The Vanishing Word: The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World (Focal Point Series)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 272 pages
• Published by: Crossway Books March 3, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 158134404X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1581344042
• Book Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 11.4 ounces

Product Description


Sounds blare and pictures flash frantically across the screen. This may seem to be an accurate description of every commercial aired on TV, but such commercials are actually symptomatic of a much more important cultural shift. Arthur Hunt argues that there is a conceptual transformation taking place today, as we move from an emphasis on the “word” to the predominance of the “image.”

Hunt focuses on the contrast between a Judeo-Christian heritage, characteristically word-dependent—and paganism, typically image-dependent. As people trust experience and visual representations to interpret their surroundings, they focus less on content and more on sensory appeal. Hunt argues that movements like the Protestant Reformation, Puritanism, and the beginnings of the American nation were all created and sustained in an environment that transmitted its ideas through words, while historical shifts to emphasize image have occurred during periods like the Dark Ages. As the word, both written and spoken, is devalued, there is a renewed descent into paganism.

A wide range of issues—education, politics, entertainment, postmodernism—are brought together in an incisive, illuminating way. This book looks at trends in today’s culture and churches that lead away from a word-centered world and into an image-soaked world ripe for propaganda and a demagogue.

Reader Reviews
Drawing on the work of some of our best social critics (particularly Neil Postman), Mr. Hunt indicts American culture for returning to pagan idolatry--the idolatry of the ever-present visual image. This is closely connected to the cult of celebrity (people "well known for being well known" (Boorstin) not for any discernible achievement) and its accompanying spectacles. Hunt appropriates some of the insights of C. Paglia that America has returned to a pagan worldview, especially in popular media. As a Christian, however, he refuses to celebrate this, but instead registers a jeremiad--and a very well informed and prophetic one at that. We must return to the Word as our primary way of acquiring and treasuring knowledge. The image, while important in some dimensions, is the easy tool of propaganda and manipulation; it often deceptive, and lacks the conceptual resources available to typography. "In the beginning was the Word," declares the Gospel of John, not "the image." This book expands on recent articles published in "The Christian Research Journal" and provides a short history of western culture from the vantage point of communications theory (in which the author is trained). I give the book four stars, not five, only because there is, to my knowledge, very little original material. It is largely derivative; however, Americans seldom fathom the significance of the sources upon which Hunt draws. We should thank him for making them available in this crisp and telling critique. Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., Denver Seminary