I am currently in a doctoral program, studying semiotics—cultural symbols—which requires a great deal of reading. Probably the greatest benefit of an education is the wise guide (teacher) who can give a curated tour of the best there is in any given subject, and such is the case with this program. Dr. Leonard Sweet has opened the door to an entire world of scholars and theologians who look beneath the surface of things and reveal mysteries. Now I would like to open that world to you.
The Power of Semiotics in Story
Stories sweep us up and out, stories help our hearts and minds to focus. When we are thoroughly in the “now” of a story, we long to risk the next step, to write the next chapter, and follow where this story is going to take us. The story, if well-told, disarms us by remixing familiar themes and memes and presenting them from a new perspective, in an unexpected way. In that moment of vulnerability, we are open to hear and receive this fresh idea and be changed by it.
How can you and I tell these fresh stories?
Crystal Downing takes us into the world of semiotics, the signs of the times, the images and ideas that both shape and express the culture of our world.
Semiotics, according to one definition, is the “science of ‘signs’: cultural symbols which are then given meaning. How humans view and interact with the world is based primarily on how they are constantly creating and interpreting signs.” These cultural symbols are referred to as signa data,
- Words and language, both spoken and written.
- Images, such as photographs, logos, and films.
- Sounds, including music, speech, and environmental noises.
- Objects, like clothing, furniture, and vehicles.
- Gestures, body language, facial expressions, and hand signals.
Highlights from Downing’s book include:
- Validity of the Subjective. Augustine of Hippo valued his mystical experience of God. Signa Data, which includes the biblical record, are to lead us to the experience of God Who cannot be contained by signs. In fact, that is what signs are, they point to something, they indicate something bigger than themselves (p. 97).
- Language and Culture Are in Our Bones. We are far more enculturated than even the most self-aware person might be tempted to believe (pp. 105, 127). Which is why anthropologists have to study cultures other than their own. They literally cannot observe their own culture because they are of it (142). Additionally, “human desires are not freely chosen” (p. 126). So much of what we think, hope for, desire, even crave, is shaped by the culture we grew up in, and now move about in.
- Context Controls the Meaning. Which is why, when we enter a biblical story, we actually do need textual forensics, historical criticism (but, of course, acknowledging the supernatural as well as the natural), and narrative criticism. Without context, we miss the meaning of the signs. We miss even the signs themselves (p. 106).
- The Power of Ideology. Like the amygdala, ideology cannot be overwritten or erased. But we can add to the story in a way that encourages growth and movement towards something fresh and new and away from the now worn and old (p. 146).
- The Last Thing Christians Should Desire is Cultural Hegemony. Once we are in that cat seat, our blind spots only get larger. We are far better off being on the edge of the coin, not pushing it over either into the Signifier or the signified (p. 161).
The Dangers of Christian Hegemony
This last point takes some explaining. First, hegemony means “leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others.” Downing is saying that in order for Christians to keep integrity with Christ, we must keep from seeking to dominate or control the culture surrounding us, but rather be willing to allow the Lord Jesus Christ room to do as He so desires with the culture and the people.
To be the Signifier is the form that a sign takes, the letters of the sign, or the picture of the sign, or the sound of the sign. A picture of a tree, and the word “tree,” and the sound of that spoken word “tree” are all Signifiers.
To be the signified is the actual thing itself.
You and I might look at an actual tree, then say the word “tree” to each other, or take a picture, or draw a picture, and all those things would be Signifiers of the tree, which itself is the signified.
As an example, one of the alt-music movements going on right now can be understood by the acronym PURL. People from all kinds of backgrounds gather for a weekend of live music, camping out, and making beaded “Kandi” bracelets for each other. Sometimes they’ll add words or letters to their bracelets—Peace, Unity, Respect, Love. Kandi bracelets have become a Signifier of these four concepts held together.
As Christians, we walk a line between being the Signifier or the signified because we are, now, not of this world. We are of the heavenly kingdom yet remain in this world, as present as we know how to be, to spread the grace and good news of Jesus. It is not our work to change the culture. This privilege lies with our Lord alone. We therefore tell stories rather than try to enforce a code.
Andy Crouch’s quote in Changing Signs of Truth, that the “only way to change culture is to create more of it” really resonates with me (p. 154). The two huge gamechangers Downing mentions are fiction stories which carry within them a direction the culture was ready to hear and to move on: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens broke a 200-year long English embargo on Christmas, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe broke the banks of abolitionist reticence.
In a sense, each of these authors “abducted” a sign and reframed it to give voice to a part of the culture that was ready to articulate a new way of seeing that sign. Dickens abducted the sign of “Christmas,” pointing away from the Puritan condemnation of what they saw as irreligious frivolity, and pointing towards the laudable concepts of generosity and joy. Stowe abducted the sign of slavery, pointing away from the acceptance of its dehumanization and pointing towards the horrors and terrors of captivity and forced enslavement.
