Did the reformers wage war on the illiterate?

I'm reading the book Emerging Churches by Gibbs and Bolger and came across the following quote on page 70.

The Reformation was born in a literary age, and it is difficult to imagine its occurrence without the prior existence of the printing press.  The Protestant church itself was a contextualization to print culture, a new form of church created for those who built their worlds around the printed page.  In one way, it was the newly literate class waging war on the illiterate, as images were often the only way for the illiterate to understand the gospel.  Thus, stained glass, symbols, and the teaching of story came under deep suspicion.  With a focus on the logically prepared preached Word, worship became abstract, and the listeners now needed to imagine what they previously had seen with their eyes.  Even the worship music was strongly text based, as the words, not the entire experience, carried the meaning.  As Martin Luther said, "The ears are the only organ for the Christian."  Everything became highly structured, abstract, printed. The print era mirrors the modern era, and one can argue which came first.

Those who know me well can probably guess that this quote didn't make me feel all warm and tingly inside, and your guess would be correct in this case.

This scenario proposes that there is an elite class (the literati, linked here with the Protestants) oppressing a lower class, i.e. "waging war on the illiterate."

It seems to me that a more truthful picture is that the medieval Roman church fit the bill of the elite, literate class, which kept the lower classes in an illiterate condition and that this elite class was able to manipulate and control the lower classes through their image based system.

Dennis McCallum has a great paper at the Xenos website on the objectification of religion, which dovetails nicely with this discussion on image based vs. text based cultures.

McCallum defines objectification this way:

Objectification of religion is one of the most interesting tendencies demonstrated by religious people. It is also one of the most universal features of religion. As Norbeck observes,

"Great religions have indeed arisen as ethical or philosophical principles for the guidance of man, but once they have become the province of multitudes...they have met a common fate of objectification; that is, of being cast into concrete form so that they may be actively appreciated by the eyes, ears, or other sense organs rather than remaining only abstract ideas and beliefs."

And again, 

"Objectification in varying degree and form appears in all known religious complexes of primitive peoples and it has been outstanding in the religions of civilized societies."

McCallum explores several theories that claim to account for this practice of objectification. One theory is that the "unwashed masses" are unable to comprehend the abstract, a theory he ably refutes here:

What then should we conclude regarding the "unresponsiveness to the abstract" thesis advanced by Norbeck, Davies and Warnac? To this I answer that, in my view, such an explanation is suspect. It is too easy to assert that the "great unwashed masses" are not as smart as we are. On the contrary, there is frequent response to the abstract on the part of common folk both now, and at various times throughout history. The New Testament is very lean on objectification, and long on abstract truths. Yet, the authors address their letters to the rank and file of the church, not just to the leadership. Also, substantial history in the Christian church demonstrates that this kind of thinking has led to the disenfranchisement of the laity from ministry, and from access to the Scriptures. The thinking that says, "They can't understand the Scriptures, so let us give them a picture of Jesus to relate to..." is foreign to the New Testament.

This position was taken by the leadership in the early church, either because it was the easy way out, (in that it spared the clergy from the burden of educating their people) or as Brow, Schmidt, and Richardson claim, because it led to personal gain on the part of a corrupt clergy.

The latter position cannot be ruled out, in my view, by anyone who believes in the biblical doctrine of the depravity of all mankind. Behavior that benefits oneself is always tempting, and anyone who has experience in church ministry knows the urge to take over and "do it myself."

In truth, the Protestants fostered literacy and enabled these "unwashed masses" to break free from their literate masters who had controlled them with images.

In saying this I am not defending some of the anti-art excesses of the Protestant reformation.  You would not have to work very hard to convince me that Protestants have denigrated the image and have failed to give art it's proper place in the Kingdom. 

Yet it seems to me that Gibbs and Bolger have things exactly in reverse here.  A text based culture puts the Word of God in the hands of the people.  An image based culture puts an intermediary - the image - between the individual and the Word of God.  Thus, the individual will always be at the mercy of the (image making) interpreter of the Word.

I don't object to Gibbs and Bolger's (or the emerging church's) attempt at re-valuing the image, I object to their de-valuing of the text and their uncritical accommodation to postmodern sensibilities regarding the image.

I want to suggest that it would be a fruitful discussion for the emerging church, and all of us, to consider how a return to an image based culture may lead "to the disenfranchisement of the laity from ministry, and from access to the Scriptures" to quote McCallum.

If we don't yet know what the emerging culture is going to emerge into, it seems we ought to at least consider that, if it emerges into an image based culture, it may also emerge into something like McCallum has described.  There could be some unintended consequences here where the emerging church emerges later into something it abhors now.

And, I could be completely off my rocker on all of this - so I'm interested in hearing your responses.

