The sense of sight allows us to experience the glory and beauty of God revealed in and through creation: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). “The whole earth is full of God’s glory” (Isaiah 6:3). By faith we “see” spiritual beauty in those who reflect the virtues and graces of Christ.

But there are limitations to sight: “Eye has not seen… what things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). “We walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). In light of these and other passages, a strong argument could be made that the sacred scriptures value hearing above sight – the word more than the image.

Additional passages strengthen this claim. The shema – a prayer offered by faithful Israelites at the start and conclusion of each day – begins with a command to listen: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Saint Paul declares in his Epistle to the Romans, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:16). Most telling is the Old Testament ban against idolatry, that is, the use of images used to communicate the nature and being of God in sacred worship. It makes sense, then, that God’s revelation has been given primarily through words. And in the illiterate culture of the ancient world, these words were principally received orally – through the sense of hearing.

Clearly, hearing played a major role in the spiritual formation of ancient Israel. This fact raises the following questions: Why is hearing celebrated in scripture while sight is held in suspicion? What advantages does the word have over the image to the life of faith?

What Are Words For… When No One Listens Anymore

Reflecting on these questions is a vital exercise because of our unique contemporary climate. We live in a culture where words take second place to images. This has occurred because of the rise and easy access of visual media through the modern technologies of photography, film, and television.

Unlike all previous generations, our single most shared reality is television. When it initially debuted it was perceived as “the great educator-entertainer that would elevate the tastes and the sensibilities of the masses. Nearly no one takes this claim seriously anymore.[1] The reason is simple: “No technology, however beneficial, comes without serious social consequences and costs.”[2] No technology is neutral. Each new technology brings both blessing and curse. For example: the invention of the automobile provided a new sense of freedom, but it also created a mobile society that has destroyed community. In the same fashion, the medium of television, with all its advantages, also possesses a dark side.

One obvious negative consequence of television is that it has dumbed-down public discourse in its pursuit of acquiring the largest possible audience to sell its merchandise. Because it is driven primarily by commercial interests (the shows exist in order that we might watch the commercials and purchase the products the advertisers hype), television must appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to sell more goods to the masses. Thus, television fuels a culture of consumption. We consume to live and live to consume. We find our identity in the brands we use. The planned obsolescence of products keeps us chained to the latest fads and novelties. Newer, better, faster are our mantras in the television age. Television’s goal is not to nurture self-denying servants living simple lives of quiet satisfaction, but to create self-indulgent consumers eternally lusting after the latest products.

Neal Postman, in his classic book Amusing Ourselves to Death, argues that television is not all bad. It does one thing very well: It entertains. The problem with television is that it tends to reduce everything to entertainment. Consequently, serious aspects of our society suffer. News is manufactured, politics is reduced to sound bites and the harsh back-and-forth of talking (or better, shouting) heads, education must be fun (e.g., Sesame Street), and the only religion that sells is sensational, sentimental, and dramatic.

Though Postman’s critique may initially appear harsh, he is actually arguing that television is not necessarily bad. It is a visual medium, and as such, we should take advantage of its powerful ability to entertain. But we must also realize how much it has influenced – and undermined – serious social discourse. In other words, we must, in the words of Jacques Ellul, see how television has contributed to the “humiliation of the word.”

In visual media, the word takes second place to the image. Dialogue is not nearly as important as drama. One simple example proves this: When we surf television channels, we rarely are seeking intelligent, penetrating dialogue. Instead, we tend to stop on the most graphic and exciting images. And, quite frankly, talking heads simply are not that compelling.

Both Postman and Ellul believe that words communicate more than images. Their analysis may be oversimplified. However, there is no denying that words communicate differently than images. It is possible that hearing opens us up to a greater reality than seeing. It certainly demands more of us. While television’s images make us into couch potatoes, words call us to participate, reflect, and respond.

Images and Words

Both sight and sound give us valid access to the external world. Through both senses we access information. When we contrast the two we are able to discern the differences between these two faculties. By doing this we can accurately assess the advantages of hearing over seeing.

Images simply exist. Words are true or false. Sight confronts us with only one reality – that which is viewed. It is hard not to believe what we see. Even if we recognize that we are deluded or discover we are viewing an illusion, there still remains only image before our eyes – one view to perceive. At no time do two “views” exist before us, with one being more real than the other. The image leaves no room for contradiction, for there is nothing with which to contradict it. The image simply is.

Words, on the other hand, readily avail themselves to contradiction and debate. Words convey either truth or falsehood; they are either valid or invalid. In order to discern the difference, we have to think through what has been said, and then accept or reject them.

Images are static. Words are dynamic. An image is completely apprehended in a moment. As stated above, an image merely exists and we see it all at once. In order to understand words, we must involve ourselves in time and proceed from a level of unknown to uncertainty to known. We cannot fully apprehend words in a moment. We must temporally process them. This difference between images and words is the reason we can make snap judgments based on sight, but once we “get to know” a person through communicating with him or her, our first impression can change.

The immediacy of sight over sound exposes us to the temptation of instant gratification. A flashing sequence of images can make us feel like we’ve mastered a subject, when, in reality, we have no more than an impression. As products of the MTV generation, we are wowed by an onslaught of changing images. With no time to slow down, analyze, or reflect, we are unable to do anything other than respond superficially, if at all.

Since television images move more quickly than a viewer can react... It stops the critical mind... The first effect of this is to create a passive mental attitude. Since there is no way to stop the images, one merely gives over to them. More than this, one has to clear all channels of reception to allow them in more clearly. Thinking only gets in the way.[3]

Words demand more attention than images. We actually have to listen if we hope to benefit from what is said. We have to follow an argument rather than simply feel an impression.

