Donn Johnson has a fascinating post entitled "Shrine?" prompted by his reflections while on vacation in France. Here is my response:
Amen. The Orthodox understand this shift of time and space and foster it via liturgy and iconostasis. Catholics do it through liturgy, eucharist and (supremely!) their philosophy, art and architecture.
What is fascinating to me is that fact that these traditions are not nominalist in their theological presuppositions. This means that participation of particulars in universals is part and parcel of their life and worship. IMO they are better able to be authentically trinitarian as a result. You might say that the centrifugal ("particular," "different") and centripital ("universal," "unity") forces are balanced.
We Protestants, however, were born Nominalists and have been struggling ever since. We are not characterized by "participation," but by division. Centrifugal forces outweigh centripetal ones.
Incarnation therefore becomes difficult for us, and we are constantly tempted to fly off, either to a gnosticism which holds the spiritual as more "real" than the material, or to a social gospel which holds the material to be more real than the spiritual. Either way, "shrine" becomes unnecessary or even pernicious.
It is no accident that Protestantism tends to produce musicians more than artists or architects!
Amen. The Orthodox understand this shift of time and space and foster it via liturgy and iconostasis. Catholics do it through liturgy, eucharist and (supremely!) their philosophy, art and architecture.
What is fascinating to me is that fact that these traditions are not nominalist in their theological presuppositions. This means that participation of particulars in universals is part and parcel of their life and worship. IMO they are better able to be authentically trinitarian as a result. You might say that the centrifugal ("particular," "different") and centripital ("universal," "unity") forces are balanced.
We Protestants, however, were born Nominalists and have been struggling ever since. We are not characterized by "participation," but by division. Centrifugal forces outweigh centripetal ones.
Incarnation therefore becomes difficult for us, and we are constantly tempted to fly off, either to a gnosticism which holds the spiritual as more "real" than the material, or to a social gospel which holds the material to be more real than the spiritual. Either way, "shrine" becomes unnecessary or even pernicious.
It is no accident that Protestantism tends to produce musicians more than artists or architects!
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