Religious Metaphors

Similes are great.  Well not so much if you’re trying to learn the English language later in life - then they can be a bit confusing.  But for explaining abstract concepts they’re great.  Yessir, nothing explains an abstract concept like a good old simile.  Well except maybe a metaphor.  But I digress.  There is one thing both similes and metaphors seem to universally fail at describing - religion.

Mmm..saviorlicious.

When I was little and went to church we learned a song that I remember very little of except for the line, “Jesus is like a donut, cause there’s a hole in the middle of my heart.”  This made no sense to me.  Even as an adult it makes no sense to me.  I do remember our Sunday school teacher trying to explain it which really amounted to, “Do you guys understand why Jesus is like a donut?”  This query resulted in a sea of little kids nodding confusedly in the hopes of placating our teacher so we could get back to the “Jesus Loves Me” song because at least that one made sense.  However, I sat and pondered this for awhile.  Jesus wasn’t covered in sprinkles.  He wasn’t high in sugar and saturated fats, and as far as I know he wasn’t deep fried.  I also didn’t understand the hole in the center of my heart.  I blame this part on growing up with my uncle who was a scientist.  I knew from him that holes in your heart generally meant surgery and/or death and that wasn’t likely something Jesus would be promoting.

The power of Christ compels you not to shrivel!

This trend picked up again recently when a friend sent me an email with the following text: “Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin.God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up,touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff - including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed,etc.Then, He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.”  Yes, well that’s all fine and good, but everybody knows that pumpkins quickly shrivel up, start to smell bad, and are often tossed in the trash.  Again, not a very godly thing to do.  Some people are proactive and take the seeds to plant them, but if this simile is right then those are seeds of doubt, hate and greed and nobody wants that growing in their garden.  Others are proactive in another way and turn their pumpkin into a lovely pumpkin pie, and I’d like to think this is something God would do although the thought of being mashed up and baked in an oven preheated to 400 degrees doesn’t seem to do much to inspire peace of the soul.

The last good simile came from the deacon I work with.  He told me one of his parishioners said that “Going to church makes me like a sponge - I soak up all the good spirit and then squeeze it out bit by bit during the week.”  His point was that this was a poor comparison because if she missed a week of church she’d get completely dried out and start to smell funny.  My point was that after a few weeks of being filled up and rung out she’d need to be doused with bleach and boiling water to prevent the spread of salmonella.

I have yet to hear astoundingly bad comparisons for other religions but I’m sure they’re out there.  I tried to come up with one of my own in a fit of creativity but somehow the best I got was, “Paganism is like macaroni and cheese.”  I have no idea how it’s like macaroni and cheese other than if you leave us in the oven too long we’ll get crusty and burn but that opens up a whole new level of inappropriateness.