cole@maverick.uswest.com (Cole Keirsey) (04/18/91)
[This continues a discussion of the proprietary of using images to worship God. Larry Overacker, speaking from a perspective that values the use of imagery, said >I have a great deal of respect for those people who, in good >conscience, choose to avoid images. My view is that worship is to >be a total human experience... --clh] I can't criticize people who worship God through images or rituals. The danger is, as others have pointed out, that people can loose track of the spiritual significance of the symbols. But I see this danger in my life as a facet of a more general problem: living in human sensory and intellectual experience rather than in my relationship to God. I tend to forget that "God has made us, and not we ourselves." My experience and reason don't necessarily deny God, but I see Him only "through a glass darkly." Although my church avoids images and rituals, I've found myself facing the problem described above in another form. I was caught up in the reason and logic of Christian thinkers, but was sometimes missing the heart of what they are reasoning about. It was, I think, a breakthrough for me to realize that you can't reason your way into faith. This doesn't mean that I reject reason -- I think it is a gift from God. I think that I should use reason as best I can to the glory of God. But I now think that human reason is inherently limited, and can't encompass God. (This doesn't imply that everything unreasonable is Godly.) I see images and rituals the same way: they are limited human artifacts that can be used to glorify God. The danger in them, that they can be used without faith, is a danger inherent in all human experience. I generally choose "the way of rejection of images." But, when I visit a church that uses images and rituals in its worship, I don't necessarily feel that I or the congregation is doing anything wrong. It's not my place to judge another's faith by the way they worship any more than by the quality of their reasoning. On the other hand, if someone uses reason to deny God, or uses bad reasoning to try to affirm something about God, I'm likely to speak up. By the same token, if a form of worship symbolizes something that I think is wrong, or if I don't know what the symbols refer to, I won't participate. I agree that my worship should involve my whole being -- that I should love God with all my heart and soul and strength. I'm not convinced that my sensory experience represents my whole being as God sees me. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. . ." (I John) C. C. Keirsey