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A cold October street. Muffled explosions outline the face of a child, barely ten. A stranger accompanied by a few of his ghoulish friends stands on your doorstep, hand outstretched. Your brain recovers from its post-dinner slump and registers “Trick or Treat”. A sanitised threat in the mind of one too young and with hopefully not the gall or imagination to follow through. Still, a hastily produced orange — the one without the mould — the reward from this house. Retreating steps to the gate. You hope the hidden horrors of some people’s homes do not envelope this little troupe tonight. A loud steamy Sunset Boulevard. Turn right. Ah, at last a neon shortage. Park. A tap on the window. Fumbled controls of a hire car are finally found. The glass lowers. The tang of leftover smog and cheap perfume assaults the air-conditioning. A face appears, soon to be showered with celebrity, but tonight un-extraordinary. Good enough though. A suggestion. A negotiation of such. Now there’s two in the car. Diversion, pleasure, release: the contract is going well. Another, less invited, rap on the glass. Red light. Blue light. Flash-light. Now the profile please. Lawyers scramble — it’s time to earn your retainers!
The connection? The fall of heroes. One in an institutional sense — a holy day gone wrong. One a career on the skids — time for the columnists and spin doctors.
The day of celebrating Christian heroes of the faith has just passed — All Saints Day (Shurely shome mishtake! — Ed.). For the initiated this is the day after Hallowe’en (All Hallows Eve, to give it its correct name). All Saints Day slipped your mind? Never heard of it? Bad publicity I’d say. Millions of fancy-dress shop proprietors would agree with me. So why has Hallowe’en been adopted rather than All Saints Day? Why does one inspire and the other bore?
Okay, the argument is simple. Try making a good horror movie out of All Saints Day. Doesn’t quite sound like an 18 now does it? Let’s face it, ghosts and ghouls are exciting, enticing and groovy. Saints on the other hand tend to be dull and boring. Conflict seduces, peace produces snores. Kids, camp-fires and what to complete the picture? Ghost-stories, of course. Saints? Don’t be so weird. For a fallen humanity, the darker side of human nature is nearly always more fascinating. As Gary Claill put it: “there’s something wrong with human nature”.
This leads to the crux of the issue — the concept of heroes and heroism, and how we relate to heroic figures. The Christian celebration of All Saints Day is intended to call to mind all those heroes of the faith who have died. It is a parade of good guys, a time for reminders of martyrs and apostles, and all of those who have inspired you in your faith. Halloween, in its popular form, is a time for the celebration of anti-heroes: those insidious goblins, ghouls, Hannibal Lectors and the like, who tickle our fancy. Despite his acquittal, the O.J.Simpson mask is a best-seller Stateside at the present.
All Saints’ Day is actually not just for remembering the canonised saints, picking your favourite one from the 4500 or so that are honoured with feast-days. The saints that are referred to are all those who have gone before, including all those who have personally inspired each of us in our own spiritual journey. They may have been passed over in Rome but your grandparents, mentors, favourite confessors etc. are all part of the larger body of the saints. In Germany this is clearly understood. All Saints’ Day German-style means a bank-holiday and time for remembering all those that have meant something to you. Graves of relatives are visited, services call to mind all those who are heroic to each individual person. There is also another element to the celebration. All Saints’ Day encourages us not just to look back, but also to look forward to our future — our eternal future — when we will be able to compare scars with the whole company and our common master by whose stripes we are healed. Talk wildlife with St. Francis, chat with your Granny, compare the finer points of lions and stadium design with St. Polycarp …
The problem is — it’s easy to be enticed by anti-heroes, but why are the heroes normally so dull? Saint Bore is the patron saint of All Saints day for most of the world.So what are saints useful for? The first answer must be a resounding one: jewellery.Yes, St. Christopher and his peers have been worn round countless necks for centuries. A religion with “Do not worship false idols” at its core has provided countless idols to accompany the rabbit foot and the tacky colourful troll in the lucky charm collection. A few other saints do popularly crop up, such as the national patron saints: St. George slaying more mythology and most of the credibility of any organisation who has anything to do with him; Patrick being truly Irish; prizes for naming the Scottish and Welsh. The pastoral St. Francis keeps the RSPCA on side with his Dr. Doolittle impersonations. Then there are all of the other patron saints whose sole purpose seems to provide pointless questions for quiz shows: ‘Can you tell me the patron saint of bemused minds? … I’ll have to hurry you now’. Also popular are the flagellation saints: ‘Middle-aged in the Middle-ages? Struck dumb by life? Finding it all a bit much? Try the Canonisation diet. A few years of weirdness followed by a great spectacle of a death. Anyone for stoning? Not your style? Try buried alive. Don’t like the worms? How about walled up in a church? Become part of the fabric of the world in more ways than one. Free two letter moniker for the truly deranged, with the option of a space in church history and your very own day. Sounds like the offer of a lifetime, you say. Apply soon for full details and win a free goat-hair smock.’