And we are ourselves also still in the process of becoming.
It makes sense to me that as we grow up in Christ, we change shape, our character matures, we become wiser. I had always seen these truths as taking place in the individual believer’s life, and certainly that is apt. But to see the church continuing to grow over the centuries, to understand we must continue the work of lopping off both the green shoots of heresy suckers as well as the dead branches of old signs that are no longer bearing fruit in this generation … that is just brilliant.
It is also revitalizing. This is the verdant path between “blind intolerance” and “bland tolerance” (I did not make those alliterated phrases up, they appear in one of the books I read, but I cannot remember which one). To cling to old signs is itself a form of idolatry. So, we reframe the truth in signs that preach to today. Downing asks,
How might semiotics help Christians acknowledge their different interpretations without reducing belief to an insipid, ‘let’s agree to disagree’ on the on hand, or vicious proclamations of heresy on the other? How do we know which beliefs we resign ourselves to as fundamental to the very essence of Christianity, and how do we know which beliefs we can or should re-sign?
Crystal L. Downing, Changing Signs of Truth: A Christian Introduction to the Semiotics of Communication, 220
Jesus gives us a metric: “by their fruit” (which Peirce echoes on p. 226).
(Re)Signing Old Mysteries for Renewed Mission
I began thinking about what old signs just need to be put on mothballs for a while. I totally agree with Downing that it is time for the gift of the Gospel to take the lead, and the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement to have a time of retirement. I have heard from so many people how violent and senseless this doctrine sounds to them, making God seem cruel. The Christus Victor sign (victorious Christ who has conquered the very powers of evil, sin, corruption, and even death), (re)signed from the ransom theory, now (re)signed as the gift Gospel, speaks to a culture today which longs to be seen, known, received, and cherished.
But there are plenty more signs in Christianity (and I’m thinking particularly of USAmerican evangelical Christianity) that need to be retooled or mothballed. They either bear no fruit, or sour fruit. Which would you pick?
I like this way of defining culture and its influence on society’s thinking and behavior. It seems a modern extension of Schaeffer’s book How Shall We Then Live?
You might be right! Schaefer has had a great influence on several generations of thinkers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this post. Lots to chew on. Liked “the verdant path between “blind intolerance” and “bland tolerance”. Yet I was surprised by one part of your concluding thoughts, that it’s time for “the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement to have a time of retirement.” How can you fully share the truth of Jesus without making this central doctrine clear? Or are you saying it needs to be treated differently than a doctrine to be explained but more of an experience to know? That Jesus would lay down his life in such a violent, cruel way, in order to speak His love into his people across the centuries of sorrowful human existence? I’m a little confused about what the Gift Gospel would be without this gift.
It’s a good question, and maybe I’ll write another post about PSA, it’s been a while.
The Christian Testament offers at least fifteen illustrations (and I think I actually came up with twenty at one point) of what Jesus accomplished at the cross. PSA, positioned as the central and foundational doctrine of salvation, wasn’t, actually, at center stage for fifteen hundred years. Redemption was the central doctrine.
The Protestant Reformers, particularly Martin Luther, felt that the doctrine of redemption needed to retire, or step back, in favor of penal substitutionary atonement because of what was happening at the time in the Catholic Church, the purchase of indulgences to “redeem” the rest of what might be owed due to continued sins. PSA has a once-and-for-all exchange. Substitution, however, is its doctrine, as is atonement. To add those two doctrines to the punitive aspect of the cross resonated with centuries of listeners, who accepted in stride that God is a punisher of sinners.
But current listeners often do not take such a concept in stride. So to center PSA right now actually makes God out to be vengeful, bloody, and cruel. This is often the response.
Instead, I am saying, just as the first Reformers did five hundred years ago, it is time to ask that doctrine to retire, to draw back, in order that there might be room for Christus Victor. In a time when so many people feel powerless in the face of evil, to know that Jesus has conquered sin, corruption, and death brings hope and courage.
Especially in the last 150 years, we have changed the fifteen or twenty notes of the Gospel into almost a one-note song. That’s no good.
I went back to see if I could find the post I wrote a while back about the other motifs found in the Gospel, ways the apostles described what Jesus accomplished, and found the link:
https://graceandpeacejoanne.com/2020/06/04/gospel-of-john-a-gospel-sidebar/
There’s a book I read, a number of years ago (which I’ve spent the part of an hour searching for, just now), that describes one woman’s crisis of faith based upon how the PSA doctrine affected her mental health. I suddenly was seeing this doctrine from a completely different perspective. Since then, a couple of well-respected scholars have taken a look at how PSA is both taught and received today. I haven’t read them (yet), but I think they are speaking along similar lines.
“Cross Purposes: The Violent Grammar of Christian Atonement,” by Anthony Bartlett; “Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition,” by Hans Boersma are the two I know, but there are more.