Many seekers and Christians alike are wondering what god they just met on Christmas Eve … and whether they will meet God again in the coming year. It is as if we made eye contact with the divine, blinked, and when we looked again God was gone. I finally read “Face to Face: Portraits of the Divine in Early Christianity” by Robin Margaret Jensen (Fortress Press, 2005) over the holidays and the insights will keep me thinking in the New Year.
Any worship designer or missionary interested in the power of images … and particularly portraiture … as a means of both remembering and experiencing the touch of the Holy will find this book powerful. Chapter 3 (“The Invisible God and the Visible Image”) and chapter 5 (“Portraits of the Incarnate One”) are particularly relevant for the post-modern, image-based learning methodologies of emerging churches. Struggles with idolatry and the yearning to touch … and be touched … by God fueled controversies about art and religion not only for the decorations of early church, but for the devotional lives of ordinary Christians.
I have always been interested in images as more than symbolic reminders. Ordinary faithful people experience images (and yes, sound bytes and video clips) as talismans through which the infinite reaches out to grasp the hearts of unsuspecting nerds walking down the aisle of their favorite technology store, or shake the souls of middle class families taking their kids to the movies. This book is so interesting because it explores the specific power of Christ’s image … not just any image, but images of Jesus. In the pre- and post-literate societies then and now, this book brings modern word-based, publicly educated, sermon-oriented Christians “face to face” with an undercurrent of popular devotion they chronically deny.
“Face to Face” is a book the goes beyond the power of words as a vehicle for evangelism and spiritual life. It helps me understand the growing “disconnect” between the academic world of “Practical Theology” and the actual world the way Christians really live it. The two groups barely communicate anymore. Perhaps the pastors, evangelists and small group leaders of tomorrow will be a new generation of “portrait artists” capturing … and being captured by … the image of Christ.
Tom Bandy
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