Ministry of Evangelism

Methodist Theological School of Ohio

November 26, 2001

“Come Home For Supper”

Site Specific Installation

Theology of Evangelism with
a Theology of Artistic Sensibilities

John Dietsch

	If evangelism is summarized as that dimension of activity of the church’s mission, which by word and deed and in the light of particular conditions and a particular context, as David J. Bosch suggests, then evangelism offers every person and community a valid opportunity to be directly challenged to a radical re-orientation of their lives.
	The direct challenge of radical re-orientation for every person and every community within the context of postmodernity and secular humanism is the summons between the invisible energy of God’s word, and the visible language of visual arts to form a soteriological message.
	This discourse is towards constructing a theological understanding as it relates to evangelism and visual language where theology enables the evangelization to transmit the faith.  Not only is personality the vehicle for conveying truth, but visual representation as well.  This transport, or vehicle of visible faith expressed representationally and abstractly through symbolic two and three dimensional form, can be read as a visible sign of an invisible reality.
	A central principle in theology is form.  Constructing a theology first of evangelism requires the considerations of form as structure or foundational source.  Of the three basic sources of Christian theology, scripture, tradition and experience,2 the original source is scripture.  The faithful record of God’s saving deeds; scripture testifies to God’s self disclosure as witnessed to, and interpreted by the people of God . . . Christians recognize the Bible as God’s Word insofar as it is the written record of God’s revelation and the product of the inspirational activity of the Holy Spirit (who “breathed” inspiration into its complex list of collaborators.)3 As God’s written Word it finds its foundational reference in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word and is confirmed by the power of the Holy Spirit, manifested in the proclamation and teaching of the gospel, and its saving effect in the life and mission of the community of faith4 (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  The origin of form as God breathed inspiration is scripture transmitted by tradition, making possible new language.
	Tradition serves as witness and becomes source, as new language is measured with tradition, which enables clarification of the scripture,, and thus producing experience.  Christian experience allows the interpretation of a faith contacted, and this encounter thus begins a long pilgrimage of exploration into the content of that very faith that was experienced.  It is a subjective (internal) event because it involves direct communion with God.  It also has an objective dimension because it originates externally and is informed and confirmed externally.5
	Christian experience is vital as source to acquire richer images and deeper insights to the meaning of the faith itself providing a discourse for the challenge of radical re-orientation for every person and community.  As faith seeks understanding through the knowledge of God mediated by Jesus Christ, this understanding manifests as communion with God and the experience of that communion participates in God’s mission, which fulfils God’s will.
	A theology of evangelism does not begin with God but with Christ; not with creation, but with redemption.  This provides the form in which God represented himself, the form of the crucified, the form of source.
	To evangelize is to participate in this trans-forming of the crucified Christ.  Evangelization is not a concept, but rather a dynamic task incarnated first in the life and saving action of Jesus Christ.  Therefore it cannot be reduced to a verbal formula.  To evangelize is to reproduce, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the salvation that has been revealed in Jesus Christ.6 This reproductive activity is carried out by means of testimonies and signs that point to the transforming action of the Kingdom of God.7
	Likewise, form is a central principle in visual art.  The work of art is born of the artist as idea; a one-dimensional thought.  By adding length and breadth, the thought now takes on form as these two dimensions make a human creation.  The two-dimensional world gains its significance by the eye.  Added to length and breadth is depth, and the world is now seen in the third dimension, the world we live in.  What is seen in the third-dimensional world isn’t flat as it is in the two-dimensional world of man-made creation.  Understanding the world through the mind is how the third-dimensional world gains significance.
