Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, Images, and Aphrodite

This article by the ever-on John Tschetter has stirred up some fascinating implications and discussion on our forum (here) about the Sports Illustrated Aphrodite connection:

THREE WORLDS
byJohn Tschetter

Today We Live In three Worlds:

• The Created World
• The Manufactured World
• The Projected World

Each world has distinct characteristics:

• The created world was formed by the Word of God and is good
• The manufactured world is formed by the work of “man” and is made
• The projected world is formed by the imagination of man and is seen

The Three Worlds and the Second Commandment:

The second commandment contains two key words that connect specifically to the worlds formed by “man”.
“You shall not make … “
“ … any images” Living Bible Ex 20:4
The roots of idolatry grow out of making and out of images to be seen,

Applications:

The more deeply we are involved in “making”, the deeper the potential root of idolatry. Think how deeply Abraham was involved in “making” Isaac, and all the related previous history in “making” Ishmael. This reveals more meaning in God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. In their book The Elijah Task, John and Paula Sanford refer to these issues on page 64. “Idolatry can be very deeply entrenched in family relationships and it must be broken.” As we examine ourselves to see if we are walking in The Truth and living in The Faith [3 John 4 ; 2 Corinthians 13:5], we must examine our relationships to our own children and all our other family relationships.

Our culture is deeply committed to images, and is blatantly idolatrous in doing so. The 2001 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue had written on the cover, “the goddesses of the Mediterranean”. This goddess can be none other that the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, sensuality, and sexual love. Considering that normal speed movie film contains 24 frames per second, try to imagine how many times per hour the image of Aphrodite is presented to be seen and worshiped through the projected world in our culture. Suddenly 1 Corinthians 10:14 and 1 John 5:21 take on great significance for us today!

In a similar way, the more deeply we attempt to engage our culture through the projected world, the more vulnerable we are ourselves to idolatry, because the essence of the projected world is made images. Both roots of idolatry are at work in the formation of images for the projected world. Our making of images to present our work in ministry is not invulnerable to idolatry.

-John Tschetter
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PS : Why do we go to the beach, anyway?