Artists in the Church

I had an interesting dialogue with my friend Jim Hanon, Ethnographic Media to day, he writes,
"In many ways I approach all this in what could be called the naive or idealistic view of an artist, and certainly not with the depth of a trained anthropologist. There is a key element that I respond to in ethnography, (and inherent to anthropology) and the one word that would sum it up is “listening”. In the broadest sense it has empathy at its heart, and encompasses watching and understanding. This is where anthropology and art intersect and some deeply common elements are seen.

One of the Georgia O'Keefe quotes I really like is, “I paint what I do not have the words to express.” Can the Bible be translated this way? Would it be accurate? Would theologians agree? In many ways we are treading into the territory that has long kept the arts and artists at bay in the church. Youth today understand media language better than the Church and they are lost in the same translation that artists were in previous times. If artistic expression is not accurate to the truths of the Bible then it does far more damage than good. How well I know this fear, for it has occupied my heart and mind in some fashion or another all my life.