Several weeks ago I received a phone call from a friend (a self professed agnostic) who was driving in his car, listening to a preacher, and had a question for me (his Christian friend). He wanted to know, "Why do Christians insist on the Founding Fathers being heroes of Christianity?" I initially did not have an answer but later that evening I texted him, "We want the founding fathers to be Christian heroes for the same reason we want Tebow to succeed." It's the same reason that if someone brings up the Christian musician and world renowned guitarist Phil Keaggy, then someone else will bring up the story of how Jimi Hendrix was once asked how he felt about being the world's greatest guitarist and he replied, "I don't know, you'll have to ask Phil Keaggy." This false story has been around for over 20 years and has been repeatedly denied by Phil but Christians still tell it. We went insane for Jeremy Lin and had Lin-sanity. We had Randy Travis on every Christian radio and TV show when he came out with his gospel albums (of course, we have conveniently forgotten all that now). And we are crazy for Christian rapper and mainstream crossover Lacrae.
The question still remains, why? Why do we want Tebow to succeed? Why is it that Tebow being cut this past week by the Patriots feels like a punch in the gut to so many Christians (many of whom care very little about football)? Why do we want Jimmy Hendrix to say that Phil Keaggy is the best guitarist? Why did we go circle around (and have since removed ourselves) from Randy Travis? Why did we have Lin-sanity and why do we care about a rapper being a Christian?
We want someone like Tebow who is smart, good looking, charismatic, and even if he doesn't succeed in the NFL, is still one of the greatest college football players ever. Tebow is cool. If Tebow was not a Christian, Tebow would still be cool. And that's why we want him to succeed. That's why we want our Founding Fathers to be Christian heroes and why we want Lacrae to sell millions of albums and for Phil to be the best guitar player. Being a great musician or a great athlete is cool and we want be at the cool table. We want people to think our music is cool and our films our cool (oh how we went gaga over "Fireproof"). We want athletes that we can point to and say, "Yea, that guy is in my camp, my tribe. See you can make fun of Christians and call us out of touch with society but we have Tebow and he is one of the cool kids."
Of course if this is true we must ask ourselves, why do we want someone cool at the Christian table? I believe the answer lies in a possible inferiority complex and this complex manifests itself in a couple of possible ways.
One possible manifestation of this inferiority complex could be seen in an underlying embarrassment of Christ. Now it could be that we do think Christ is cool. After all, he died, rose again, and secured our eternal salvation - that's pretty cool. But then again, he was born a poor baby, rumored to be the bastard child of an unchaste Mary and and a carpenter named Joseph. He was from the town of Nazareth and "nothing good comes from Nazareth." He spent years wondering the streets, preaching to nobodies, had no home, no official title, and died a criminal's death leaving behind a small band of followers made up of fishermen, terrorists, unscrupulous businessmen and some women who held no position in society. He isn't flashy. As far as we know, he was no great musician, no great literary works attributed to Him (and no smart Alec needs to say, "um, the Bible"), no grand athletic feats, no great military conquest, nor was he a great political leader. In the end, he was a homeless preacher who washed feet. Not exactly the cool hero.
A second manifestation of this inferiority complex could be that we are embarrassed by the fact that we simply are not really like Christ. As odd as it maybe, Christ is highly regarded even among non-Christians. Unfortunately, the followers of Christ are not always so highly regarded. Perhaps it is the case that we are simply ashamed that we know who Christ is and yet we as His followers often seem to barely resemble Him. Perhaps we are embarrassed that for as much as we want to look like Christ, we also very much want to look like our neighbor. We want the cool house, the cool car, and the cool clothes. We want to shop at the cool stores and eat at the cool restaurants. So we look to those who appear to maintain a strong Christian lifestyle but also appear to have worldly success. We look to those who are cool in both their Christianity and in the world. We hope that by association the world will see that just because we don't live up to the standards of Christ there is Tebow who is able to excel in what the world thinks is cool while also maintaining a high degree of Christianity. He's cool and he is one of us. So you see, Christians can be cool athletes, cool musicians, cool political leaders, cool businessmen, cool actors, and cool writers. We can be cool and be Christian, just see Tebow.
Now however it may manifest itself, the root cause of this inferiority complex may simply be that we as Christians have yet to really understand that Christ not only is the hero but that He literally turned upside-down the definition of hero. Jesus showed us that the real hero is the servant. Beyond that a hero is a servant to the most vulnerable and the most socially outcast. The hero is the one who quietly serves the food at the soup kitchen. The hero is the one who gives up everything to work in the slums of Calcutta. The hero is the one who week after week strives to minister to a congregation and to deliver faithful sermons to those congregations regardless of size (this is here for us ministers who have inferiority complexes toward the "famous" ministers like Platt, Chan, Piper, and Warren). The hero is the parent who stays up all night with their sick child. The hero is the neighbor who anonymously provides toys for their neighbors' children at Christmas knowing that the parents have been out of work. Now before anyone asks how do I not know that Tebow does do these things, let me just say that I don't. However, I am pretty sure that the reason thousands of Tebow jerseys sold was not because the guy worked in a soup kitchen. And to be honest they weren't sold because he was a great NFL quarterback. They were sold because he was a great college quarterback, who played in the NFL and who also proudly Tebowed after every touchdown.
We look to Tebow to save us from this feeling of inferiority. We need the Founding Fathers to not only be brilliant political minds but Christian politicians. We need mainstream accepted musicians and we pray for more miniseries like The Bible so we can hold up our heads high and say, "Wow, that was the highest rated show on TV. The Bible is cool and so are we." Can you just imagine, how cuckoo we would be if LeBron James came out and said he is a Christian. Oh sure we would be happy that he was saved but we also couldn't wait until his new Nike's came out with a Jesus fish right above the swoosh!
P.S. Just for the record. I like Tebow. I think he is a stand up guy. I don't own a Tebow jersey.
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