorite movie list after you see it. These films also don’t get a lot of attention in my personal conversations or the sites I read on the internet. By “attention” I mean neither good nor bad discussion. This eliminates cult-hit movies like the Evil Dead franchise which require a peculiar palate to enjoy or, for some like my wife, even appreciate at all. It also indicates to me that these movies are flying under the radar to some degree even amongst those who are fans of the genre.

2. The fright payoff justifies the time to rent and watch. I’m not saying these movies will linger in your subconscious or cost you sleep but they will provide enough suspense/tension/jump-in-your-seat moments (JIYS) to make your viewing a satisfyingly scary event.

3. The odds are high that these movies are still on the shelf. These movies all exist in a strange conjunction of wide distribution yet narrow exposure. This all amounts to a very high probability that you can snag one or more of these titles even at the 11th hour.

Disclaimer and warranty: I give no comment regarding the moral quality of these movies. Nothing overtly objectionable leaps to my mind with any of them but my viewing of each is sufficiently removed to the past that I don’t have total recall of their content. Exercise a little discernment and/or keep the fast-forward button handy. Also, if you find any of these films unsatisfactory I will refund the full price I charged for allowing you to read this composition.

Session 9
I saw this movie the weekend it released (straight to video) and to be honest wasn’t overly impressed (which is why it starts the list). I included it because I watched it with a group of people and I was the only one disappointed. I must admit that it is possible (albeit highly unlikely) that I am not the end-all-be-all judge of The Scary and thus I give you Session 9. The movie carries all sorts of elements that should make it very scary. It is filmed in an abandoned mental institution with plenty of creepy and ominous atmosphere (part of my gripe was the pacing, which is languid, but provides plenty of time for establishing an eerie environment). There are recordings of interviews with mental patients. It has a twist ending as popularized by M. Night. I personally prefer the version that would have been if the deleted scenes had been left in (along with the alternate ending) so if this movie sounds like a winner to you I’d recommend getting the DVD version which contains the unused footage.

Dog Soldiers
This particular flick was on my to-see list last year when I wrote the initial Underrated Scary Movies post. Having since seen the movie I believe it to be of sufficient quality to join the next generation of the list. To appreciate Dog Soldiers you first have to ask yourself “When was the last time I saw a quality Werewolf movie?” Silver Bullet? The Howling? Certainly not that Christina Ricci movie that was released a few years back (Cursed, if anyone is keeping score). And that movie wasn’t even as bad as Nicholson’s Wolf. Regardless, it has been a while. That fact immediately ups Dog Soldiers’ rating. As a bonus this is really the ultimate guy’s movie/scary movie combo. You’ve got soldiers, you’ve got a pack of Werewolves; you’ve got awesome. I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I tell you to think American Werewolf in London meets District 9.

Fallen
I would think too many people have seen Fallen to warrant an inclusion on my list but having seen it mentioned on the internet as an underrated film I’m going to cover my bases. Honestly: if you haven’t seen this then go rent it now. First off, it’s Denzel (plus John Goodman, Donald Sutherland and James Gandolfini). Second, Elias Koteas (from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is great as the really bad guy who literally will not go away. Who am I kidding? Everyone has seen this, right? Right? If you haven’t you should be mildly ashamed…and on your way to get it.

Gothika
Similar to Fallen, this movie is on the fringe of too popular for my list. For those who haven’t seen it Gothika features Halle Berry in the role of a lady whose life goes haywire fast. The movie features scary movie staples like ghostly girls, stormy nights, displaced personalities, JIYS, and shocking betrayals. If you haven’t seen it yet it would make a solid Halloween night selection.

The Orphanage
If you read last year’s list you saw me looking for Gullermo Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone. Yeah…I’ve still not seen it. I have, however, seen Del Toro’s The Orphanage and can testify to the quality of said movie. The film is set in a wonderful old building, a defunct orphanage in-plot which housed the protagonist when she was but a girl. Returned to reopen the orphanage our heroine encounters more than a few bumps in the night, one of which wears a creepy burlap mask just like the one worn by a disfigured student from her childhood. The one problem? It is in Spanish and thus you end up reading subtitles. I saw this one in the theater and I was only briefly aware of the subtitles. Quickly they slipped into my subconscious and my viewing experience went uncompromised. As a bonus The Orphanage features the rare happy ending to a quality scary movie. If you want something more exotic for your Halloween viewing platter this is your movie.

