Every culture deifies men. A culture elevates the triumphs and buries the flaws of its heroes. Sadly, Christian culture is no different. Christian culture treats the Church fathers, the reformers, the leaders of the Great Awakening, theologians of their personal affinities, and even their own pastors as a special class of Christians. The threat of this deification is rather subtle. The deification of man will slowly erode a local church and do so under the pretense of honoring someone. The answer to the threat is not demonizing men but lifting high the cross of Christ.
How the Threat Appears
The threat typically begins outside of a local church. A biography is written about a hero of the faith but fails to mention the sins of this man. The author argues that the reason for this is to honor the hero. Or there's a cultural moment when a popular preacher stands upon the Word of God faithfully and garners a following because of it. Christians don't treat these men like demigods purposefully. These stalwarts of the faith often are once in a generation. The work of these men far exceeds what we believe we could ever do. At this point, the deification has not yet begun, but the seeds are planted for it. After a while, a church member or even a pastor starts to believe that this hero is the standard bearer of all Christianity. Instead of quoting Scripture, it seems that every statement is a quote of the heroes a person is obsessed with. A person reads the writings of those men far more often than Scripture but justifies it because the author is writing about Scripture. When it's the deification of the pastor, church members always seem to appeal to the pastor's whims and thoughts. The deification remains subtle, though. No one would ever say their hero is equal to Christ, but their actions toward the hero make the person seem like their hero isn't that much lesser than Christ. All of this is under the guise of honor and love. Deification begins, and the focus is taken off of Christ. A man or a group of men becomes the foundation on which believers build their faith.
Why is This a Threat?
The first reason the deification of a man is a threat is obvious—no one is worthy of worship except Christ. Deification, even accidentally, takes worship away from Jesus and places it upon men who are not worthy of that worship. Any church that worships someone other than God has lost its lampstand! The removal of Christ as the sole focus of worship is blasphemous, no matter the intentions. Christ has no rival and competes with no one.
The second reason this is a threat is because all our heroes will fail us. When we remove Christ as our foundation and replace him with a human being, we put ourselves in a precarious spot. We make a man the cornerstone of our faith, and then the tweet comes. "Did you know so-and-so did/believed awful thing?" While many quasi-historians have sinister motives in finding dirt on Christian stalwarts, these reports still can cause a host of issues. What do we now do with this person that we've deified? The skeleton has fallen out of the closet of our hero, and the illegitimate foundation of our faith has been shaken. Christians whose faith is built off of mere humans are left either in denial or with a broken foundation. Pastors who have been deified by their churches leave ruin when they fall. The danger of the threat of deifying men is not that our heroes could possibly fail; it's that our heroes will fail. Our faith being built on the shoulders of any man will always lead to trouble and brokenness. It's not if, it's when.
How to Protect Against the Threat
So, how do we prevent deification? First, we learn to honor people properly. The wrong reaction to the deification of men is to fall into the opposite ditch of underappreciating people. The way to properly honor people is by praising and worshipping God. The best way to honor people is to use the good they've done as the launching point to see the splendor of God. Pastors, when your people seek to honor you, use that as a way to praise God and show your people that it's all of God.
Second, the Christian must start by recognizing that not only is his hero a sinner, but he also doesn't deserve to be a hero. So, if a Christian's reaction to finding a fault in his hero is denial, then he must remember that no man except Christ is worthy to be a hero. If a Christian's reaction, on the other end, is to demonize, he must remember every last person will utterly fail to live up to the standard of perfection, and God is known for using men who constantly fail. The demonization of a former hero is proof that deification happened. We are all men with feet of clay, and we should be viewed as such. Humanize every person you view as a hero. Pastors, the way to guard against your church deifying you is to remind them of these two truths regularly. Remind them that you're a human being desperately in need of Jesus. Remind them that God must work through you for anything you do to be effective. When speaking of the grace of God and how it's given to unworthy people, use the "we" language instead of the "you" language. Pastors, humanize yourself.
Lastly, and most importantly, keep your eyes on Jesus. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, but we're all looking to that One. In the sea of humanity, there is only One who is worthy, and ever-knowing that it is Jesus alone will destroy any deification of men. Pastors, preach to make much of Jesus. Prioritize speaking the Word of God, not what others have said about it. Herald Christ and don't be a herald of the other heralds.
While all your heroes will fail you, Christ never will. Christ alone is worthy of being the foundation of our faith. Let no man usurp him.
Written by Klayton Carson
The "Threats to the Church" series is also on the Text-Driven Podcast. You can listen to the Text-Driven Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at www.textdriven.org/podcasts. New episodes are released every Monday, just in time for your morning commute.
