I've been thinking recently about the differences in words and images, and especially how those differences should affect the form of our gathered worship. I guess the first question one should ask is, are there any differences between word and image or does the hard and fast distinction made between the two only serve to confuse the matter? The last several recordings of the White Horse Inn have made me ask that question.
For instance, we can observe the obvious difference between one of the words of this post and say, the image created by John Howe, which I have on the right column under the category called "pics i like". One might go so far as to say that one is a "word" and the other is an "image". But what about when a word is made to look like an image, such as the way "Google" illustrates the title of their web page on holidays and other nationally recognized days? At what point does the word "Google" stop being a word and become an image? My point is this, it is a false dichotomy; I don't believe we should look at the two categories as being mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe it is correct to say that every written word IS an image. Just consider the way written languages developed. Cuneiform, the written version of the language of ancient Mesopotamia, is generally regarded as the first, and what was it but a collection of pictorial representations of sounds, ideas, people, places, things, and their actions? And later "Italic" languages, from which English and many other languages were derived, are the same way—our alphabets are pictorial representations of minor sounds in our spoken languages which can be combined to form words in which we have invested meanings so we can communicate our thoughts to one another.
So how does this address the forms with which we choose to worship God as a gathered people? There may be a word verses image element that divides groups in what has sadly been named the "Worship Wars". Though most individuals, even those thoughtfully involved in that debate, would not categorize their philosophy of their form of worship as either word based or image based, and it is very likely that most are a combination of the two (assuming the distinction I'm attempting to vilify) most of our practices can be judged against that spectrum—a spectrum that ranges from the simplest form of lettering to the most sophisticated form of video. Though I lean toward the "word" based form of worship—centered around the reading and preaching of God's Word—I believe those of us who do so, need to realize our own dependence on images: the Word of God itself is a collection of images that expresses His revelation (though the focus in our gathered worship is not on the presentation of their visual character) and the visual representation of the gospel—the elements of the Lord's Supper.
In an attenpt to attract warm bodies, many pastors or "worship committees" have neglected the God ordained means of preaching in favor of dramas (ones other than the Lord's Supper) and dialogs, and have traded any litergal elements for light shows and laser beams; they have traded exposition for the extravagant. Don't get me wrong, I am for a variety of styles in musical presentation as long as they are tempered with excellence and framed in solid theology, but the above criticism doesn't just fall on labrynth walking, incense wafting, candle lighting emergent types (who have traded their father's form of seeker-sensitivity for their own sort), but also on much of mainstream Evangelicalism. Robert Norris, of Westminster Seminary California put it something like this, "...the Word creates its own audience."
