Everyone loves a hero. We love to toast them. These days we even make heroes of people who are just doing their jobs well. But there’s a tendency at hero-making that bothers me, namely the penchant within the conservative Christian world to lionize people who later turn out to be something less than lions.
I first noticed this trend in 1997 after the school shooting in Paducah, Ky. A gunman opened fire on a prayer group at Heath High School, killing three and wounding five. Almost immediately, a hero emerged from that unthinkable carnage. A young, outspoken Christian student named Ben Strong stepped forward with a story that varied from time to time about how he boldly convinced the shooter to lay down his weapon. Ben was an instant hero, especially in Christian circles, an example of the supposed superior bravery of a Christian man. There was even a book and a CD called B.Strong released to quickly capitalize on Ben’s heroism. Except the story eventually turned out to be not quite what he suggested or allowed people to believe.
The next major incident happened after the Columbine shooting in 1999, where stories quickly circulated about the heroism of a young Christian lady, Cassie Bernall, with hoopla similar to that which surrounded Ben Strong. Except, once again, the story was not quite what we were led to believe.
Our latest hero is Miss California, Carrie Prejean. She was lauded for her courage in answering an unfair and loaded question during a beauty pageant. She was a hero, standing up for her faith and traditional marriage and being attacked and called horrible names for it. Except we are finding out in drips and drabs that Miss Prejean has done things that are less than flattering to someone claiming to be guided by her faith. She said it was a horrible mistake made when she was young (although 17 years old is not that young), but we’re now hearing another version of the story that calls into question her veracity on even that point. Suddenly this hero is getting the hot-potato treatment.
Now let me stress that my purpose here is not to rag on Carrie Prejean, Ben Strong, or anyone else. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know I’ve done things that I’m terribly ashamed of and would be mortified if they were to be splashed all over newspapers and TV screens.
No, my purpose is to call us out on our seeming need to create heroes as some sort of vindication of our faith. This is, I think, different from the natural human tendency to pull something positive out of a negative. My sense is that Ben Strong, Cassie Bernall, and Carrie Prejean were held up as sterling examples of the kinds of people who are Christians. It is a form of legalism, showing that somehow by our works we are justified — before the world, at least. Whether we intend it, this communicates to the world that this is what it means to be a Christian: bold, brave, squeaky clean.
I know I'm anything but, and I suspect most of you are not, either. We should be the first to tell the world this. I’m not a hero. I have nothing to boast about. I’m a wretched sinner who didn’t deserve the grace shown by God, and short of His indwelling strength, I’d be more wretched still. I can boast in only one thing.
Aside from being the truth, this message of sinners saved by grace instead of our own heroic works gives hope to those who are tired of trying to somehow justify themselves before God. It also cuts short the mockery that comes as an inevitable result of our still-fallen natures being, well ... part of our nature. We need to heed the apostle Paul’s rebuke: By failing to live up to our own standards — in this case, heroic, idealized Christianity — we cause God’s name to be mocked.
The Bible is full of flawed people who were still used powerfully in God’s plan of redemption, not because they were great or heroic, but because they were weak.
Let’s do away with Christian “heroes.” Let’s just be what we are and let our faith and our testimony to be the only evidence the world needs to see. In our weakness, God can do great things.