Technorati tags: Religion, theology, Christian, Christianity, church, emerging church, image, images, art, protestant, protestantism, reformation, literacy, illiteracy

Comments

[iMonk]

I join you in your concern, but is it fair to say "the emerging church" repeatedly, as if these guys spoke in some official capacity for a group that no one could every get into a picture? :-)

[Nicholas Cardot]

I agree. The Roman Church disallowed many to learn to read and study the Bible for themselves. They were the ones who held the iliterate as pawns. The protestants took the sides of those who could not have the Bible or read and began to try to teach them.

[Melchizedek]

Different forms of media do have an effect on us. The whole discussion really reminds me of Shane Hipps' "The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture," which I highly recommend.

[Jon Bartlett]

Would it be fairer to say that poewer moved from one elite to another? Certainly in western Europe, the Protestant church has always been the bastion of the literate middle classes - you know, the sort of people who read blogs!

[Jon Bartlett]

Would it be fairer to say that poewer moved from one elite to another? Certainly in western Europe, the Protestant church has always been the bastion of the literate middle classes - you know, the sort of people who read blogs!

[WTM]

I appreciate your thoughts. I have nothing against visual aspects of worship or Christian life, but it seems that these days people are forgetting that "No one has ever seen God" and that "Faith comes by hearing the Word of God."

[David Wayne]

Monk - good point and tanks for bringing it up. I realize that Gibbs and Bolger aren't the official spokesmen or anything and that "emerging church" is a very imprecise thing - just hoping to interject a thought into the broader conversation.

And Jon - your point is well taken. It's probably good to add a qualifier to what I said to point out that a text based culture in and of itself won't end the lust for power.

[cavman]

iMonk,
While I agree that we can't lump all 'the emerging church' together (akin to lumping all evangelicals together which is what SOME emergent leaders do), we do find that often many emerging poster children are totally anti-modern and fail to recognize the good aspects of modernism as well as the bad aspects of post-modernism (God is the Lord of history & culture so there are positives & negatives to every culture).
This quote David uses illustrates that, for it fails to take into account the historical context in which the masses were totally disenfranchised from the church due to illiteracy & the fact that Mass was in Latin. Worship was 'experience' not because it was largely intelligible, but largely sound & image based w/out interpretation.
Jon, to say that the Reformers were trying to 'lord it over' the people is quite unfair. Did some? Sure, since all of us are sinners. Most of the Reformers were trying to liberate the people from pre-modernistic Roman Catholic dominion (just as some emerging leaders want to set the lay people from from modernism-captive models of ministry & ministers). Some emerging/emergent leaders are just as power hungry as some modern/traditional/church growth leaders.

[anon e. mus]

It looks like someone already beat me to it, but i simply wanted to point out that the Scriptures declare that "Faith comes through HEARING the word of Christ." Indeed, the "unwashed masses" may not have been able to read, but certainly they could hear and meditate (memorize) upon what they heard. So it seems that Images vs. Text if a false dilemma.

[joel hunter]

Symbolic images propose and assert just as truly as the verbal/written. It's not a question of whether "re-valuing" the image devalues the text (as if there were a zero-sum dichotomy); an image is a text. The main question seems to me: do they point to Christ? Lucas Cranach painted http://synodresourcecenter.org/theo/Reformation_Images/0001/Reformation-Pages/Image13.html>the altarpiece for the Wittenberg church which shows Christ on the cross with Luther pointing to Him as he preaches.

I think we tend to be rather anachronistic in our understanding of the late medieval-renaissance period in Europe. Isn't it unreasonable to blame the Roman Catholic church for widespread illiteracy given that the material conditions for widespread literacy (and thus the concept of universal education) wasn't possible until the printing press had been invented and reproduced? It seems to me that stained glass windows showing the beatitudes or the stations of the cross or OT types of Christ is an excellent pedagogical tool in the absence of such means. Now, I'm not sure that I'm agreeing with Gibbs and Bolger since I haven't read their book, but on this minor point at least, I think they are sound. On the assertion that the verbal/written is "abstract" (vs. the "concrete" image) I remain unmoved. I'm just not sure that that's going to be much help in advancing their thesis.

One more small quibble: just because most of us can't follow the Latin mass doesn't mean the common person in the 14th century couldn't. I'm not saying they all did; I'm just saying it's probably an unwarranted assumption akin to Lewis' chronological snobbery.

Oh, and this pericope is really front-loaded with Platonic and Lockean assumptions that I would happily challenge: A text based culture puts the Word of God in the hands of the people. An image based culture puts an intermediary - the image - between the individual and the Word of God. Thus, the individual will always be at the mercy of the (image making) interpreter of the Word.

