1. I think over the course of this conversation, the terms icon, symbol, stereotype and archetype have been juggled to such a degree that they’ve become interchangeable. I understand the need for brevity, and such shorthand can certainly accomplish this, but the conversation begins to fall apart when different words are treated as total synonyms. An icon is a sign or representation that points to an object by resemblance or analogy to it. The file folder on my computer is represented by an icon of a file. Icons of Mary look like the popular portrayal of Mary. Batman’s icon is a bat. When we say something is iconic, we’re talking about something that embodies a larger group by managing to represent and resemble that larger group. Darth Vader’s helmet is an iconic image for the evil Empire because he is both a product of it and a producer of it.

     Archetypes and stereotypes are not only positive and negative sides of the same coin, they’re also true and false sides of that coin. An archetype is someone who rightfully embodies the most identifiable characteristics of a larger group. Superman is the archetype of crime-fighters, not because all crime-fighters can fly and wear a cape, but because he is the fullest realization of fighting crime. Stereotypes, on the other hand, are less about negative qualities, but about the unfair representation of a group by a single member or smaller segment of that group. In this case, you’re talking about broad, untrue generalizations: young people are all lazy, Christians are all judgmental, superheroes wear spandex. It’s the difference between Uncle Sam being an archetype of an American, and George W. Bush being a stereotype of all Americans.

     “We Protestants have scrubbed our religious culture of obvious icons, but have become tone-deaf to the meaning and power of the iconic images we’ve gathered to fill that void, many of which send incoherent messages or clash with one another because they’ve been adopted without much thought.”

    This, I think, is the problem. Not only have we scrubbed our culture from icons, but symbolism as a whole. A long while back, I read a blog entry that blamed Marburg for the lack of imagination in Christianity. The idea of transubstantiation, namely that Jesus can be our Lord’s Supper, and not just in it, or represented by it, broke down the Christians ability to reckon something greater than something they can hold in their hand. To early Catholics, there was this trans-existential tie between communion and Christ. Protestant fundamentalism has determined (perhaps because of our insistence on hyper-literal biblical interpretation) that everything must be taken at face value, with a one-to-one ratio. 

    I was recently amused to see a Catholic activist, posting on a Protestant ministry’s page, who accused Christians of worshiping Scripture.  
     
    I’m not sure that’s entirely unfair. Sometimes it seems that Christians try to use the bible as a contract, holding God to what he can and cannot do. Many make a case for or against some doctrine or promise of God, ignoring the context or meaning of the verse, in favor of what a particular translation or interpretation state.

     If we throw out the Gnostic/Pelagian notions that it is our corrupted world, and not our evil hearts, that result in sin…

    Again, shorthand is fine if you’re trying to achieve brevity, but only Gnosticism applies here. Pelagianism would say that worshiping an icon is the result of a sinful choice, not a sinful world.

    While I would quite rightly treat them with respect for who and what they represent, it would be a much different thing to take any of those objects and say of them, as the Israelites did of the golden calf, “This is the God who brought me out of captivity into the Promised Land.”  

    And here’s where the problem lies, not in icons, but in idols. The calf was an idol that shared the name of God, but pointed to itself, rather than to Jehovah. Icons should point outward or upward. Idols point only to themselves. When we begin to treat an icon as an idol, we have our problem.

    • Fred Warren says:

      I think over the course of this conversation, the terms icon, symbol, stereotype and archetype have been juggled to such a degree that they’ve become interchangeable.

      You’re right, Jeremy. And as hard as we try to maintain a distinction among these terms, we still manage to muddle them. This is a messy conversation, and that’s part of the reason we decided to just tack it up here as a conversation rather than a series of essays, lest we give the impression that we’ve got this all figured out.

      And here’s where the problem lies, not in icons, but in idols.

      Right again. The last thing we want is for this to devolve into “icons good” vs. “icons bad.” It’s more like, “icons are,” and the larger question is how we take that knowledge and use it to communicate better when writing and understand better when reading or watching.

      • This is a messy conversation, and that’s part of the reason we decided to just tack it up here as a conversation rather than a series of essays, lest we give the impression that we’ve got this all figured out.

        I understand and respect that. Consider this my contribution to the conversation. 🙂

         …the larger question is how we take that knowledge and use it to communicate better when writing…

        Absolutely. And just as a veterinarian learns to treat  dogs and cats separately, or even different breeds of dogs separately, and not lump them all in as fuzzy four-legged thingies, we must differentiate between all these different types of representations, or else we may mistake an successfully portrayed archetype for a stereotype. We might accidentally interpret an homage as an icon. 

  2. Galadriel says:

    I like how this ties in with what Madeline L’Engle says about icons in Walking on Water. The icon is an idealization, not an actual. And the picture of the pilot in WWII actually helps clarify it a lot.

What do you think?