The dictionary says a hero is one who we admire for their achievements and qualities. These are people who inspire us to greatness and chart a course for us to follow. Again, I’m not unveiling the heroes on my list in any discernable order. Yesterday I held up a hero in the today’s culture war. But heroes in a variety of arena’s have caught my attention – war heroes, missionary heroes, moral heroes, and of course, Biblical heroes. Among other things, I’m drawn to courage, culture warriors, single-mindedness, long-haul resolve and faith. There are heroes we have heard of and heroes we haven’t. Being widely known is irrelevant to heroism. Many of God’s giants go unnamed.
Many have heard of my featured hero for today – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor, theologian and martyr. Bonhoeffer was among the few clergy who stood against, and spoke against, Hitler in Nazi Germany. For this he was executed in a death camp in 1945. Fortunate for me, in seminary, I had numerous courses with Dr. H. Burton Nelson (now deceased) who was one of the world’s leading Bonhoeffer scholars. Me and my buddy Jon painted Burton’s house in Chicago and his wife was from South Dakota so he took a real interest in me planting a church here and we stayed in touch until his death. Burton knew Bonhoeffers family and wrote and taught extensively on him. I drank it all up. Burton told me he didn’t care who it was but that I should pick a “theological companion” – someone living or dead and read all they said and thought about God. I picked Bonhoeffer.
Why is he a hero? Anyone who is deeply committed to the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle is a model for me. Bonheoffer’s middle section of his famous Cost of Discipleship is a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. But he lived it and wrestled with its application. Though drawn to non-violence, he ultimately participated in a secret assassination attempt on Hitler right near the end of his life. The tension of the difficulty living the Sermon on the Mount in today world became his testimony. He engaged political and death spirits operating in his age while the rest of the “church” and “clergy” became bedfellows with it or even worse, disengaged. Even the picture above shows the clergy of that time buttering up to evil Adolf.
Before I sign off I’d be amiss to not mention Bonhoeffer’s critique of “cheap grace.” CATG’rs frequently hear me motor on about the gooey grace of evangelicalism today – “God loves me so I don’t have to live any different...” It’s a false grace and a key deception of the End Times. Bonhoeffer called it what it was.
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January 23, 2008 at 9:52 am
completefaith
I have been thinking about this “hero” thing since yesterdays post.
I have found that through my life I have made some very poor choices in my hero selection.
It started out with my Maternal Grandfather, Grandpa Tom; he was a hero to a young boy. Teaching me the skills of hunting and fishing, shooting guns, tying knots all kinds of things that a young boy needs to know. He was a hero in my young life until one day he chased me out of the house with a baseball bat in his hand. The further and faster I ran the madder he became. He caught me that day and forever changed my impression of what a hero truly is. When I was 14 he succeeded in drowning himself in a bottle of Vodka.
Then there was Tom Schaffer, a friend of my Mom. He lived with us on the farm, and was a great guide for a boy, teaching me to hit a ball, play Frisbee and other boy things. He felt like just a friend, until one day he took me to the barn like his dad would have done to him when something was done wrong. The problem was he wasn’t my dad. A second time he became abusive with me right in the front porch of my home. I don’t even remember what was done wrong, just the physical results of that misbehavior. On top of that this hero of mine showed me that pot was ok when you got a little older.
There have been a few others over the years but the results have been pretty much the same. Nearing the age of 40 now I have learned to admire heroic deeds, but I haven’t had a true hero in years simply because it seems like we never truly know a persons heart, and that is where the true hero comes from. There are many people in my life that I admire, and strive to model parts of my own life after.
What would I look for in a hero?
Someone who lives the same life at home as they do in public.
Someone who stands, unwaveringly, for what they believe in the face of their enemy, and their friends alike.
Someone who acts out of Love rather then hate
Someone who will stand for life not because they hate death but because they love life.
Someone who will go to war not because they hate the enemy but because they love their country.
By the way Pastor Steve and his family are Top Notch. Good leadership rolls down hill, and we are blessed by that at CatG.
January 23, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Steve
completefaith – Ugh you’ve had more than your fair share of key people let you down. Not everyone we look up to is a hero that’s for sure. Your comment on making “poor choices in hero selection” is a vital realization… that we can choose who we let influence us. That’s a major revelation for some. All heroes are human, even the really good ones so there isn’t a perfect model (unless we are talking about Jesus). But we can do more to figure out who we let shape us. I picked the men who mentor me today – I sought them out. One of them had a MAJOR moral failure last year but I survived that bitter/burn-free because my faith in is God not any man.
January 23, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Anonymous
I am hoping that response doesn’t make me sound bitter, because I am not.
We all live life with the cards we are dealt, and that what is forms us.
I am thankful for what God has made me this far in my life.
I don’t hold anything against either of the two men I talked about, they both taught me many valuable lessons that I still use today, even the ones that weren’t so pleasant.
There are things to be learned in every encounter we have in life. I love the move Meet the Robinsons, and one of the reasons why is they celebrate failure, not because they didn’t succeed, but because they had an opportunity to learn. They also repeat the motto “Keep Moving Forward” time and again. No matter what life does to us, we just Keep Moving Forward.
Anyway, after all that, this was just a part of me that needed sharing.
God Bless