Saturday, May 16, 2009

Our iconography sucks these days

One of South Dakota's liberal bloggers takes Christians to task for their support of Miss California USA. Yeah, he's snarky, but he makes a point worth considering - why in the world are Christians using a sexually provocative model as their icon of sexual morality?

He doesn't get by without a conservative blogger's strong critique. Nevertheless, I think his point has merit.

People of all positions pull in these media figures as icons today. An icon, in the Orthodox Christian tradition, is an image through which one can gaze toward divine reality.

But most entertainment figures are images through which one can gaze to see - pretty much nothing. How do you get from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Perez Hilton? How do you get from Mother Teresa to Miss California?

And you folks in Minnesota, please... you didn't have any liberals with more substance than Al Franken?

'Nuff said. We are the ones who vote for/internet search for/obsess over these media types.

3 comments:

caheidelberger said...

Thanks for considering the point. I look forward to hearing more perspective from Christians on this issue.

Alice C. Linsley said...

This speaks to how removed from the biblical worldview many Christians have become. Why are we fans of celebrities in the first place? Their lives and their witness (if they are Christians) is compromised by the secular culture. Instead we should look to the saints as heroes and heroines. Those who refused to compromise; confessors, prophets, martyrs, bishops, monks, holy women, etc.

TLF+ said...

Paul seems to have had the same problem in Corinth, Alice. He contrasts the suffering of sincere apostles with the "super apostles" who come in and dazzle the people:

In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. II Cor. 11:20