Technology, the Body, and the Modern Condition: What Christians can Learn from Byung-Chul Han
Han further contemplates achievement and optimization in The Burnout Society, where he argues that “achievement society is the society of self-exploitation. The achievement-subject exploits itself until it burns out.” While society promises complete autonomy and the removal of sources of oppression or repression, this “absence of external domination does not abolish the structure of compulsion. It makes freedom and compulsion coincide. The achievement-subject gives itself over to freestanding compulsion in order to maximize performance. In this way, it exploits itself. . . . Exploitation now occurs without domination. That is what makes self-exploitation so efficient.”
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"Holy Images Are Not Forbidden": Martin Luther against Iconoclasm
How does this discussion relate to modern Protestant Churches being afflicted by a lack of imagery? This isn't merely a stylistic choice, a preference for stylistic minimalism. For how you worship is a confession of what you believe. As with Luther, we should see and use iconography and images, especially the crucifix, as devotional aids. (They do say a picture is worth a thousand words!) The perspective of Luther and the iconodules demonstrate to us the need there is to recapture some of that love for iconography today.
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The Conservative Reformer: Classical Lutheranism for the Contemporary World
Every tradition occasionally needs people within its ranks to articulate a vision of its aims and to indicate the preferred means for bringing such a vision to realization. In other words, it calls for writers and thinkers who enable it to capture a true sense of what it is and clarify what it seeks to accomplish. To provide such a vision is not to presume to speak for everyone else within a given tradition, but it is to stake out a position regarding the best way forward for the tradition and to invite others to rally around this perspective. Such efforts often bring renewal to a tradition’s self-understanding and provide an impetus to reclaim and reinvigorate what makes the tradition exceptional.
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