Metaphors are useful things. They help us get our heads around ideas that otherwise baffle us. Unfortunately, you can get yourself into serious trouble when you mistake metaphor for reality. “Life is a highway,” Tom Cochrane sang. Metaphor or reality? If it's a metaphor, it implies that life resembles a journey with all its accompanying twists and turns, ups and downs. If it's reality, it suggests that all of us ought to become either truckers or bus drivers. I can see Hwy. 401 becoming more crowded even as I write.
If mistaking metaphor for reality can produce unfortunate results, like increased traffic congestion, mistaking reality for metaphor can produce some even more unfortunate results, namely letters like the one written by Rev. Zander Dunn (March). Dunn responds to an article by Calvin Brown about the virgin birth suggesting that one can either take what the Bible says on this matter literally or metaphorically. The biblical criticism in which all Presbyterian ministers are trained allows for it to be either, he says, with apparently neither position being wrong. While he's critical of the inconsistency of those who pick and choose which parts of the Scriptures to apply “religiously,” his argument seems to be directed towards preserving his own freedom to do the same.
How then do we read the Bible? Is it really a matter of just deciding which parts I want to be reality and which parts I want to be metaphor? Can I really pick and choose, as I have done at so many potluck suppers? If that's the case, is there any reason why we should simply stick to the Bible? Aren't there lots of other helpful metaphors out there? That certainly seems to be the prevailing attitude in our society. More and more, I'm afraid that it's becoming the prevailing attitude within our church.
The biblical criticism that Dunn refers to properly suggests that the Bible is composed of many different kinds of writings. Different genres are to be read in different ways. Some are clearly metaphorical. Jesus says that He is the water of life. He didn't mean that we should pick Him up, squeeze Him and pour ourselves a drink. Other parts, however, are set out as historical fact. Read the beginning of Luke's gospel, in which most of the details of Jesus' birth are recorded, and you'll discover which genre Luke considered his gospel to be.
It's sad when we mistake metaphor for reality — our highways are congested enough as it is. It's even sadder when, as the Church, we mistake the reality of the gospel for metaphor. Maybe that's why so few of our sanctuaries are congested at all.
