In Response to Bad Metaphors and Cruel Theology

Here’s a very important writing tip: when it comes to metaphors, a little bit goes a long way.  The same advice might be useful when you’re talking about faith.  I just finished reading a blog post on The Christian Post entitled Kill Your Sin Before It Kills You.  If you choose to click the link, good luck.  The article consists of an extended metaphor comparing a pet snake to personal sin.  The writer of the post explains that we are all given this pet snake at birth, and throughout our lives we are tempted to feed and play with this pet, and we believe—erroneously, according to the author—that we can control the snake.

Okay.  I can run with that.  But by the sixth time this pet snake is mentioned, I’m rolling my eyes.  Yeah, man, I get it.  Also, this metaphor doesn’t actually work very well.  Sin isn’t something you can kill, because no one is perfect, and no one ever finishes making him- or herself a better person.  It’s a never-ending process.  About halfway through the article, the writer seems to realize this, and informs his readers that “[sin] is not just a snake—it’s a zombie snake.”  As one of my friends put it, “umm…”  Metaphors also don’t mix.  Ever.  If you don’t have one that works, don’t use it.

Now, I can see how this writer thought the metaphor would be perfect.  In the Bible, the serpent was the creature who tempted Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  It is the embodiment of sin.  Rather fitting, right?  And the writer even has a real-life story to fit the metaphor, which makes it even more powerful, right?

Except this is my real beef with this article.  The story the writer told?  It involves a man in his community who once had a pet snake, a boa constrictor which strangled the man, who died nine hours later.

I’m sorry, but using a story like this to lecture people about their sins is incredibly poor taste.  By using the story in this way, the writer implies that the owner of the snake got exactly what he deserved.  No word on whether this man was a bad person, by the way.  The writer has gotten so lost in his metaphor that the real snake has become sin, and so he condemns the man for “playing with the snake”.  The poor man has been sacrificed in order to make the writer’s close-minded point.        

There are many other complaints I could make about this post—the excessive use of ellipses, the use of an accusatory “you” rather than an all-encompassing “we”, the Bible verse in every second paragraph—but I’ll stick to the main point.  This writer takes an example of a man he probably knew and, showing no respect for the dead, uses him and a bad metaphor to point a critical finger at his readers.  Well, sir, to you I say in equal Biblical style: “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.  Who are you to judge your neighbor?”  James 4:12.  Give that to your snake to chew on.