Images are superficial. Words open us to a deeper, more personal, reality. Words open us to a deeper reality because they unite us with personal reality. One chief component that defines personal interaction is communication by means of the word. “It is by language… that we discover and define ourselves.”[4] Through words, we reveal our interior thoughts, dreams, and desires to others, and others privilege us with the same. “Because the spoken word moves from interior to interior, encounter between man and man is achieved largely through voice... Encounters with others in which no words are ever exchanged are hardly encounters at all.”[5]

This is the reason the words of God are so important to us. God does not only exist; God has spoken to us. We do not simply see the glory of God in creation; we hear the voice of God in the sacred writings. God has not just given us a superficial glimpse of Godself; God has exposed his heart to us in divine communication. The late Alan Lewis writes, “the God who is there is a God who speaks, and comes to us as Word, in words.”[6] He continues, “Why is it, in any case, that from the beginning (Gen. 1:3) faith has found speech to be the most fitting and compelling of all analogies for God’s own self-expression, if it is not that with words we most truthfully and wholly identify and expose our personhood?”[7]

Sacred Sounds

Clearly, the sense of hearing is an important means through which we experience God. Words uniquely provide us with access to realities that can only be conveyed in this manner. We dare not lose the significance of words, or we may, in the process, lose the gospel message.

In order to do this, we must realize that the gospel is first and foremost a message. Saint Francis is right, we must preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words. The gospel message must be embodied if it is to impact our lives and our world. However, in our passion to live the message, we must never forget that our response to grace begins by hearing the message. “Forgiveness and renewal rest not on what we do, as ‘works of the law,’ but on what we hear, the word of the cross which declares us justified and resurrected.”[8] Furthermore, now matter how well we live, we must eventually speak in order to communicate the gospel, for the message is not about our good works but God's grace.

This is increasingly important in our image-saturated society. Our culture, weaned on images, is losing its ability to analyze, reflect, and reason. “Language requires activity, effort, and time on the part of the receiver to follow, process, comprehend, and respond.”[9] Convinced that everything must be entertaining – which is shorthand for visually-stimulating, emotionally-charged, and instantly-accessible – our culture has a hard time simply listening to liturgy and preaching, much less reflect on its significance. Though the goal of watching television is entertainment, the goal of preaching is much higher – increased spiritual reflection, understanding, and response. This goal requires more than an impression; it calls for sustained participation, active listening, and committed response.

Tragically, some in church leadership have given up on words. They have capitulated to culture and abandoned calling people to the discipline of sustained listening. They have forgotten that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Our goal must not be the abandonment of words, but a commitment to honest, sincere, truthful discourse. Our world is full of charlatans. It is overrun with dishonesty. People bullsh*t others without conscience, using words to manipulate, control, and deceive. In our world where the word is abused, talk is cheap. Alan Lewis comments on this sad state of affairs:

In bewildered stasis between verbal feast and famine, we seem overwhelmed by lexical torrents of distortion, rhetoric, and propaganda, yet starved for words — and speakers – that are trustworthy, truth bearing, and humanizing, reduced to a phantom, visual diet of images, photo opportunities, and the cheap illusions of rock video, “cyberpunk,” and “virtual reality” on which the younger generation now unnourishingly feeds.[10]

Of all people, Christians must be committed to the holy use of words. Talk is not “cheap” to us. Instead, communication is a Spirit-given, Christ-centered means of divine revelation and grace. We must do all in our power to speak truthfully, sincerely, lovingly, compassionately. Though our culture is saturated in images, its suspicion of words has made it savvy to the constant abuse of language. We must recover the power of the word by speaking truth in love.

This includes our liturgies. Our liturgies – consisting of prayers, songs, and sermon – must be words of spirit and truth. Jesus told his followers, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). We must recover this as our goal.

The community of faith is thus surely freed to explore all the uses to which human speech is put, as appropriate and promising means of living out their relationship with a God who, analogously to themselves, speaks language. They find words through which to hear God (Scripture), to ponder and pass on what they have heard (theology and preaching), and to speak back to God (praise and prayer).[11]

Words stir our imagination. They connect us to ideas. Most importantly, they connect us to others, including the Wholly Other in our midst. In order to possess “ears that hear,” we must slow down to process the words, reflect on their significance, and respond to them with our whole being.

More Than Words

Through words we experience God. Words possess great power to spiritual transform us. However, words can only take us so far. Ultimately, the God who has revealed Godself through sacred communication is beyond words. When we speak of the Divine, we speak of ineffable, incomprehensible, inarticulable realities. At the beginning of this chapter, I only partially quoted a scripture passage: “Eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, what things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

When God chose to reveal Godself, we were not given a video, but the sacred scriptures – the word of God. However, the word of God points us to the Word of God, that is, Jesus. Jesus is the Word made flesh, the icon of the invisible God. Jesus is Sound made Sight. But we must never forget that Jesus is revealed through the scriptural witness offered through the medium of words.

In our culture of the humiliation of the word, our challenge is to take words seriously, use them sincerely in honesty, tell the truth to ourselves and to others, and seek to be transformed by them. Faith does come by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But faith alone is dead. It must be expressed through love – through actions. That is to say, hearing must become incarnate, visible to sight. Thus, in the end, sight and sound go hand in hand. Each needs the other for a holistic witness to the beauty and glory of God.

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© Richard J. Vincent, 2007