Forensic science takes a narrative — a description of a suspect — and transforms it into an image — a sketch police can use to catch the bad guy.
In the same way, Chuck Terrell says, biblical forensics takes unseen truths from the Bible and turns them into images that people can easily understand.
The retired pastor, who moved to Columbia earlier this year, possesses plenty of artistic talent – he can draw a realistic portrait of a person using a pencil in five minutes – and is using those to apply his ministry of biblical forensics. He currently teaches a five-lesson course combining art and Bible lessons at a Louisiana prison and would like to expand it to Marion County – and beyond. His dream, the 69-year-old says, is to meet with President Trump.
“I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I want to introduce this to him some way or another because I think it would make a difference,” he said.
Terrell, who is a member of Calvary Baptist Church, graduated from seminary in 1981 and spent more than three decades as a Baptist pastor.
He started using art at Chamberlain-Hunt Military Academy in Port Gibson, where the children knew nothing about the Bible other than that it said “holy” on it. He said he didn’t realize at the time that forensic evangelism was what he was doing, but it was the same concept.
Later he worked with Choctaw Indians in North Mississippi and currently goes to the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, La., just south of Baton Rouge. There are 2,500 inmates there and 40 percent are serving life sentences, he said.
He tells them he also has a life sentence: A rare blood cancer called amyloidosis. At the time of his diagnosis in 2015, he was working on a manuscript for a book about the power of prayer. He said he realized the Lord had been giving him the tools he needed, through that manuscript, to deal with cancer. After nearly dying in 2016, he’s currently in chemotherapy-induced remission, he said.
“I pray on a month-to-month basis that the Lord will keep me in remission so I can do what he wants me to do here,” he said.
He had to retire from the full-time ministry because of it but said that has allowed him to pursue other evangelistic efforts he couldn’t do before.
He and his wife moved to Columbia in March. He had gotten his real estate license, although his health has prevented him from doing that, and found a home in foreclosure at a good price. When they moved in, he couldn’t get the pilot light lit on his gas heater. So he called a plumber, whose step-son was with him. The step-son saw his artwork and they began talking about it. The stepson had recently been released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and that led to discussions with the warden and chaplain. The former warden at Angola was now at the Elayn Hunt prison and that led to his work there.
“It was all part of the Lord working out his larger plan,” he said.
He would also like to do it locally, saying he’s amazed at the number of people here with legal problems, although he says the idea is just as effective at a local church as in a prison. Lessons involve either printed images or ones drawn during the class that Terrell uses to challenge students to think differently about to glean a spiritual truth.
For example, in one lesson Terrell draws a circle and asks if the student can draw a circle using a straight line. The ostensible answer is no, but he then shades around using straight lines, creating the outline of a circle in the part that is not shaded. The spiritual truth, he says, is that what’s around you can define you: If you’re around criminals and drug addicts, it’s going to lead to problems. If you’re surrounded with people of integrity, then it leads to a life of integrity, he said.
“What biblical forensics does is it opens up the Bible, it opens up the world, to you to discuss things that weren’t there,” he said.
Pictured Above: Chuck Terrell holds up some of the art he uses to teach the Bible to inmates and others. The retired pastor calls his ministry “biblical forensics” and says it has a great opportunity to reach people who are visual learners. | Photo by Charlie Smith