But hold on a second, what about St. Augustine, Antioch and the like? Much firmer territory. These guys you actually feel demand some sort of respect. But the link between monasticism, martyrdom and mission and 1995’s multi-media environment seems too much of a struggle. Find your own candidates for sainthood? Possible heresy but loads more use. Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, your own favourite granny surrogate. Closer to home, but not to Rome it seems. Canonisation after death may protect the saint’s blushes but it does mean that timeless qualities are needed in saints. Excuse me if I say that killing dragons is not exactly timeless, whatever the reasons for doing so.
Whilst saints are supposed to inspire, they normally seem to turn people off big-time. You are either annoyed with them (‘get up and do something, you clod’), or cannot or do not want to relate to them (martyrdom rears its ugly head). They are not real to most people — the connection cannot be made across the centuries. If saints are to inspire you in how to live, why is there no patron saint for stock-brokers, D.J.s, or tree-surgeons?
Whilst I’m at it, here are a few more questions — do people who are canonised ever want to be sainted? I mean — it’s not exactly humble is it. And why is this elevation of humans felt necessary? Here seems to be the problem — sainthood is conferred on people for living lives which are out of the ordinary. So far, so good. After all, that’s what should distinguish saints from everyone else. But who gives anyone the right to perform this canonisation? Aren’t ‘the saints’ in the Bible the whole body of Christ — every Tom, Dick and Harriet who believe?
Questions, questions! My road from cynical ignorance to saint overload was signposted by a couple of very useful books: Attwater’s Penguin Dictionary of Saints, and The Cloud of Witnesses — the Anglican Church’s guide to Holy Days. Research — don’t you just love it!
So here goes for a few facts. Firstly, there are commonly two types of saint: the martyrs who died for their cause; and the confessors who were venerated for living consistently Christian lives. The reasoning behind this elevation of admirable humans is put down to the fact that the Church wanted to celebrate their lives — daily lives lived with a heroic Christian faithfulness and integrity, rather than the miraculous (although this often accompanied the saintly life). In performing this canonisation the church was not making saints, but recognising the recipient as a saint. The history of canonisation includes many changes in the body which is allowed to perform the canonisation. The first saints (apostles etc.) were informally recognised by general consent, or by the petition of those who had witnessed a saint’s life to a bishop for a holy day on which to remember the saint. The Pope took over the permission to canonise saints in 1181 and from then on Rome has had the only say, the current process being prescribed in 1634. The other traditions have differing views: the Eastern Orthodox churches still canonise independently to Rome; the Anglican and Protestant Churches, whilst still celebrating Saint’s days to a greater or lesser extent, do not perform canonisation. Despite the term ‘canonisation’, a canon does not exist which details all of the saints. 4500 saints are detailed in the Roman Catholic Church’s records but many more may exist, unrecognised by the Catholic Church.
What do we know of the lives of the saints? For some we have good historical accounts. For others myth, folklore and ‘selective biography’ has evidently been used to make the deeds of the saints seem more heroic, and their failings expunged. Although well motivated, this does the saint in question a disservice and goes against the reason for making the figure a saint in the first place. Due to the emphasis on the saint’s being rather than his deeds, the saints’ actual lives can unfortunately appear to be dull, dour, and uninteresting. That’s where the problem lies. On one side sits the mythology of St. George’s lizard exploits. On the other St. Therese’s unremarkable 12 year life resulting in nothing more than an interesting book. Even to the spiritually aware observer, neither of these provide much excitement. As saintly heroism is defined by integrity, some particularly dull individuals are venerated
So people turn to secular heroes to give them what they need. They give us something to aspire to — they provide much of the motivation of every athlete, politician, painter, and even chartered-accountant (although you never know). Heroes may be as diverse as parents, siblings, DC-Comic cape wearing superheroes, sportswomen, film stars, bosses, historic figures, even Mr Blobby — the list is endless. Secular heroes may easily inspire, but they do have many other problems.