	If the third-dimensional world gains its significance through the mind, and understanding that we will never see our own face in the third dimension, then language of visual arts can be employed to point out that being in the body of Christ is the source for radical re-orientation as the source is what will give significance to the individual.
	The fundamental elements in evangelization are love, faith and hope incarnated.  These elements can actually be “a presence seen” when the understanding of the third-dimensional world is “seen” as the world we live in.  An individual cannot define him or herself two dimensionally, and live in a third-dimensional world.
	John Wesley’s class meetings were what I believe to be evidence of this understanding.  Wesley writes . . . “It can scarce be conceived what advantages have been reaped from this little prudential regulation.”  Many, now happily experience Christian fellowship of which they had not so much as an idea before.  They began to bear one another’s burdens and naturally to “care for each other” as they had daily a more intimate acquaintance with, so they had a more endearing affection for each other.  And speaking the “truth in love” they grew up into Him in all things who is the Head even Christ.”8 The Apostle Paul when writing to the church in Corinth knew of this same dimensional element as he urged them to discover not their “talk” but the “power” behind it.  “For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (I Cor. 4:20).  The power behind talk is source, powered by the Holy Spirit or energy of the Word.  Similar to visual language, words too call forth images, however the difference is that with words the movement is continuous.  The image formed by words is before our eyes and scarcely completed, it is quickly replaced by another.
	So it is with the new Christian, from fluid thoughts of living in the past without Christ to thoughts of a more solid state.  The incarnate manifestation or re-forming of the mind gives eyes that can see the source.  “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and the length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).
	To bring this soteriological message among a postmodern culture is to preach the source or “preach the word” translated to the Greek word evangelizo, meaning evangelizing.  To evangelize is to know objective truth, that is, truth that is true whether one believes it or not.  Postmodern theory dismisses objective truth and distrusts reason.  It is a methodology that is a new way to analyze ideas or “social constructs.”  Social constructs are patterns of thought that postmodern thinkers call conditioning.  This conditioning reduces the individual to a product of culture.  Postmodernism is characterized by nihilism and radical subjectivity.  Nihilism means nothingism.  It is the theory that the universe is meaningless and without purpose, human life and activities have no value or significance and nothing is worth living for. 
	To claim that truth exists independent of human thought is to evangelize in the complex world of postmodern theory, where the individual is a product of culture and truth is “true to me” abounds.
	It is my position that against the backdrop of postmodernity if the individual is a product of culture as postmodernism suggests, then the individual has used culture, or postmodern theory, as source rather than scripture.  Furthermore, if the presuppositions of the postmodern culture were uncovered, the basis or source of those presuppositions could be looked at, and the results would reveal a source that is self-evident, and a source that offers radical re-orientation.  Returning to the direct challenge of re-orientation for every person and community using the visible language of visual art, and the invisible energy of God’s word, I submit the following outline for a current evangelical work in progress in the context of my ministry.
	The work is a site-specific installation entitled “Come Home For Supper.”  Outlined is the content of the work.  Evangelization is the intent of the project.  The project was accepted by the Central Ohio Transit Authority and approved by the American Civil Liberties Union.  Presently, considerations for fund raising are in progress.  With God’s grace and provision, this project may offer a way to have church without the “church”.

