The ikon in an age of neotribalism

by Stephen Hayes

The most fundamental division between Christians has been that between East and West. The differences between churches of the West, 'Catholic', 'Protestant' and even 'Pentecostal' have been almost insignificant by comparison.

The Reformation has been seen as one of the most formative experiences of Christians in Western Europe. It changed not only the Protestant churches, but in the Counter Reformation the Roman Catholic Church experienced a similar process. But the Reformation took place in the context of social and economic changes in Europe, and one factor that had great influence on the Western churches was the invention of printing.

Marshall McLuhan, one-time Professor of Literature of the University of Toronto, has made a study of the effects of different communications media on society. Before the Renaissance, he claims, the culture of Europe was primarily aural. Communication was through the ear rather than the eye. Written documents were in manuscript and could reach wider audiences only by being read aloud in public. The Christian art of both East and West was similar in pattern and style. Both East and West used ikons - generally in mosaic - to proclaim the Christian gospel. The mosaic ikons in 13th century Italian churches do not differ markedly from those in the Byzantine churches in Greece and Asia Minor. The pictures were standardised, and followed a set pattern. Later, when in the Eastern Churches the ikons came to be painted on wood, the style changed to accommodate the new medium, but the theology remained basically the same.

The West, however, moved from an ear culture to an eye culture. The ear has no 'point of view' - sounds come from all directions and are accepted as an inclusive environment, in which several things happen at once. The eye, however, does have a 'point of view'. Western art came to emphasise perspective, which made the beholder the point of reference for the picture. This was also true in architecture. As McLuhan puts it, the watchword of the Renaissance was 'a piazza for everything and everything in its piazza'.

The invention of printing played an important part in extending the new visual stress in the West. Printed books meant that more people could have copies, more people could learn to read. The portable book could be read in privacy and isolation from others. Reading became a private, individual activity rather than the public, communal one of the manuscript culture. The private, fixed point of view became possible, and literacy conferred the power of detachment, non-involvement. The Protestant idea of 'private interpretation of the scriptures' presupposes a visually-oriented culture. In the Eastern churches the Scriptures are still read in public, and the ikons in the churches bring the heard word to life. The liturgy is a communal public action. In Protestant churches the liturgy loses its meaning. Public worship is based on the word. Instruction becomes more important than participation. People go to church, not so much to participate in the worship of the body of Christ, as to be instructed, edified, uplifted. In the Roman Catholic Church a similar process follows, but it is not quite so obvious. The old liturgical forms remain, but they take on a radically different meaning. Again the individual, with his private point of view, becomes the centre. The worship as a communal action disappears, and is replaced by private devotion. 'I' make 'my' communion.

The recent objection to A message to the people of South Africa by the Baptists reflects this cultural background.i The doctrine of individual, personal salvation, which, the Baptists claimed, the Message ignored in favour of a more social conception of salvation, only appeared at the Reformation. It could not have arisen before the invention of printing, when the reading of scripture became a private rather than a public activity. Jesus Christ 'my' personal Saviour is not a Biblical concept. In the Bible, Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world.

In South Africa, most of the evangelisation was done by literate Christians from Western Europe. They found they had to teach people to read before they could proclaim the Gospel to them. But the Africans had no written language - they lived in a tribal, aural culture. This has led to many difficulties in the churches, and the tension between these two cultures has certainly influenced the formation of Zionist Churches, which are trying, among other things, to express Christianity in a form that has meaning for people living in an aural culture.

