Icons and a Faithful Response to Suffering: Compassion and Redemption
Panelists:
Ana Iltis, PhD, Director of the Center for Bioethics, Health and Society and Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University
Fr. Christopher Foley, Holy Cross Orthodox, High Point, NC
Fr. James Guirguis, St. Raphael Orthodox Church, Fuquay-Varina, NC
John Kulits, MD, JD.
This panel includes a physician, a philosopher-bioethicist, and clergy. It examines the role of icons in formulating a Christian response to suffering. Historically, Christians have used icons – holy images that depict Saints and important events such as the Nativity of Christ and the Resurrection of Christ– in private and corporate prayer. Icons often are described as “windows to heaven” because they allow us to see the Kingdom of Heaven by making it present. Each presentation builds on the previous one, as described below, and we will allow approximately 20 minutes for responses, discussion, and questions.
The first panelist will look at the ways in which the symbols that we hold dear allow us to focus more clearly and center ourselves in the realms of the religious as well as the rest of our life. Of particular note will be the way that symbols and Orthodox Christian iconography are understood as an incarnation or manifestation of the grace of God to His people. In the course of looking at iconography we will touch on themes of controversy regarding the confusion between iconography and idolatry. Ultimately, the presentation will aim to help us understand religious imagery as part of the holistic therapeutic method of the ancient Christian Church as a model of the true hospital and place of healing. This understanding provides a basis for the second and third panelists’ presentations, which examine iconography in developing a faithful response to pain and suffering for health care professionals, religious leaders, and patients.
The second panelist will consider the role of icons in transmitting Christian moral knowledge, that is, in teaching what God commands and instructing Christians in the faith and in the virtues. The presentation will focus on the role of icons in disclosing God’s commands regarding the response to pain and suffering, or anticipated pain and suffering. This insight is particularly important in assessing contemporary calls for a right to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. The presentation will focus on the icons of the crucifixion and Christ the Bridegroom to assess claims about a right to a death with dignity, to avoid “senseless” pain and suffering, and to control the timing and manner of our death. It will describe how Christian patients and health care professionals can avail themselves of the gift of insight that these “windows to heaven” provide to develop a faithful response to suffering. Christian iconography depicts humility and submission in death, rather than a contemporary notion of dignity or control.
While the second panelist will focus largely on prohibitions against physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, that is, on what a faithful response to suffering is not, the third panelist will explore the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering. Rather than seeing suffering as senseless, the third panelist will demonstrate how an understanding of redemptive suffering can help us not only engage pain and suffering faithfully but transform it.
The first panelist will look at the ways in which the symbols that we hold dear allow us to focus more clearly and center ourselves in the realms of the religious as well as the rest of our life. Of particular note will be the way that symbols and Orthodox Christian iconography are understood as an incarnation or manifestation of the grace of God to His people. In the course of looking at iconography we will touch on themes of controversy regarding the confusion between iconography and idolatry. Ultimately, the presentation will aim to help us understand religious imagery as part of the holistic therapeutic method of the ancient Christian Church as a model of the true hospital and place of healing. This understanding provides a basis for the second and third panelists’ presentations, which examine iconography in developing a faithful response to pain and suffering for health care professionals, religious leaders, and patients.
The second panelist will consider the role of icons in transmitting Christian moral knowledge, that is, in teaching what God commands and instructing Christians in the faith and in the virtues. The presentation will focus on the role of icons in disclosing God’s commands regarding the response to pain and suffering, or anticipated pain and suffering. This insight is particularly important in assessing contemporary calls for a right to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. The presentation will focus on the icons of the crucifixion and Christ the Bridegroom to assess claims about a right to a death with dignity, to avoid “senseless” pain and suffering, and to control the timing and manner of our death. It will describe how Christian patients and health care professionals can avail themselves of the gift of insight that these “windows to heaven” provide to develop a faithful response to suffering. Christian iconography depicts humility and submission in death, rather than a contemporary notion of dignity or control.
While the second panelist will focus largely on prohibitions against physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, that is, on what a faithful response to suffering is not, the third panelist will explore the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering. Rather than seeing suffering as senseless, the third panelist will demonstrate how an understanding of redemptive suffering can help us not only engage pain and suffering faithfully but transform it.