[An alternate if subtitles don’t throw you off: The Japanese film The Audition is supposed to be uber-scary. I’ve not seen it, don’t know a thing about it other than what I’ve just written as I’m going off website reviews but if ½ of what I’ve read is true it’s only a matter of time until I check it out. Feel free to beat me to the punch. This one might be hard to come by if you don’t have Netflix.]

Darkness Falls
Last, but not least, is a personal favorite. Yes, it is a bit of a teen movie. No, it won’t redefine the genre. On the other hand it is chock full of JIYS with a solid ghost story and a plot that might cost you a few winks. I offer the latter because my wife, no stalwart scary movie watcher but still…, in the midst of our viewing in the theater wanted to leave for the car. She did not though because the baddie in Darkness Falls can only get you if you are…you guessed it…in the dark. So she sat curled up in the chair next to me only glancing at the screen periodically until the house lights were raised. Any movie that can produce that kind of reaction can’t be all bad, right?

So there you go. Get ‘em queued up in Netflix or held behind the counter at your local rental chain. Odds are you’ll get sufficient goosebumps to call Halloween 09 a success.

As for me I’m looking at Trick r Treat, Drag Me to Hell (for some odd reason I haven’t seen it yet), The Woods, and the aforementioned The Devil’s Backbone. May they provide fodder for next year’s list.

Demons and Videotape

This post contains spoilers from the movie Paranormal Activity.  If you wish to see this movie I would recommend coming back to read after viewing.
 
Horror movies are my catnip (as I’ve mentioned before) and the buzz around Paranormal Activity proved too powerful to resist.  Thus Christie and I made the trek to Opry Mills this past Friday night to see the movie.
 
As a mini-review let me offer this: if you liked The Blair Witch Project then I am confident you will like Paranormal Activity as well.  The movie itself isn’t so much scary (though my wife might disagree) as it is really, really tense.  I found myself highly invested in the fate of the characters on screen and more than once constricted in my seat, pressed down each scene by a sense of dread regarding what might happen this time.  Depending on what you find entertaining that is perhaps worth the cost of a movie ticket.  For me it certainly was.
 
The conflict in Paranormal State ostensibly revolves around a tormented young lady named Katie (plus her live-in boyfriend Micah) and an entity which is revealed to be a demon.  Said demon has been stalking Katie since childhood, radically escalating the torment in the period of her life chronicled in the movie.
 
As the supernatural manifestations increase in intensity Micah decides that a video record is in order.  The mentality that drives his character in the film is remarkable, creating post-viewing conversation material that goes beyond “Wow, that really creeped me out.”
 
Early on the couple turns to a psychic who they hope will give them direction in dealing with the phenomena they are experiencing.  This psychic excuses himself from their lives because what they are dealing with isn’t in his field of expertise.  From that point on Micah takes it upon himself to deal with their supernatural problem.
 
What is so interesting about Micah is that he acquits himself readily as a true child of the Enlightenment.  Several times he speaks of “dealing with” the entity and making a plan to fix the problem.  Every subsequent step he takes revolves around his desire to document the phenomena and several times he tells Katie, almost giddily, that they are “getting some great stuff.”   His weapons are the video camera (in order to capture any visible manifestations), sound recorder (in search of E.V.P.’s), laptop, and baby powder.
 
[Baby powder you ask?  In one of the movie’s most creepy stretches Micah powders the hallway leading up to their bedroom door.  Hoof-like footprints are seen coming down the hallway, into the bedroom, and ending on Katie’s side of the bed. Very cool.]
 
Each of these devices – camera, recorder, computer, and powder – serves to catalog and document the phenomena.   In Micah’s mind this research is “doing something about” the couple’s supernatural problem, as if having the data itself gives him sway over the entity they believe is tormenting them.  In this fascination with recording and analyzing Micah portrays a materialistic worldview that believes the secret to mastering life is found in the scientific process, that if you can just get the thing under the microscope and analyze it then you have conquered it and hold sway over what it does.  And that is just the end Micah pursues, compiling more footage, more tape, more whatever as the audience mentally shouts “just leave the house man!”
 
Micah’s philosophical commitment; naturalism with a camcorder, ultimately fails him (as naturalism does anyone who attempts to build their life on its foundation).  The viewer is left wondering if, in the moments before his body is hurled at the screen, Micah ever realized that when dealing with a demon perhaps a video camera just isn’t enough.
 
