Pictures of God

Well, I recieved an email to bring me out of my funk.

It was a question on my other blog, footnoted as Bubba's Bible Blog below. (Hey that is a four word alliteration...yippee).

The person asked me about the use of images of God in worship. Below is why somewhat all over the place respons:

There are many people who believe that any image of God is a graven image, and thus a violation of the Second Commandment. For a very thorough explaination of this idea I would go to the library and read a book by J. I. Packer called Knowing God.

Basically the idea of this point of view is that when you have a picture of Jesus you have an image of God which limits a persons perspective about what God is like. For instance, look at all these renaissance pictures of Jesus. What do they look like? A white, upper-class bisexual male of the time. Which is what several of the renaissance painters were (well, I dont know everything about their sexual orientation but that was a part of the renaissance recovery of ancient Greek and Roman culture) By nature some might think, any picture of God becomes exclusionary and an instrument of power. For instance, they had this negative space Jesus statue at my seminary, and his biceps were about the size of his head. Thus, the ideal Jesus in this statue looked more like a body builder. The only image I have to relate to is the happy Buddha! HA!

On the other hand, as Arisotle said, "the soul never thinks without a picture". As you read Scripture, you see that God puts all kinds of pictures of himself in our heads. He is bread, he is light, he is a rock, he is a warrior, he is giving birth (John 3), he is a parent, he is a servant, he is a shepherd. Heck there are even a few female images of God in the Bible.

Anyway....it seems to me that we can't help but having images of God in our mind. But it seems important for us to realize that all images and pictures of God are limited. Jesus is not still dead on the cross, he is risen...so even a silver crucifix has limitations. So I believe it is ok, and even helpful, to have pictures of Jesus that speak to us. But we need to keep the following things in mind. In summary:

1.) Images of Jesus are often created to let us know that Jesus is close to us and can identify with us. They should be used for this purpose, but in the back of our mind we should keep in mind nobody has a market on what Jesus looked like. There is a reason he did not pose for portraits.

2.) We should try to cultivate images of God that are also apart from us, different from us, so that we do not get stuck worshipping ourselves and people like us.

3.) We should not worship the images, but allow them to be a vehicle for worship.

4.) If a particular image of Christ allows you to grow spiritually, then use it. Ask, is this making me more loving, more peaceful, etc. (does it produce the fruit of the Spirit)

My particular preference as far a personal images of God goes, with the exception of the $1 Walmart Jesus candles and the Bobble head Jesus stuff I have, is to worship him in ways that display his attributes more than a human image. Although this giant statue of light on SCRIPTURE SNIPPETS that I saw with open arms did speak to me of God's love.

What do the rest of you all believe and think about this?