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Iconography and Rebellion

I brought two necklaces home from Haiti. They look almost identical, except especially for their pendants. The pendant on one looks like something close to a shark's tooth and the other is a cross. I never wear the necklace with a cross. At first glance, it seems like this might be a sign of cowardice, as though I'm afraid to express my faith openly. When I tried the cross necklace on the other day, though, I noticed a different feeling. It wasn't the expression of my faith that I was trying to escape, but the flaunting of it.

There is something culturally ingrained in that reluctance. That cross necklace is a symbol of Christ's sacrifice, yes; but-- for some-- it also represents the Catholic penchant for symbol, ceremony, and ritual. My reluctance to wear it is my subconscious agreement with some sects of the Protestant church that these practices and things truly are unnecessary ornaments on one's faith, a belief reflected at least in part by the Puritan tradition that opposed outward adornment and ceremony.

Perhaps the seeds of this rejection of image were planted during the Protestant Reformation, during which Martin Luther publicly endorsed the belief that men were justified through faith by Christ alone. While Luther didn't necessarily oppose iconography, he didn't approve of it, either:
"Images, bells, eucharistic vestments, church ornaments, altar lights, and the like I regard as things indifferent. Anyone who wishes may omit them. Images or pictures taken from the Scriptures and from good histories, however, I consider very useful yet indifferent and optional. I have no sympathy with the iconoclasts" (1).
One can see the results of this stance today. Enter even large Protestant churches, and you will find surroundings much simpler than large Catholic churches, which may include stained glass, statues, and engraved images of Church fathers and history. When I visited a Mormon church to see Gladys Knight perform, I noticed on the inside of the church what I had always seen on the outside: simplicity. Inside was a very plain gymnasium with no visible symbolism. It was similar to, though more extreme than, what I have seen in my own church and in the other Protestant churches I've visited.

This visual simplicity may represent a focus on inward conversion, but it does not mean Protestants don't use visual symbol. One blogger noted the use of banners and PowerPoint as contemporary examples of Protestant icon (2). Still, there is an inherent rebellion against traditional iconography in the Protestant church that goes back to at least the Puritans, among others (3). One could argue, too, that this lack of visual display is itself a visual display. In relation to a different kind of rebellion-- a feminist rebellion against cosmetics-- Angela Carter argued as much when she said that the popular choice of women in the 1960s to go without makeup simply afforded them a different kind of mask (4). If the visual simplicity of Protestant churches are another form of display, however, the observer can know that such display had its source in a rebellion, one that influences us even today.

1. Dillenbueger, John. Images and Relics: Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pg. 92.
2. http://joshjcollins.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/protestant-iconography/
3. You may be interested in reading about the "high" and "low" church movements, the latter of which deemphasized outward adornment and ceremony in worship services.
4. Carter, Angela. "The Wound in the Face," from Nothing Sacred by Angela Carter. Found in One Hundred Great Essays, edited by Robert Diyanni. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2011.

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