The Power of Metaphors

A Guest Post by Marta Shocket

Originally written on Thursday, November 10th

This morning I found myself thinking about Jesus on the way to work. If you find yourself turned off by that first sentence, please bear with me for a moment.

I was standing on the train thinking about how to engage in protests that are radical, progressive, and loving all at the same time, and the word “Jesus” suddenly popped into my head. And it genuinely surprised me. I identify as agnostic and do not regularly attend church. But, I grew up in a progressive church where we often talked about the radical love and forgiveness of Jesus, and using him as an inspiration and role model.

The next four years are going to be hard as fuck. And probably the ones after that too. My heart breaks reading about the Muslim, Black, Latin@, and Asian people who had horrible racist epithets yelled at them yesterday while they were just going about their daily lives. At least two in Bloomington, IN where I recently made my home for 6 years, and four other people in my friends-of-friends network.

Metaphors are powerful things. Putting your life and your livelihood on the line for the ideas you believe in is hard. There is a reason that people turn to religion in times of immense hardship and struggle. There is a reason that the foundation of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s was the black church.

I believe that faith communities are in a unique position to lead and organize in the coming months and years. They are already located in every community in America. They are already organized and fighting for social justice. And they are each armed with one powerful hell of a metaphor.

After watching what is happening at Standing Rock and hearing the reports of open and unrepentant bigotry resurfacing with a vengeance over the past few days, I think we are headed back to an era of attack dogs and firehoses, with the helpful new addition of rubber bullets. I hope I am wrong. But if I am right, we will need courage to face that and survive. And for many of us, religion can help provide that. It might also be the best shot we have of breaking through this cultural deadlock to those that we most need to win over to the side of justice.

I can only speak from my own perspective. I’m a part of the liberal elite; I work as a scientist within academia. And for years I’ve felt a subtle hostility towards all religion—not just the bigoted kind that endorsed Trump—in many people I consider my friends. I didn’t let it bother me, because I didn’t identify as religious. I’m sure I even contributed to it at many points. But now I’m starting to question that attitude, and I worry about it impacting our ability to successfully fight against Trump’s policies. We need the biggest, strongest coalition we can get. And that means partnering the secular and the religious against bigotry.

Atheist friends of mine—I’m not asking you to believe in God—if pushed to take a position, I don’t either. But I am asking you to be willing and eager to work with people of faith who are on your side fighting for justice. I’m asking you to be introspective, and think about how your words might be interpreted by those around you who turn to faith for strength. Be genuinely tolerant of those with different beliefs than you, as long as they do no harm.

I will be going to church this Sunday—for the first time not-on-Christmas-or-Easter in over a decade. I don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I believe in the power of churches provide solace and community in times of grief, to use the power of story and metaphor to inspire courage in the face of overwhelming odds, and most of all, to Get Shit Done.

And those are all things I could use right now.