Mastering Fear
Elemental Alarm System or Nagging Hound of Hell?
I don't know how to find something to write about in this deadly world. There is more in the news than even my depression can consume. — Patricia J. Williams1
It appears as though King was right about fear.
Fear is both the “elemental alarm system of the human organism” warning us of approaching dangers and “a nagging hound of hell” pursuing our every footstep.2 Fear confronts us seemingly everywhere, King observed, appearing in “strange disguises and a variety of wardrobes.” A powerful force in the world, fear can be simultaneously creative and destructive, unifying and dividing, life-giving and death-dealing, mobilizing and de-mobilizing. Without fear none of us could survive; and yet with fear none of us will survive.
It appears as though King was right about fear. Getting rid of it, as most of us are incessantly looking to do, is simply not a viable option. On this point, Freud offered us some tools for better understanding where fear goes when human beings think they’re “getting rid of it.” Repression often generates strange and wildly absurd fears, while escapism and willful ignorance simply multiply fanciful fears.
The truth of the matter, King believed, is that we must learn how to master fear. But to master fear, we must first face it—honestly and unflinchingly—and then ask ourselves: why are we afraid? Such a question does not imply that we should not be afraid. It is rather a question intended to bring our fears to consciousness so that we are more clearly able to distinguish between reality and its fabrication, truth and its counterfeits.
Otherwise, fear will master us.
King knew that it takes courage to master fear. In this he followed the ancient wisdom of Plato and Aristotle and modern insights of Henry David Thoreau and Paul Tillich. King defined courage as the “determination not to be overwhelmed by any object, however frightful.” As the antithesis of cowardice, courage is “the power of life to affirm itself in spite of life’s ambiguities.” Such power, when put into practice, enables us to “build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”
Rather than submitting and surrendering to the rulers and their agents, Jesus creatively and courageously moved through fear and mastered it through love. The only requirement of discipleship is to follow him in his nonconformity to evil, which is expressed most profoundly in loving one’s neighbor as oneself. As the author of 1 John puts it, “The one who does not love is still in the realm of death” (1 John 3:14).
But “who is my neighbor?” And what does it mean to love?
According to the Bible, by “neighbor” Jesus apparently did not mean those who live near to us; neither did he mean our friends and family, nor even those with whom we share much in common. Instead, Jesus conveys what he means by “neighbor” and “loving” through sharing what has been called the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The Samaritan is good not because he represents a general principle of extending kindness and care to people one encounters in everyday life. Rather, the Samaritan is good because he actively approaches a wounded and abandoned person considered undeserving of care by the social order. Instead of turning away out of fear for what might happen to him, the Samaritan actively placed himself alongside the wounded person, as if to say, “You are deserving of care.” In this concrete action of solidarity, the Samaritan mastered fear by intentionally making the person marked as undeserving of life his neighbor, and caring for him as if his own life were at stake.3
King reminded us that we cannot be courageous and loving in the way of Jesus if we do not also have faith, that is, the “inner equilibrium” required to face “strains, burdens, and fears.” Faith is not something that comes easily for us in a world come of age. It is, perhaps, even harder to have faith when the world is on fire. However, if we are to master the fear so present today in ourselves and in our world, we will no doubt need something like the spiritual armor that comes with faith and confidence in the God of life. Indeed, if King is right, the survival of our species and our planet might even depend on it.
Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 5.
All quotes from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are drawn from his sermon, “Antidotes for Fear,” which can be found in Strength to Love.
For this interpretation, see Gustavo Gutiérrez’s reflections on “Christ in the neighbor” in A Theology of Liberation.