Priority of the Image

The Presbyterian frontier mission effort is focused on planting Christian movements among Unreached People Groups around the world. In doing so we hope to use creative means to connect the gospel with these cultures. In many cases we realize this is not going to be done through the written word but through images. In an interview by The Door Magazine with Brent Plate by John Carney (not published online), Dr Plate describes this priority of the image.

Dr Plate says, "There is a real sense that 'In the beginning was the Word,' but really in the beginning was the image, these fantastic images that [John, writer of Revelation] saw. I've been trying to rethink how we understand religion, trying to get us away from our literate, modern bias toward printed books, printed words, that the Word of God is somehow a printed, published thing. Even in Christian tradition, most religious people throughout the history of the world have been illiterate, have not been able to read... But most religious people in the world have not understood religion to be something coming out of words. In fact, more people have interacted with images than with words, religiously... I think the word of God is something that's seen; it's got to be understood as something that is seen and experienced in radical ways, rather than just read in the privacy of our own houses."

We at Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship are eager to explore the use of images in frontier mission. Most of the Unreached people groups among which we work are non-literate societies. Although we have healthy and growing Bible translation and distribution components to our frontier mission, we know that images, carvings, paintings and statues can have a significant impact in communicating the truths of Jesus Christ. They have done so in our own lives. And I suspect in our own media-saturated culture, it will be images - "something that's seen" - not printed words, that snag the interest of unchurched people around us. I pray God enriches our use of images to give Him glory.