For a start, heroism is always relative. One simple question does spring to mind (what do you mean, you figured it would?). To whom are heroes heroic? Does a hero need to be recognised by everyone? Even Nietzsche’s Bungled and Botched were probably heroes to a more selective audience. What if this selective audience was God? What if the rest of the world thought you were weird, and only God understood your heroism? Fame and recognition does not make you more of a hero; being an unsung hero may offer less celebrity, but, as seen before, celebrity can be a poisoned chalice. We may all be heroes to greater or lesser extents for different people. I may reckon Earl Grey did the world an incredible favour when he sprang his particular blend of tea on a thirsty populace. Suicide bombers, on the other hand, are held as the foremost heroes of their faction’s warped beliefs. One person’s villainous madman is another’s hero.
So how do you measure heroism? Was Wellington more heroic than Terry Waite? Does your own mother make Mother Theresa pale in comparison? Such comparisons are meaningless and belittling to the special unique heroism of each person in their particular circumstances and with their particular gifts and handicaps.
If we all value heroes so much, it may seem curious that we take such relish in trying to drag heroes down in this country. Take the case of Hugh Grant’s Divine dalliance. USA: Page Nine of USA Today for one issue. UK: weeks of coverage by the British tabloids, lurid headlines, chat-show regrets, and a whole new career for one lucky prostitute. Kiss and tell is seen as the British heaven rather than hell. The Sleaze-Tease of the media panders to our basest instincts. Heroes: the English reaction — build them up to tear them down; find the chinks in their armour; ‘too good to be true’ is acceptable for reduced-fat ice-cream but not for people.
The first reason for this hero-hate is disappointment. Your recognition by your hero can be vitally important: you want to know your hero. In these days of ubiquitous media coverage you may already feel you do. How many of the world’s population are on first name terms with their heroes?: “Come on Steffi/Gazza.” You put them on a pedestal, inspired by the little you know of them, and invest them with the rest of their character from your ideals. Unfortunately, they normally do not live up to your fantasy — under that kind veneer may beat a heart of stone. Worse still, it is normally impossible for these public heroes to live up to the stature and goodness invented for them. This hero-worship turns ugly when it’s one way, unreciprocated, idealised — obsession turns murderous, security guards become a necessity.
The second reason for knocking heroes down is envy. Heroes can give us something to aspire to. But we can also envy them and feel oppressed by their heroism, diminishing us and making us feel worthless. Anyone who has an older brother or sister may feel this sharply. Conversely, and even more painfully, living up to a ‘more successful’ younger sibling can be even worse. Therefore on many occasions we can’t bear the hero’s presence — they highlight the weaknesses and deficiencies in our lives. The result of this hero love-hate is that we try to destroy them. Heroes are plain annoying. Discredit them or, if that fails, turn to more fatal means. Christ — the greatest hero of them all — got nailed to the cross by his every illuminating good deed.
In contrast to our common reaction to heroes, anti-heroes are less threatening to us. They expect nothing of us — no response. However bad we are, they are there to make us feel alright. They are enticing in their acceptance of us and in their evil.
This seduction is enhanced by the fact that most villains are pro-active whilst heroes are normally re-active. In Batman do you remember Michael Keaton for anything other than that rubber suit and those gadgets? Jack Nicholson’s imaginative Joker garners all the best lines. Sequels pile on the interesting baddies even thicker. Even in this article it has been a struggle to curb my desire to play around with the quiet boredom of saints. Almost witty paragraphs concerning depraved sinners spring to the pen with much more readiness than those detailing the hum-drum yet heroic perseverance of the saints.
But heroes do not have to be less interesting than villains. Compare Batman with Oskar Schindler and the following becomes obvious: pro-active heroes inspire, re-active heroes bore. This is akin to the difference between Judaism and Christianity: whereas the Jews have don’ts, Christ’s followers have do’s, motivations, aspirations, inspirations. We must do good, not just not do wrong. Apathy is not an option.
The pro-active lifestyle is hard — Christ died for his — but the kingdom will not be built by any other stance. What was so attractive about Christ — who he was, expressed through what he said and, most importantly, did — should be what is attractive about every Christian. In this pro-activism the kingdom draws closer to Earth in two ways. In our good deeds we can indeed set free the captives of poverty and oppression. And also, through these deeds, we can inspire those around us to enquire why we do this — social action leads naturally to evangelism.
