Episode Details

For some, the Bible takes on a deeper meaning when you read it less literally … exchanging certainty and rigidity for the fluidity of symbology, metaphor, and mysticism.

If there’s one characteristic that sets Christian Fundamentalists apart from other forms of Christianity, it’s an over zealous commitment to a literal reading of the Bible.  Exaggeration, embellishment, hyperbole, and wordplay are all part of daily conversation, but Fundies seem to think these have no place when it comes to the writing, reading and interpretation of scripture.  Just think Young Earth Creationism and the Chicago statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

Today we talk to someone from the other end of the Christian spectrum, one who grew up in a Roman Catholic environment, spent the first 20 years of his life as a Baptist, but was eventually drawn into the Eastern Orthodox tradition.  In fact, he has carved a career out of symbolism.  Jonathan Pageau is a world-recognized sculptor from Montreal Quebec, who has devoted his talent to Eastern Orthodox iconography; he often speaks on that art form and on that Christian perspective.  In our conversation with him, we talked about:

• mysticism is missing from much of evangelical practice, even though it was practised by the earliest Christian fathers and leaders …. “read the gospel of John for goodness sake!”
• there is a long history of mysticism in early Christianity
• reason vs symbolism, and their roles in the spiritual experience
• deep familiarity with Roman Catholicism, Protestantism (Baptist), Evangelical youth culture
• in his 20s, Jonathan went to college, which led to reading books and exploring questions that eventually drew him to the world of Eastern Orthodox faith and its art (first painting, then later iconography)
• iconography is a powerful language … tries to capture patterns, resonances all around us (in daily life … in science … in the Bible)
• iconography is a visual language …. universal …. developed very early in Christianity
• Jonathan exchanged the certainty and rigidness of Evangelical religion for a more fluid, symbolic form in Eastern Orthodoxy