I’ve been told (and don’t know if it true or not) that Scott Derrickson wrote another demon-based thriller, The Exorcism of Emily Rose in order to confront our materialistic culture with the subject of the supernatural.  I’m not sure what the creative team behind Paranormal Activity intended to do with their film but they have accomplished much the same end, giving us a fictional illustration of a fundamental truth about our world: there is much in our reality that we don’t see, can’t rope in to our laboratories, and have no means of controlling.  Living in willful ignorance of this truth is cumulatively self destructive and finally fatal.
 
Our culture should collectively take a lesson from Micah.  Those who don’t are in for a supernatural experience much worse than anything we can imagine, let alone project on screen.

Questions on Co-op Program & SBC Church Planting

This was left as a comment and I thought it would be better to move it out on to the main page to see if anyone else wanted to give some answers.

By the way - thanks to Pastor Gately for the questions.

From Pastor Charlie Gateley

Hi Jeff and fellow Believers, I am not a Southern Baptist but I found this blog to be very interesting. I was wondering if I may ask some questions and give some thoughts? Well here I go, when I read this blog a couple of thoughts went through my head, 1. If I did support the cooperative program would I care if another church were started in my community without my knowledge and moral support even though my money went there? 2. Would I be looked down upon as though I don't want the Kingdom of God to Grow simply because I felt I was excluded form any other contribution other than Money. I just wonder how my church family, if I were the pastor, would feel and think if they found out that the monies they had given to the Lord's work was causing division in their community. Here you must excuse my ignorance, I kind of read the implication that there were churches started from splits, and the background of the church planters were not checked out? So the slight possibility of this taking place could be there? I just want others to not be so condemning of pastors who are just challenging the ethics of this church planting movement when there are some very important questions to be answered. I personally think the pastors that have challenged some of the things that have happened, before the Lord and the Body of Christ have some legitimate questions that should be answered.

Vermigli’s Eucharistic Theology, Final Post

Guest Blogger: Chase Vaughn

You can find the first post here, second here, third here, and fourth here.

Lastly, concerning the coherence of the sacramental union of sign and reality with a spiritual mode of reception, Vermigli’s objective understanding of the Eucharist as a true offering of Christ’s body and blood in no way violates the spiritual mode of receiving Christ. Vermigli’s word-centered approach to the Eucharist allows him to maintain an objective offer of grace as well as the need for an apprehension of the reality of the sacrament on the part of the recipient. Just as salvation by hearing the Word of God is consistent with salvation by faith alone, so also the true offering and receiving of Christ’s body and blood by means of the Eucharist is consistent with receiving Christ by faith. Neither Scripture nor the Eucharistic elements are the efficient cause of salvation. Both are given by God as instruments by which the Holy Spirit ordinarily delivers salvation to his people. Salvation is not contained carnally under the written figures of Scripture or under the visible figures of the Eucharist, but the blessing of salvation in Christ is effectually signified by them.

Central not only to Vermigli’s sacramental theology but to his whole theology of revelation is the sursum corda. All revelation in visible form is given with the express purpose of raising the minds of God’s people to knowledge of the heavenly reality revealed in earthly form. Just as, by the power of the Spirit, God’s people are able to perceive the divinity of Christ in his humanity and to perceive the spiritual truth in the written Word, so also the visible Words of the Eucharist are the tools by which the Spirit stirs the hearts of believers to receive the reality of Christ’s body and blood crucified and risen for them. Indeed, the elements of the Eucharist are intended to lift the minds of believers to the spiritual substance signified to such an extent that they should no longer be concerned with the earthly elements.[24] In the faithful reception of the Eucharist, there is a duplex manducatio, a two-fold eating. With the physical mouth, the sacramental signs of Christ’s body and blood are received. And with the heart, faith feeds in heaven upon the very body and blood of Christ. Thus, “in the Supper both sorts of bread were given, natural and metaphorical, and both sorts of eating occur, namely a natural eating in symbols and another that is metaphorical, relating to the body of Christ which we receive by faith.” [25]

While the Anabaptists tended to separate the sign and the reality of the Eucharist, and while Catholics and Lutherans confused them, these posts have shown that Vermigli was able to steer a middle course. While wholeheartedly affirming that Christ’s body and blood are received spiritually by faith, he did not in the least denigrate the outward instruments of the Eucharist. Holding tenaciously to a true sacramental union between the sign and reality of the Eucharist by means of an effectual signification, he affirmed that Christ’s body and blood are truly offered and received by the faithful in the proper use of the Eucharist.

[24] Ibid., 228.

[25] Ibid., 220.