Whereas pro-activism leads to respect for the person and their motivation, reactivism generally does not. This is evidenced clearly in the laughable reactive political workings of many American Christian Lobbying bodies. Notice the latest risible outburst against Disney by the American Life League. Have you noticed the corrupting influence of The Lion King? Oh, I know, the A.L.L. must be concerned by the implicit racism in portraying the evil characters in darker colours. Or maybe it’s the subtle New Age ‘Circle of Life’ imagery that concerns them. No. Unbelievably it’s a dust cloud which they claim says SEX in one frame of the film. The fact that no-one else can see this betrays the group’s purpose — if this phenomenon is not noticed by the average viewer, why did the censors in this organisation spot it? Surely they couldn’t have been explicitly looking for it? Must have really enjoyed the film. I have found instances of genocide in the Bible (see Deut 7, v1–6 if you’re interested), maybe we should ban that book too. This country’s Evangelical Alliance are little better. Instead of channelling their much-needed energy into pro-active causes such as poverty, homelessness, setting captives free, pretty much anything that liberation theology says (Luke 4), what they’ve done so far is more re-active ‘stop the rot’ right-wing moralism. Ensuring the violence on our screens does not get out of hand is important, but it pales into insignificance when considered in an environment in which many of the country’s citizens do not have access to housing, let alone light entertainment.
And as for Hallowe’en, don’t be naive about the cause of the increasing occultism prevalent in society. The reason that people want this is because they perceive the established church as dull and boring. Many Christians would agree with them. Sainthood and star value are not exactly synonymous. To crib directly from Star Wars: “Beware the dark side. It is always easier, more enticing.” To combat the temptation of occultism, the Church’s heroes need a re-spray. This would be far more effective in my eyes, than ‘taking dominion over Satan’.
It will always be easier to market creepy stories than stories of great heroes. For every Schindler’s List there are at least six Halloweens. However, if Christians lived up to the life of their leader, the world would be more inclined to sit up and take notice. Moreover, this notice can provoke unease in the world, leading to conversion or persecution. The latter is not a nice thought, but it is an inheritance for the Christian (1 Peter 4 v12–16).
Be heroic, whoever you are, in whatever way you can be; in whatever way you are called. And if you are looked up to, take care how you handle the acclaim. Who do the heroes of this world look up to? No-one but themselves, obsessed with their own personality cult? Or to someone greater? And what of the great figures of history, the great heroes of yesteryear. As evidenced in each forthcoming biography, sometimes the figures that are heroic to the great are fairly humble: their simple but sturdy parents; the milkman who never failed to deliver the milk; an uncle with a glass eye.
As for the celebrated saints, what should we learn? Firstly, despite their incredible biographies, the saints were all normal people — human like us. Their biographers may disguise the fact, but the saints went through the same trials and had the same doubts as every Christian today. They are our forebears and our comfort. Whatever was saintly about them came through the same grace of God which is open to all. Their witness to Christ should inspire us as we are, not to be supermen, but to be truly, humbly, ourselves. My plea is for us to struggle to possess a Christian integrity, and to also express this pro-actively. You probably won’t get a sainthood, but at least Christianity would get better PR.
1995. In the company of the saints. In communion with them and their inspiration. Made one with them as the body of our common living hope. Echoes of far-off voices, souls long gone but still present with us in our celebration. A candle, a cross, bread and wine. And the huddle of the local saints in a cold, yet strangely warm and evocative crypt. A link in one man — the reason for it all.
Saints — they must inspire you, you are one of them! Look to the source, the one true hero. Christ is the only hero who can truly inspire — we try to destroy him and each time he rises again. Everyone wants to be like their hero. But a hero that dies for his beliefs — that seems like too much of a price to pay. Following the one true hero is too costly. And that’s why he’s so heroic. Christ is the oddity — the king of fools. We are challenged, but also gain more worth, rather than less, for ourselves by his life. And we can have a relationship with our hero — if your hero loves you, even to death, what better inspiration can you have?
To quote Steve Taylor: “Role models may vary in quality, but all are ultimately born to disappoint. Jesus is the only hero worth having.” Need a hero? Who you gonna call?
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Last modified: 25th November 2005