Many of these problems might not have arisen if Southern Africa had been evangelised by the Eastern churches. The oldest African churches - those of Egypt and Ethiopia - have retained the Eastern pattern. In Eastern churches, literacy is not a prerequisite for hearing the gospel. Indeed, many of the clergy are barely literate. The Gospel is communicated by participation in a Christian community. And this is the only way in which the Gospel can really be communicated. Jesus did not leave a book of teachings - he left no writings at all - only a community filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Eastern Orthodox Christians, when they enter a church building, first kiss the ikons. To the Western, literate Christian, this seems like superstition and idolatry. But idolatry is more of a Western phenomenon. The Western church has its images - statues, which are often very lifelike. Candles are lit in front of them, and personal devotion is paid to them. A statue is three-dimensional; it is a thing in itself. You can walk around it, and it is still there. The ikons of the Eastern churches are two-dimensional. They are not there to draw attention to themselves, but to point to something beyond themselves. They are windows rather than pictures. So if I enter an Orthodox Church at Easter, I might kiss the ikon of the resurrection, and I do this to greet the risen Christ. I might light a candle in front of the ikon for the same purpose. But it is not enough just to light a candle in front of the ikon or to kiss the ikon. So I must light a candle in front of my brother who stands next to me. On Easter morning the whole congregation kisses the priest, and they Exchange the Easter greeting: 'Christ is risen: He is risen indeed'. They kiss the ikons and the book of the Gospel and they also kiss each other, exchanging the same greeting. They kiss the ikons of the saints too, for they are also part of the congregation. The Eucharist looks forward to the Messianic Banquet in the New Jerusalem - when all the dead have been raised, when the final victory over evil had been won, and the new creation is consummated.

Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order - Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Now according to McLuhan the age of literacy, which has so moulded the Western churches and accentuated their schism with the East, is ending. And it is the advent of electric technology that has killed it. Electric light, the telephone, radio and television have made communication global and all embracing. News of events on the other side of the world reach us at the same time as news from the other side of town. Electric technology is turning the world into a global village. Through a medium such as television one can participate in events as much as, if not more than, one could if actually present. The same event might be seen through three, four or five differently-placed cameras - and so the individual point of view is abolished. Sound radio is, paradoxically, more 'visual' and akin to the printed word than television. Radio is the medium for the monologue, the instructive sermon. With the advent of television the whole concept of church broadcasting had to be altered. For radio, the printed script is adequate - the Protestant type of service, with its emphasis on the word is made for radio. On television this appears boring and static. A liturgical service, with its greater sense of participation and involvement is more suitable. With this type of communication, literacy becomes more important. We are moving into an age of symbolism, an age of neo-tribalism. A new generation is appearing whose life is built on mythical and symbolical involvement. This new generation will communicate less through the rationalist perspective of literate culture and more and more through myth and symbol.

Modern theology is at present dominated by the demythologisers, and the demythologisers are the last fling of a literate era - the culmination of the Protestant refusal to understand things in terms other than language. These bourgeois theologians of the age of literacy tell us that 'modern man' can no longer accept concepts like incarnation and resurrection and that we must demythologise the account of the resurrection of Jesus. But despite the modern, or rather not quite modern theologians, modern man finds it only to easy to believe in resurrection - and if they are told that they can no longer believe that Jesus rose from the dead, they will nevertheless proclaim that 'Che Guevara lives!', 'Camilo Torres is not dead!', and 'Chairman Mao will live for 10000 years!'

Here in South Africa we are still clinging to the age of print. Verkramp politicians have sworn that we will not have television. We still cling to sound radio - a medium that reached its zenith with Hitler and Mussolini. Social researchers must find South Africa a fascinating field for study, a living fossil in a new world shaped by a new medium of communication.

Whether we like it or not we are moving into this new age, but it is an age of opportunity. It is an age when myth and symbol can easily be understood, and when the pre-literate myths and symbols of Christianity can once again be understood. And new myths and symbols can be found to express the Gospel in the new ikonic age. In every age the Church is to be the ikon of the New Jerusalem, the new human community of a world set free from sin and evil, injustice and oppression.

Notes

(i) The Message to the people of South Africa was a document compiled by a group of South African Christian leaders and published in 1968, which denounced apartheid as not merely a heresy, but a pseudogospel, making a false offer of salvation through race rather than grace.

(ii) This was before the 'kiss of peace' became widespread ib Western liturgical practice. In the Orthodox Church at Easter the priest came into the darkened church through the royal doors with a lighted candle, from which the congregation took the light and lit each other's candles, and also lit the candles and lamps in front of the ikons. Later in the service, at the end of Matins, the priest came out with the ikon of the resurrection, and the deacon, holding the gospel bookkissed him, and the ikon, exchanging the Eastrer greeting 'Christ is risen: indeed he is risen', then stood on his right and the next person came and kissed the priest and the ikon, and the deacon and the gospel book, and stood on the deacon's right, and so on until everyone in the congregation had kissed everyone else. In St Sergius Church in Paris in 1968, where I first saw it, it took 40 minutes, and was followed by the reading of the Paschal homily of St John Chrysostom.

Epilogue