the artist as missionary

article - november 2004

Darren Heater

creation

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him." Genesis 1:27.  The story of mankind started when God created man.  And he did not just create him but actually created him in His very own image.  Our God is a creative God and since we are made in His image we are creative beings (whether your good at Cranium or not).  The power to express the most profound things through the power of creativity is, well, powerful. 

mysteries

In the New Testament God shows us that "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."   Telling this story through the power of creating is why I believe art is so powerful.  Perhaps no other form tells a story as powerfully as when an artists tells that story through his art.  Whether that story is sung in a song, projected in a movie, touched in a sculpture, displayed in a painting, or told through a voice the artist is a powerful person, for good or for evil.

lies

And that leads us to one of the biggest lies that is being told to our modern day culture by Satan, who is the created being who hates our Creator.  And that lie is that "Art is simply entertainment."  Because he has convinced so many, of this lie and that those who create art are simply quirky and harmless people, our society has consumed these lies by the pound-full.  Lies that have steered man away from his Creator and into the arms of this False Seducer.

empower

I am now seeing that Artists are not solely entertainers, they are a "prophet" of sorts to our dying culture.  Either they are false prophets who's creations only further push society in to the arms of the False Seducer (Matthew 7:15-17) or they are ordained prophets of God whose creations push people back into the arms of their Creator.  Why was this a stretch for me to accept?  We support Bible translating missionaries whose job it is to go overseas and get to know some remote tribes culture and language.  Then after a few months or even years they slowly tell the story of the Bible to that community in a language that they can understand.  And that is simply what the modern day artists are doing today. 

Our American society doesn't need another Bible translation (I personally own six) what we need is to send and empower artists to take God's eternal story and tell it to our dying culture.  When Hollywood puts out a horrible movie that is damaging to God's eternal story it is not enough to simply boycott it.  We must rally around our "prophet-like-filmmakers" and empower them to tell God's eternal story in an excellent and powerful way.

stories

Jesus himself used creative stories (i.e. Parables Matthew 13) to communicate much of his teaching to his disciples.  The artists of our culture, for evil or for good, are often the ones who live on the leading outside edge of our society.  Besides the fact that they wear funny clothes (John the Baptist Matthew 3:1-6),  and do strange things (Ezekiel laid on his left side for 390 days in front of a clay drawing of Jerusalem 4:1-4 ), they often proclaim a message through the art that God or Satan inspires them to create, of where a society is heading.  A message that cuts through the surface level living of the masses and into the soul of a culture whether that culture realizes it or not.