Bondicons and Dogma: Toward a Post-Theological SFL
Introduction
This post examines Martin’s deployment of bondicons and the theological atmosphere they cultivate—an atmosphere in which emotional resonance displaces theoretical coherence, and group sentiment replaces analytical architecture.
I. The Collapse of Analytical Architecture
In Martin’s theology of affect, the language of communion, bonding, and icons is not grafted onto the existing framework as a reinterpretation; it overwrites it with a wholly different logic: symbolic cohesion over functional abstraction.
Bondicons function as semi-sacred tokens of in-group affect. They are not options in system networks; they do not increase semantic specificity; they do not participate in realisation chains. Instead, they operate at a purely intersubjective level, where their value is indexed by the emotional intensity they elicit within the community.
This metaphorical opportunism—repurposing technical terms to serve symbolic or affective ends—is a hallmark of Martin’s theological register. It reflects a broader pattern in which systemic-functional categories are emptied of their explanatory content and refilled with the semiotics of belonging. The result is a discourse that sounds like SFL but no longer functions as it.
II. From Functional Abstraction to Affective Mysticism
What is lost in this transformation is not merely clarity or rigour, but the very possibility of explanation. In place of system networks, we find narratives of witness; in place of theoretical tools, we find sentimental icons. Participation replaces critique. The architecture of theory becomes a theatre of belonging.
As with any theological order, the validity of propositions depends less on evidential support than on communal affirmation. The bondicon displaces the system network as the central object of attention, and the lexicon of theory becomes a liturgy of loyalty.
Conclusion: Toward a Post-Theological SFL
To reclaim SFL’s scientific integrity, we must resist its transformation into symbolic theology. This means rejecting the emotive pull of bondicons in favour of functional abstraction. It means treating systemic-functional theory not as doctrine, but as a body of hypotheses to be debated, revised, and extended.
Only then can we leave behind the orbit of dogma and re-enter the domain of theory. Only then can SFL live again—not as liturgy, but as a functional science of meaning in context.