I.	EVENT

A.		Illustrated Bus
B.		Two hundred ad twenty (220) days on the streets of Columbus, Ohio over a twelve (12) month period.
C.		Sixty-six (66) bus routes throughout city rotary system exposes message to different population daily.

II.	AUDIENCE

A.		People of all classes
B.		People of all colors
C.		People of all denominations
D.		Virtually all who can see
E.		Population of Columbus, Ohio

III.	PURPOSE OF MEDIA EVENT—CONTENT

A.		To introduce important theological issues of the Christian faith
B.		To introduce important historical issues of the Christian faith
C.		Discover new resources for church

IV.	CONSIDERATIONS: KEY POINTS

A.		Penetrates community without profit motivation
B.		News medium
C.		High downtown coverage as downtown is hub of all routes
D.		Penetrates every population
E.		Constantly moving, more exposure
F.		Doesn’t become “part of the scenery”
G.		Five surface areas—sides, front, back, and top
H.		Can’t be zoned out
I.		High visibility
J.		Awareness, Awareness

V.	HISTORICAL ISSUES

A.		Fall of Jerusalem
		This bus has no “temple”.  It travels throughout the city with only meaning attached and is within the hearts ad minds of those who see it.
B.		Oralculture
The telling of the story on the street, in the community.
C.		The Council of Chalcedon
		Who is this person of Christ?  The bus portrays the divine we visually see; the message on the bus asks what the divine means to the viewer.  How do we as Christians relate divinity and humanity.
D.		Monastic Traditions
		Da Vinci’s Last Supper will be in direct contrast with the trappings of a busy street in Columbus, Ohio in 2001.  The preservation of the Christian ideals and values can be discussed as the rescue of the church.
E.		Christian Martyrs
		The vehicle will endure attacks of both public ridicule and graffiti.  There will be people who want to “kill” it.
F.		Charlemagne
		The cooperation between church and state, in that the vehicle represents the Gospel and is free to proclaim its message within the community.  Biblical Authority in harmony with Central Ohio Transit Authority.
G.		Reformation
		1"Martin Luther’s significance, therefore, is not in providing something new to the church, although his modes of expression were often striking in their originality.  Rather, Luther’s significance was in providing a timely, effective reminder that the hope of the Christian, now and forever rises from the transaction that occurred at the cross.”  The bus serves as this reminder in the everyday life of 2001.  Hope for the people of the community.
H.		Catholic Reform
The significance of the pioneering Jesuits, and the insistence that the communication of Christianity to non-Europeans must involve a cultural repositioning of the faith.

		The bus would promote cross-cultural ideas about faith within community.

VI.	THEOLOGICAL ISSUES

A.		The Ecumenical Councils of the Early Church
		The debates over text and meaning and the long range effects those councils have had on the Christian community.  Debate would arise out of this project over use of image, text, and meaning.

B.		The Intellectual Traditions
		Comparison between the Media and Aquinas, Abelard, and the Anselm of Canterbury.  Why is this message circulating?  What is the motto?  Who is the hero?  Why?
C.		The Last Supper
		Scripture versus Traditions Sacraments

VII.	EVANGELISM ISSUES

A.		Intent of Work
B.		Transfers People
C.		Serves marginalized
1.			Handicapped
2.			Poor
3.			Those who can’t drive
D.		Sense of Belonging
E.		Constantly changing interior
F.		Eye Contact
G.		Repeat Trips/Repeat Faces
H.		Comfort
I.		Sociability
J.		Accessibility
K.		Can observe different cultures, dress, mannerisms, language
L.		Could provide music from source
M.		Does not look like church
N.		Real time, real people
O.		Offers valid opportunity for radical re-orientation

	This project is hoped to become a place of constant renegotiated vulnerability that keeps the faith from becoming the practice of an exclusive group.  It is a project that is endlessly in motion, led forward through diverse terrain on a trek of the avant-garde, always forsaking home, never arriving at the promised land for the trek is the promise, the promise of a new life of simple abundance through Jesus Christ.

Notes

1.	Orlando Costas, Liberating News (Eerdmens Publishing Co. 1989, p. 1.)

2.	Ibid., p. 2.

3.	Ibid., p. 5.

4.	Ibid., p. 7.

5.	Ibid., p. 5.

6.	Eddie Fox & George Morris, Faith-Sharing Disciplineship Resources 1998, p. 83.

7.	Ibid., p. 85.

8.	Howard Snyder, The Radical Wesley and Patterns for Church Renewal. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1998, p. 37.

Bibliography

1.	Costa, Orlando, 1989.
		Liberating News
		Eerdmans Publishing Company

2.	George, Carl, 1984
		Prepare Your Church for the Future
		Fleming Revell Inc.

3.	Hall, John Douglas, 1997
		The End of Christendom
		Trinity Press

4.	Kennedy, James, 1996
		Evangelism Explosion
		Tyndale House Publishers Inc.

5.	Snyder, Howard, 1998
		The Radical Wesley and Patterns for Church Renewal
		Wipf and Stock Publishers

	The following memorandum from Central Ohio Transit Authority is the acceptance letter for this project, received May 11, 2000 after two years of negotiations.