Heroes are who we can become if we diligently pursue our ideals in the furnace of our opportunities.
The list could go on and on, naming the great of the past to whom we could look, with profit, as heroes personifying those traits of character and value which we would like to make part of our own. For example, every Southerner has to think of Robert E. Lee as an illustration of a magnanimous man. And the same is true of Booker T. Washington, who accomplished great things in the face of obstacles others could not overcome. The noble is ultimately the practical.
We are unrealistic to think our heroes should be perfect, for then, when we discover their weaknesses, they topple from their rightly deserved pedestals. Does it really matter that our heroes are less than perfect? Why should a few faults cause us to minimize their true greatness?
The Bible recognizes that heroes are not perfect. One of the proofs of the inspiration of Scripture is that the Bible says things about its characters that people would not write. In the hall of faith, found in Hebrews, we see people like Rahab mentioned and described as a prostitute—but still she is in the hall of faith. The list includes murderers, schemers, adulterers.
The media and the book-trade prostitutes have done nonthinking people a great disservice in getting them to exchange the lasting inspiration of the hero for the momentary excitement of the celebrity. Our son first caused me to think about the difference between heroes and celebrities when he said, "The heroes of the early church were martyrs and ours are celebrities." Herein may lie a great deal of the weakness of our church. Not that we should foster martyrdom, for there's no one more hypocritical than a self-professed martyr looking to be sacrificed. Yet persecution has always been known as the greatest purifying agent of religion. Emerson said, "Those who follow after celebrity sip the foam of many lives." Our celebrities rise on a wave of applause and break on the rocks of inattention. They are fantasy waiting to be exposed.
There is no need to defend our heroes against anything except perfection. When we ask for perfection in heroes, we become vulnerable to those who expose our heroes' weaknesses and thereby try to destroy their value. Heroes personify the value and the human capability of reaching nobility, but not perfection.
When we demand perfection we are not only unrealistic, we rule out the great who have made mistakes and who have weaknesses of their own—for all of us have weaknesses. Some just have not had the occasion to have theirs exposed or tested. Humankind is not able to accomplish perfection, so we must not be disillusioned and give up on our heroes simply because they are not perfect. To expect perfection is to build on a false philosophical, even theological, base.
