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What Heroism Reveals
- 07/24/10
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While I was on vacation I did a lot of reading about Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a man I’ve long admired but one I had barely gotten to know. Having returned home, I turned to a biography of his contemporary, Robert E. Lee.
In the foreword to this particular biography, author Emory Thomas has some very useful things to say about writing biography. Though it applies to Lee in particular, I think we can extend it to any historical figure. He warns against the tendency to deify subjects and shows, rightly I think, that heroism tells as much about the society that admires as it tells about the figure himself.
Here is what Thomas says:
Lee, the enigma, seldom if ever revealed himself while he lived. To understand him, it is necessary to look beyond his words and see, for example, the true nature of the lighthouse keeper Lee encountered during his surveying mission in 1835. It is also important to peer beyond Lee’s words and recall what he did as well as what he said. Sometimes the existential Lee contradicted the verbal Lee.
There is a third caveat to understanding Lee. In addition to looking behind and beyond his words, it is well to remember that Lee was once possessed of flesh and blood. This is important because so many have made so much of Lee during the years since he lived that legend, image and myth have supplanted reality. Lee has become a hero essentially smaller than life.
People usually venerate as a hero someone who exemplifies (or who they think exemplifies) virtues which they admire or to which they aspire. Heroism thus reveals more about the society that admires than about the hero. Lee has been several sorts of American hero, and within the American South he has attained the status of demigod. Over time Lee has been a Christ figure, a symbol of national reconciliation, an exalted expression of bourgeois values, and much, much more. In life Lee was both more and less than his legend.
The time has come—indeed, the time is long overdue—to review and rethink Lee alive. History needs Robert E. Lee whole.
Reading these few paragraphs gave me a lot to chew on (to the point that I put the book down for a day and just thought about it). I think Thomas is essentially correct. Looking at this from the perspective of a Christian, I can see that at any time Christians have certain character traits, certain virtues that they value above all. What we tend to do, I think, is to find heroes who displayed these characteristics, and we then describe our heroes as if they were only these characteristics. When we do this, we make our heroes both more and less than what they truly were—we make much of those few strengths and ignore other strengths and inevitable weaknesses. And in this way we miss out on many of the lessons we ought to learn from them. Along the way, we tell a lot about ourselves but not nearly so much about these old heroes.
What do you think? Is Thomas on to something here? Do we, as Christians, tend to fall into this trap, where we create and even desire one-dimension heroes?
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (12)
I wonder if that’s why God presents people like David and Solomon in the Bible. Part of me wants to create a hero out of them, but then you can’t look too closely or you start to see them more as flesh and blood. Ultimately, for me anyway, they remind me to look to God and not to heroes to see one who is purely good.
I think you’re on target as well, Tim. We think a lot about the heroes we offer our sons for emulation, and you’re right, sometimes we center on the strengths we want to teach and fail to note the “tragic flaws” we should also warn against. Sometimes it’s not that we choose to supress them, but that they are so frequently ignored in popular history. The reverse is true as well - we in the South are quick to condemn or demonize Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman, but fail to recognize the strengths they displayed.
That’s precisely why one-dimensional characters in fiction have a draw - they’re attractive for teaching purposes, and easy to grasp for either edification or amusement. Biblically, though, the “man after God’s own heart” is the same man who committed adultery with Bathsheba and conspired to murder Uriah — then repented and wrote Psalm 51. We need to be aware of this and teach both sides of the lives we admire.
I agree with you @JHM. There are many times that we look at the people in the bible and say wow, There were some great heros, but when you really look at the story you have to remember they were just people and it is God who is the great hero. He is the one that used these people to show us that He is the great I AM. These people that He used were very strong believers and trusted in God whole heartedly. Those are very good traits in a person, but we must remember that those were not all their traits.
..and I agree with you, Sabrina. Any semblance of good in us is a reflection of God. For the Christian , the greatest man or woman ought to be the one with the greatest faith - because faith is the acknowledgement that it isn’t by our power, but by the power of the God who saves us.
