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How the Arts Speak to the Heart

So, I was just chatting with an arts specialist I know, and we were discussing how the arts help with Scripture engagement (SE). I told him that the arts help fly truth under the radar. He went a step further, saying, "Local arts speak directly into people's hearts." Now, that got me thinking. How often do we, in the Bible translation and SE world, talk about how hard it is to get the truth into people's hearts? There are all kinds of barriers:

  • The message might not be contextualised enough, so it doesn't seem relevant or interesting
  • They might not know enough background of the Bible to understand the message
  • It might be in the wrong language (they might not know the prestige language very well)
  • If it's in print, they might not be very literate
  • Even if it's taught, it might not be taught in the right way - orally, using oral-preference learner techniques of communication i.e. stories, memorisation, show me then let me do it myself (with input), then let me do it on my own, etc.
There are many more, trust me. Others have written whole books on that topic (e.g. Hill & Hill, reference below).

The thing about local arts, if done correctly, is that they speak directly into people's hearts. They hit the target. You don't have to teach people and wait for it to sink from their head into their heart, it's already in there!

Think about when you were a teenager. What most impressed you about other (older) believers? For me it was that they listened to super-cool music. Christian rock and so on. Also they got me playing guitar, age 15 or so, for the youth group worship times. Ok so the songs were pretty cheesy in those days, but eventually some culturally-relevant music came out (Delirious, Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, and co.) and those of us who played guitar and sang were happy.

Imagine if that were to happen in other places around the world! They would have their own culturally-relevant music, that spoke to their hearts. 

Have a look at this picture:


What local arts can you see here? What is more 'Western'? (Scroll down for some answers)

I met two brothers in Central Asia who both loved the Beatles. They would invite me to their house and we would take it in turns to play and sing Beatles songs together. On about my third visit we went to someone else's house and they started playing local songs. Everyone sang, clapped, danced (even those sitting), and had a fantastic time! Afterwards the brothers apologised to me, "Sorry we didn't do many Beatles songs tonight, it's just that our own music is so much more powerful to us. It gets us here [he said, thumping his heart]!"

Another reason local arts are so good is that local people know the best way to do them. Outsiders like me are just onlookers. We can act as catalysts, maybe, but the local people are the best ones to get stuck into arts in their situation. In some places there are so few believers that they don't have any musicians, but outsiders can work with local musicians to record some appropriate music (for their context) which can be used in Jesus community gatherings, so there is a role for outsiders too. Also, outsiders can a) run workshops to train local artists b) debunk the myths created by first generation mission workers, who told local people not to use certain instruments (e.g. drums or dutars) that might have been used during shamanistic or folk-Islamic meetings. These instruments then become associated with being open to the spirits, and the early mission workers taught against getting involved in such practices. In so doing the local people understood the instruments themselves to be tainted, somehow. But, read the book of Exodus. The ordinary can be sanctified. The impure made pure. All is possible in the Kingdom. We need to seek God's face on this issue and not make decisions from the hip (after all, in the Bible there are no prohibited instruments - it's only in traditional churches that instruments get outlawed!)

So, using local arts in SE can be a powerful way to communicate with people, directly into their hearts. In fact, it's hard to do SE without involving local arts, as so many of the products we produce (booklets, audio recordings, videos, smartphone apps, etc.) have arts within them, whether pictures or music or dance or whatever. If you need help, call in an arts specialist, otherwise, get stuck in!

Answers: music including singing, clothing, decorations on the stage, hairstyle (the girl singing has had her head shaved), local scripts.
Western things: all the equipment, pretty much, looks "Western", though I'm sure it's all made in Taiwan/Japan/China.

Books to Read:
Hill, Margaret V., and Harriet S. Hill, Translating the Bible into Action: How the Bible Can Be Relevant in All Languages and Cultures, Second edition (Carlisle: Langham Global Library, 2022)

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