Device & Virtue

S4E7 - Holy Emoji 😂❤

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Can you translate the Bible into emoji? 😂. Some Christian leaders say No Way. But we ❤ this idea. Here’s why.


Some people 👀 emoji as just 😜 cartoons that make texting more fun, but they offer a crucial way to recover our humanity and share our ❤ with others. Could they help us know God better too?


Adam and Chris look at the multi-faceted world of emoji:

  • the surprising value of their playful style
  • emoji keyboards as cultural battlegrounds 💻
  • the history of emoji 📜
  • representing gender, sexuality, and politics ✌
  • the 🤔 of images . . . and words
  • God’s use of images . . . and words
  • and, yes, whether the Bible has a place for emoji.


    • By the ⏭ of this episode, the next emoji you 🤳 will be more than a cartoon. You will 👀 yourself, others, and the world a little bit differently. And you just might 😍 God a little bit more too.

    LINKS
    • Big shout out to Paddy Johnson whose Gizmodo article, “Emoji We Lost,” started us thinking about emoji in a deeper way. Worth your time if you want to dig in a bit more.
    • Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is awesome. A fast, entertaining, and smart read. More than an introduction to comics, it’s a study in how we perceive, communicate, and represent the world we live in.
    • Chris mentioned McCloud’s spectrum of faces, realistic to iconic. See it here.
    • To see the Google blob/💃 emoji Chris mentions, go here.
    • Daniella Zsupan-Jerome discusses the idol vs the icon in her paper: “Virtual Presence as Real Presence? Sacramental Theology and Digital Culture in Dialogue.”
    • News: No new emoji next year, thanks to the global 😷. But here’s the new emoji for 2020.
    • Send us your favorite Bible verse in emoji (on Twitter or Facebook). ✍ your own, or use the Bible Emoji translator.
    • The Atlantic reviewed the Emoji Bible. Read it here. 📘
    • Submit your own emoji to Unicode here, but beware, the process is *intense.*
    • Academics aren’t above studying emoji either. Here’s research on how people use the 🔫, and on the inherent ambiguity to all emoji(s).


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        Device & VirtueBy Chris Ridgeway & Adam Graber
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