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

Rating:
Summary: Stemming the Tide of the Image Culture
Review: Arthur Hunt's "The Vanishing Word" is a helpful and insightful salvo in the battle to preserve the written word in an age enamored with images. Hunt is currently a professor of speech and communications at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Although he teaches speech and communications, his real expertise is in the fledgling discipline of Media Ecology. Media Ecology was a field pioneered by men like Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan. "The Vanishing Word" is essentially a work of Media Ecology and in it Hunt examines our cultural environment and finds it polluted with pagan image idolatry.
Hunt's work is particularly helpful because it begins with an historical analysis of the rise of the written word. Hunt condenses the important events of Western history into readable and accessible chapters. He presents this historical information in a lively fashion by including helpful illustrations and examples. Hunt's Christian presuppositions are certainly not hidden in this book. His history of the word begins with God and Moses and not with Aristotle or Gutenburg.
Following the linear unfolding of history, Hunt notes that a major shift occurred in our culture with the rise of electronic mass media. He contends that this "new" development is bringing our culture back to "old" ideas, particularly pagan idolatry. He writes:
"The old system just keeps coming back. Not that long after the Flood's waters had receded, Nimrod stretched forth his hands to receive the astrological charts from atop Babel's tower. The sands of Egypt were still between the toes of Moses when he proceeded down the mountain of thunderings and lightnings, tablets in hand, only to find the Hebrews dancing around a golden calf. The people of God multiplied under the Roman knife, but then the pantheon strangely reappeared over the church altar. The fire of the Reformation pushed the gods back until the icon-making machines of the twentieth century ushered them back again in living color (155-156)."
Hunt's book also provides a helpful analysis of the shift from modernism to post-modernism. He also makes some penetrating comments about the impact of the image culture on the church, particularly in the area of worship.
I highly recommend this book to pastors, Christian educators and anyone interested in understanding and stemming the tide of the image culture.

Rating:
Summary: A wake-up call for the church
Review: The author sees the current cultural tendency to exalt visual imagery at the expense of language as a direct assault on Christianity. He warns Christians that the church is being cut off from its word-based heritage, to its great detriment. Superb socio-cultural analysis by a keen-minded Christian scholar, along with a much-needed affirmation that "the Word is everything." Although Professor Hunt builds upon the previous studies of Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Camille Paglia, and others, his radically different spiritual perspective as a conservative evangelical makes this a highly original work with many entirely fresh insights. Required reading for all thoughtful Christians who would equip themselves better for the "spirit wars" of our time and halt the church's slippage into a mindless paganism.

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Summary: The lost art of reading and thinking
Review: This book was a fasinating history and exposition of how the image has led to the decline of civilization. Today's almost total reliance on visual communication may be a dark age greater that the olden dark ages. If you don't believe this last statement, you have not read this book or are blinded by images. This book should convince you to read more and cherish black and white print over the alluring visual medium. The trinity of violence, sex and celebrity accompanys the image. The dangers of technology and media in historical perspective awaits you in this book. Neil Postman would second the motions in this book. I'd like to see a college class on the topic.