Image and Presence: A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia (Encountering Traditions) - Hardcover

Carnes, Natalie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1503600343 ISBN 13: 9781503600348

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Images increasingly saturate our world, making present to us what is distant or obscure. Yet the power of images also arises from what they do not make present―from a type of absence they do not dispel. Joining a growing multidisciplinary conversation that rejects an understanding of images as lifeless objects, this book offers a theological meditation on the ways images convey presence into our world. Just as Christ negates himself in order to manifest the invisible God, images, Natalie Carnes contends, negate themselves to give more than they literally or materially are. Her Christological reflections bring iconoclasm and iconophilia into productive relation, suggesting that they need not oppose one another.

Investigating such images as the biblical golden calf and paintings of the Virgin Mary, Carnes explores how to distinguish between iconoclasms that maintain fidelity to their theological intentions and those that lead to visual temptation. Offering ecumenical reflections on issues that have long divided Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions, Image and Presence provokes a fundamental reconsideration of images and of the global image crises of our time.

About this title

About the Author

Natalie Carnes is Associate Professor of Theology at Baylor University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1503600343
• ISBN 13: 9781503600348
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256