Are you really committed to what you're asserting here? That the written text is the unmediated Word of God? Or the spoken text? Language must be understood in order for meaning to be grasped. That implies that interpretation is inevitable. What we bring to the written or spoken text is always intermediate; the presentation of the text to us is always intermediate. The hermeneutical circle (or spiral) is inescapable. An image is no different; it's a text, too. Whether it is the Word seen or heard, it must be interpreted to be understood.

One of the benefits of greater literacy is surely the correction of excessive veneration of images and objects such as relics. Most of the magisterial reformers accepted the use of images if they were aids to the faith, edifying in their message, and honoring to the Lord. The problem prior to the Reformation wasn't the creation and presence of symbolic images in churches; it was the failure to distinguish between the symbol and the thing symbolized, or in iconography, forgetting that the icon became an idol if it did not point you beyond the material image itself. But a lot has changed since then, and especially in the last 150 years. It used to be in the mid to late 1800s that a bare cross, or anything that even resembled a cross (such as a trefoil) was as unthinkable in a Protestant church or chapel as a crucifix was (and mostly still is). The common person today is not likely to worship the symbol itself, knowing that the symbol stands for something else and has no magical power of its own. The reintroduction of images into Protestant churches is, imo, simply a reflection of historical change and development that Protestants themselves are largely responsible for bringing to pass. (However: this is not to say that symbolic images are divested of all power. One need only consider the power of the merchandise logo in our society.)

Greater biblical literacy supports this movement. It is quite clear that God did not forbid the making of images to be used in the context of worship (iconoclasts tend to misapply Exodus 20:4), for He often commanded their creation (mercy seat, priestly vestments, fiery serpent, etc.). He did clearly forbid the worshipping of any image as a god. Again, the matter of the logo: today, the cultural significance of the Nike swoosh should concern us much more than a crucifix.

I'm not sure how anything "emerging" is relevant to these considerations. My own hesitance would be the use of televisual images, for these import a raft of cognitive and ethical questions, mainly concerning the uncritical importation of technophilic and consumerist culture into the communion of saints. Sorry this comment violates standards of decency regarding length, so for further consideration, perhaps see Koerner's http://www.amazon.com/Reformation-Image-Joseph-Leo-Koerner/dp/0226450066/sr=1-1/qid=1162528632/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9556938-2915026?ie=UTF8&s=books>The Reformation of the Image.

[Joel]

"One more small quibble: just because most of us can't follow the Latin mass doesn't mean the common person in the 14th century couldn't. I'm not saying they all did; I'm just saying it's probably an unwarranted assumption akin to Lewis' chronological snobbery."

This is an excellent point. If you eat in a Mexican restaurant every day of your life, you'll know what the menu items are even if you can't speak any other Spanish.

Also, since every parish had a literate person available to explain the meaning of the Bible, it's a huge stretch to assume that just because the ordinary person couldn't read, he was ignorant of the Bible.

[Keith]

"A text based culture puts the Word of God in the hands of the people. An image based culture puts an intermediary - the image - between the individual and the Word of God. Thus, the individual will always be at the mercy of the (image making) interpreter of the Word."

A couple of thoughts, for what they're worth:

The "waging war on the illliterate" part of the quote doesn't seem to me to be the main thrust of what the authors were trying to say. That quote seems to me to be a bit of overstatement in the midst of what otherwise is a pretty valid point: the Reformation played down "the image" to the point that worship became "abstract" and intellectual rather than concrete and holistic. That seems to me to be a pretty valid point, if an overstated one.

But a similar overstatement is made by McCallum in this quote that an image-based culture will lead to "the disenfranchisement of the laity from ministry, and from access to the Scriptures." Seriously? That's practically saying that worship which engages all five senses would be "waging war" on Christians and their Bible. That seems to me to be the same kind of exaggeration that Gibbs and Bolger are engaging in.

As for the quote above, it seems like the authors of the quote are making the same kind of point that you're making, but that the object of the quote is different. They see the Reformers and their text-based worship as standing as intermediaries between God and the people, just like you see the image standing as an intermediary between the people and the Bible. Note the difference: they're worried about intermediaries between the people and God, and you're worried about intermediaries between the people and the Word of God.

If the goal is to get people into contact with the Word of God, full stop, then that you would probably have the better case. But is that really the goal? To me, that seems to be missing the forest for the trees. The goal is God himself, and the Bible directs people to Him. If God is the goal, then the image could possibly serve in the same kind of intermediary role as scripture does inasmuch as it does not conflict with it.

[Buddy from Columbus]

love to see Xenos get noticed even though they are not reformed

[Andrew Chapman]

Did God give us a picture book or a word book? Surely the second of the ten commandments give us reason to prefer words to images in the proclamation of the gospel.