Icon or Iconoclast?

ISLAND IMPRESSIONS

BY FR. TOM PURDY, RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH

Back in August I had an opportunity to participate in a workshop that taught me how to paint a religious icon. Some people call it “writing” an icon, but both terms are correct. Any rate, I spent afternoons for an entire week working on an icon of John the Baptist with an instructor who led a workshop in my parish. I have never done that sort of thing before, and in fact haven’t really used a paintbrush since I was in school for any kind of art. I really enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to finish it during the week while the instructor was on St. Simons.

Fortunately, there is a group that has formed in my parish that meets weekly to work on painting icons, so I’ve been able to keep whittling away at the icon, getting it ever nearer to completion. Because of all this work with icons, I’ve been thinking a lot about them. Icons, as religious paintings, are an Eastern Christian tradition that have been part of religious devotion since the earliest days of Christianity. Many of the ancient images were destroyed in the first millennium when the church argued about the appropriate use of such images. What was allowed depended on who was in power. When those who did not like icons held power, countless images were forever destroyed.

To this day, people struggle to make sense of how an icon is to be used, with some holding the mistaken belief that we pray to the icon. In the Christian faith, an icon bears the image of an important figure in the church’s tradition. The image is meant as a devotional tool to aid one in their prayer, not to be the subject of it. People often sit with icons of persons who hold meaning in their spiritual life, such as Jesus (the most common figure for an icon), the Virgin Mary, or a patron saint associated with their vocation or calling in life. During a previous workshop at the church, a group had painted an icon of Saint Simon, the patron saint of our little island. The term icon when removed from the context of religious tradition, has a different, yet somewhat similar, meaning in modern culture. To call someone an icon often means that they are an exemplar in their field. We might look at a highly respected and successful business person or an innovative technological inventor and talk about how they are iconic. All too often the contemporary humans that rise to the level of icon are subject to a form of worship as well. Not necessarily because we consider them divine, but because they are revered with a devotion that borders on worship. Apple fans, for example, had a very elevated view of that company’s figurehead, Steve Jobs. An entertainer who defines their genre can take on almost mythical status, like Elvis Presley, or John Lennon. Just like with religious icons, these cultural icons symbolize something greater than what is on the surface, and also signify something important in our world.

The great danger is when we assign iconic status to someone who is not good for human progress or for positive growth and the development of society. We live in a time where the individuals we identify as icons, and the pseudo-worship of them that follows, can threaten some of the fundamental assumptions about what the goodness and greatness of humanity has always aspired to. That’s not to say that the saints in our painted icons were perfect, but our ability to overlook the great imperfections of some modern-day icons is frightening.

Ironically, some of these people currently raised to iconic status in the modern era might more appropriately be labelled iconoclasts, the term used to describe the people who destroyed religious icons because they did not like them and what they represented. Many of these modern day “icons” are actually destroying cherished beliefs and institutions, rather than building them up and strengthening them. We must pay very close attention to the images and the personalities we are tempted to worship. We should look carefully at our icons, religious and otherwise, as we might look in a mirror to see what they tell us about ourselves, where they challenge us to be better, and where we fall short. If we worship the wrong type of icon, it could prove to be disastrous, not only for us, but for many others. History often sorts out who should remain an icon worthy of devotion, yet we can’t always wait that long to find out.

John the Baptist remains an icon because he pointed toward the greatness of humanity. If only we could say that all our modern-day icons also point us in that same general direction.