I have noticed that we of the human race have a compulsive need to either demonize or heroize (according to google that is a word) people.
It is a practice I became disenchanted with as I grew older and learned what miserable human beings so many of the world's big heroes are, and also witnessed counter-movements arise, urging people to completely discredit all work done - no matter how good - by said hero because of the miserable things they did.
For example, Martin Luther, the author of the reformed movement in Christianity, was horribly anti-Semitic. This is a man who did some incredibly amazing and brave things, challenged a highly corrupt and extremely powerful Catholic church as it is existed in his day, and opened up lines of knowledge in ways that had not existed for hundreds of years. As a happy member of the Presbyterian Church in America, I am infinitely grateful for the work of Martin Luther.
Yet he hated Jews. And I don't mean "I think they're ugly" type of dislike, I mean pure, unadulterated, called-for-their-horrific-torture-and-murder hatred. Holy crap.
So, how do we deal with this? Many people do so by sweeping it under the rug. In fact, many people who know a great deal about Martin Luther still do not know this about him, even to a small extent.
As people, we have this need to put our figures into a box of "good" or "bad." Good people can do bad things, and bad people good, but we are not comfortable until we have a mental tally of which side wins out. At that point, we focus only on their category, and decide those good or bad things are anomalies to be overlooked. If we have a hero who did something awful, it becomes, "Well, obviously I don't think that was OK, but (s)he's still a great man/woman."
It does a disservice to the heroes, by making them less human. After all, if we are counting them as near-deities, then of course they do great things! To do a great thing would be like cheesecake for a person in this upper, god-like echelon of being!
It also does a disservice to potential victims, anyone wounded by our hero's transgressions. Who are we to say "That was bad but... it's overshadowed by their great act"? I highly doubt it is overshadowed to the victim.
I remember after Michael Jackson's death, there was this poll going around, to the effect of "Will you remember Michael Jackson as a legend of music, or a pedophile?" Most people answered with the first.
Now, Michael Jackson was not ever convicted of anything, so I am not actually saying that he molested a child, but for the sake of argument, suppose he did. Do you think for one second that child would be less scarred by what happened to them because Michael Jackson was an incredible musician? Do you think that the fact that maybe much more of his life was taken up by making great music than was doing terrible things to them, that they'd figure "Well it's OK, the meritorious action wins out here"? Of course not! Their life would still be shattered in unthinkable ways, and no amount of great music on the part of MJ would take that away. And to ignore a hero's transgressions against another person or group is to decide that said person/group does not matter. So if Michael Jackson ever did molest a child, he IS a legend of music, but he was also a pedophile. Neither becomes less true based on the other.
The final group which ignoring bad actions of heroic figures does a disservice to is us. You and me. Humans as a whole. Because it makes us feel like the only people that can do amazing things are this crazy upper echelon of man-gods who don't really ever screw up. Looking at ourselves, we all know we don't quite fit that description, and as such, often we won't even reach for doing the works of those we like to imagine do. We deny our own abilities and responsibilities when we pretend that only these marvelous, shiny, perfect heroes hold the job of changing the world in big ways.
I think we need to stop focusing on these people as heroes so much, and instead focus on their individual heroic actions. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader of the Civil Rights Movement. He also was a serial womanizer who cheated on his wife likely hundreds of times. Neither of these things has an effect on the other. His being a womanizer does not discredit his work on the civil rights front, and his work on the civil rights front does not excuse his marital infidelity.
So rather than saying "I need to be like this person," we should instead be focusing on the individual actions, looking at what was good about them, and seeking to further and emulate those. Not deifying a flawed mess of a human being. Not pretending like hating Jews, or cheating on a wife, or molesting a child, etc., are any less horrible than they are, just because the same vessel that did those things did some very good ones as well.
I don't want to be like Martin Luther, but I do want to seek truth and honesty in my church and walk with God. I want to be brave when facing big, scary, corrupt forces, and stand for truth anyhow. Martin Luther did both of those, but he was not the personification of them. It is the things that are good, not the person.
After all, as a Calvinist Christian, I believe no person is actually good, except one. So why would I be looking to anyone other than that one as a whole package to emulate? The idea is incredibly foolish, in my opinion, from any person's eyes, but doubly so through a Christian's.
I can understand why a non-Christian would set people up as heroes like it was their obsessive-compulsive job. We all want someone to look to for hope, to prove there is good in the world, that there are big and strong figures that can save us from the mess we see all around us. We have to deify the figures of the past to convince ourselves that not only can it happen again, but that perhaps the best is yet to come.
As Christians, we know only Jesus Christ can ever be a perfect hero: the one to emulate in quintessential character, not just action. We are told that in the Bible, and yet here we are, working so bloody hard to set up someone else for ourselves. When I think about it, we really haven't moved a single step forward from begging God for a king, and thinking ourselves oh-so-lucky and more complete to have Saul.
But we ought to. We ought to know better, and we ought to have the self-awareness, world-awareness, and Christ-awareness to be progressing from this. Anyone with a brain and a memory should be able to look at every "great" man or woman who has lived, and know that it is their positive actions, not every inch of the person, that we should be celebrating.
A good action does not cancel out a bad, and vise versa, and we need to stop acting like it does. We have more knowledge than that, and as Christians, we have a Holy Spirit living within us, and because of this, we should know, very clearly, that those heroes are no different than us in terms of internal make, evil desires and actions, flaws, and ability to produce God-inspired and God-granted goodness. We need to view the good actions of "heroes" as glimmers of God's grace working within individuals - not deeming those glimmers as a reason to make those people gods.
