Hero Worship

Have done, then, with hero-worship and admiration first and foremost of the famous. Look instead to a church or churches you know well and to everyday examples of faithfulness there. Think of the couple sixty years married, still delighting in one another and God. Think of the neighborhood church that stood up against injustice to immigrants. Think of your own church’s quiet victories of endurance in the face of setbacks and opposition. The point is not, again, to idolize or stop our vision on these exemplars, which all have clay feet. It is to treat them as icons we look through to see and focus on Jesus. It is Jesus alone who lived without sinning. It is Jesus alone who never fails. It is Jesus alone through whom all creation was made and redeemed.— Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age, 199