I loved this article because I tend to make “more” of a person than I ought to, if I see even a tincture of good in them. Articles like this one are enriching and thought-provoking. Thanks Tim.
Men or women are still human. Even redeemed they will remain flawed , not just capable of sin but at times failing and if we cannot see the whole picture we tend to put them on the hero pedestal. I have many I look up to from Luther,Calvin to Churchill but to see the whole man , one must be able to see the scars and flaws . They are still hero’s to me but the sins, if you will , make them more earthy .Ultimately we are saved because of the true hero , the one without blemish , Jesus Christ . That is a good thing.
What might be even harder to accept is that someone who demonstrated commendable traits in one situation, could later participate in reprehensible activities. Our tendency is to deny the possibility of their ever having possessed any positive traits at all. At one point I read Civil War history almost exclusively. I was steeped in the lives of these men as they lived through that short period of time. Eventually I began to investigate their post-war lives and was shocked to find some of my dashing heroes tarnished. Yet, I shouldn’t deny their admirable traits just because they weren’t universally admirable. It’s a mistake to ever paint an individual with too broad a brush. Admire what is admirable and condemn what is condemnable.
I think BethsMomToo’s comment was very wise. I know there was a time when I greatly admired an evangelical Christian leader and made a hero out of him, only to later learn about a decision he made that I felt was wrong. I almost wanted to disregard everything I had ever read of his or had learned from him. That’s when I realized I was putting people on a pedestal, where only Jesus should be. When we see all people as simultaneously sinners and saints, then we can learn all the more from them and give the glory to God for what he allows them to accomplish.
I think that contemporary historical biography falls prey to the cynicism of this post-modern generation which eschews heroes and embraces anti-heroes. The greatest whitewash in all of recorded history is the book of Hebrews. How can God include Samson in the pantheon of the great fathers of the faith, and commend him for his faith. Perhaps God is slightly more merciful in his evaluation of his elect than contemporary biographers.GA Mullet
I took a class in college (@ The Master’s College) entitled “Missionary Biography.” As is probably obvious from the title, we read missionary biographies and then discussed them throughout the semester. Our professor introduced us to the term “Hagiography,” which is a biography written with an excessively positive slant.
About half of the biographies we read during the year were hagiographic. What I found was that when an author seeped into hagiography, it called into question the merit of the entire work. A biography is supposed be about a man or woman, and when there’s no trace of the fall in his or her actions and thoughts, there’s a problem!
I think that we as Christians want to be gracious and therefore often overlook faults which need to be explored. One area of normal life that I’ve seen this take root is reference letters. If a reference can’t (won’t?) tell me what a person’s weaknesses are, then I must assume that the reference doesn’t know that person very well. Being gracious means talking about grace and talking about sin, for grace is greater where sin abides as well.
People make heroes out of some, only zeroing in on their best loved character traits; and they make demons out of others, only zeroing in on their worst flaws. It’s a picture of what we’re so often tempted to do to ourselves. We just won’t let ourselves be complex, “forever perfected” yet “being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14). We’re so afraid of what honesty will reveal - it will reveal that we must run to Jesus if we’re looking for perfection. But we can’t see Him, so maybe that’s why we make heroes out of broken people like John Piper, Ronald Reagan, grandma, and ourselves.
Yes, I think we do this to living Christian leaders as well as Bible heroes and historical figures. When we imagine someone (a pastor, professor, author, musician, etc.) to be a different sort of person than we are, with a special tap into God, we are surely letting our imagination get the best of us. We’re also setting that person up for a great fall. The first time they make a mistake (which they surely will), they have much farther to fall in our estimation since they started from so great a height.
It’s kind of blunt and juvenile, but someone once told me that if we want to bring someone back down to earth all we have to do is remember that they read a bathroom book too. :)
Absolutly this is a problem that exists even within Christiandom. For example, my church, a large “mega church” of baptist origins, had for awhile, treated golfers nearly Christlike from time to time, especially Tiger Woods. When he was exposed eventually for who he really was with his womanizing, it was evident that he was far from Christlike. Since then, golf is rarely mentioned at all.