https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=l2xTHd9YJpw
What are icons, not just as in their pictures, but what are they at a deeper level and what do they communicate about the religious communities that use them? Well, for the first thing you could say about the icon is that it’s a tribute to the incarnation, in the sense that it’s a token of the incarnation. There was a big conflict in the church about iconography, and to the conclusion to which it came was that we need to be able to represent Christ, because to not represent his image is to deny an aspect of his incarnation. And so the image, it’s kind of like the image of God and man was restored in Christ, and so we participate in that through imagery. That’s, let’s say, the theological justification for it. But then in terms of how it actually participates in the life of the church, it becomes a visual way of representing the analogies, the typology. All of these structures that are there in scripture then appear in visual forms in the iconography. And the iconography is also not just on its own, but it’s related to architecture. And so the spatial image is also represented in the church, so different parts of the church will take on different images. And so what it really becomes is like a cosmic language, visual language of Christianity. And one of the ways in which the church kind of participates and celebrates God is now through these images, which show us Christ, which show us the Mother of God, the saints worshipping God. And so there’s this kind of this whole process in which we’re kind of gathered in with all these stories and with all these saints into our worship of God. That’s really interesting. And I like the language you used there, and it’s very in line with your work, of this cosmic imagery. And it reminded me of the Russian emissaries that were sent to kind of find that story of going to Hagia Sophia, not knowing if they were in heaven or on earth. And it really does communicate something. I knew the first time I went into an Orthodox church, you feel like you’re in a very different space. And you mentioned that you were an artist, but you weren’t sure how this was going to meld with your evangelical faith. When you were able to put those things together inside orthodoxy, what did that do for you as an artist and as a follower of Jesus? And how was that synthesis just on a personal level? It was very transformative, I would say, not just as an artist, but as a person. Because one of the problems, let’s say the fragmentation that I was feeling or the schism that I was feeling in terms of my faith and art and also the contemporary world, ended up being more of a cosmic question or a question of worldviews, let’s say. So what I found in discovering traditional art and this language, you could say, that’s not just in visuals, but it’s also there in the hymns and in the liturgical year, this whole dance, you could say, this whole liturgical dance of Christianity really helped me enter into a worldview. You could say it feels like a lot of modern Christians, they have a materialist worldview basically, and on top of this materialist worldview, they kind of slap on a story of God who became man and was crucified on the cross. And sometimes that doesn’t jive together very well. Whereas what I was discovering in the art and in this whole, let’s say, this whole way of living was a way for Christianity to become the lens by which I look at the world, rather than putting on a story on top of a scientific materialist lens. So, I mean, you talk about how when you became Orthodox and you were able to have this synthesis and the way it really transformed your worldview, but what’s on the flip side of that is what are communities losing when they kind of deny imagery or icons in these ways? I mean, throughout history, we’ve seen iconoclastic movements. And I think for some people, looking back, seeing the amount of just tension that was around these scenarios might seem like there was this much tension over church decor. But there’s more going on here. And so what is at stake? I think what’s at stake, at least from the traditional point of view, what’s at stake is the fullness of the incarnation. Because usually the reason why people oppose iconography is because of the Second Commandment, which is somewhat understandable because it says, don’t make images and don’t worship them and don’t bow down before them. And the Orthodox, we do bow down before images. And so the question is, what’s going on there? Like, why is this happening? And the way to really understand it is to understand that the incarnation is an answer to the Second Commandment. Once we see that all of scripture is speaking about Christ ultimately, that the reason for every law, for everything in scripture is Christ, then we understand, we can kind of start to perceive that the reason why there was this commandment was actually bringing us towards Christ. And so then once we have the incarnation, once we have the image of God in man restored and the image of God appearing before the Apostles, then it becomes like a celebration. And so that’s, I think, is one of the things you could say is missing, is this kind of celebratory aspect of how we’re all participating together in this kind of cosmic movement up towards God. And that’s what ends up happening in modern type of Christianity that tend to want to eliminate all ritual, eliminate all imagery, eliminate anything which is formal because they feel like it becomes an idol. From the traditional point of view, it rather becomes a celebration. It’s like the entire creation now is coming together and celebrating this new world that Christ has inaugurated. And so I think that that’s what ends up being missing, is that you could say it this way, is that you’re going to celebrate no matter what. And you’re going to have patterns in your life no matter what. So if those patterns aren’t based on your worship of God, if you don’t follow the liturgical year, if you don’t have these images that you celebrate, you’re going to end up with advertisement. You’re going to end up with, you know, like going shopping on Saturday. Those will be the things that will punctuate your days and punctuate your time and punctuate space. But they won’t be related to how we’re together in worship. So it’s like you can’t avoid it. It’s just you can’t avoid celebrating. It’s just depending on what you’re going to, it’s going to dictate what you’re going to celebrate, let’s say. Yeah, that’s a good way of putting that. And I really enjoyed the way that you described kind of the relationship to the incarnation. I imagine this harkens back to your previous comments as well about kind of this materialistic view of when we get rid of images, maybe we’re kind of denying even our own embodiment in some ways there. You