On Decapitating the Imagination

One of my lowest moments as an artist was when I led a worship team years ago.

I told one of the other worship leader not to do a certain song because it contained a metaphor in it. And that metaphor itself was not in the bible.

I reasoned that not everyone would understand the metaphor (which is ridiculous now that I remember).

This was my lowest art moment because it is the fruit of decapitating the imagination.

Paul uses roughly 30 metaphors just in his 3-chapter letter to Titus. Think about that: a letter explicitly written to bring order to a chaotic church relied heavily on poetry, mental imagery, and the arts to get its point across.

When I killed that song, I thought I was protecting the integrity of God’s word. Little did I know I was policing the very vehicle God designed to make doctrine stick.