You need a literary mind, not a literal one

One reason for the reaction against the sacrificial motif is surely the literal-mindedness of a culture unaccustomed to reading poetry. It is one of the peculiarities of our time that we support a vast entertainment industry specializing in ever more explicitly gory movies and video games while at the same time covering ourselves with a “politically correct” cloak of fastidious high-mindedness. In an earlier and perhaps in some ways more sophisticated time, Christians actually sang the words of poet William Cowper, “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins,” with no sense of disgust. They were accustomed to extravagant literary images. It would not have occurred to them to take such a trope literally, any more than evangelical congregations do today when they sing “Power in the Blood.”—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 234