Reflections on hero worship

I'd be the first one to hold up my hands and say that I'm annoyingly prone to hero worship. I'll get an idea into my head that so-and-so is the best thing since sliced bread and I'll lap up their work like a kitten who's just figured out how to open the cream. Examples of this behaviour are; Bill Bailey, Mark Driscoll, Stephen Fry, Tim Keller, Michael Macintyre, Wayne Grudem etc. I've purposely chosen a good mix of examples to illustrate that this can refer to both Christian and non-christian heroes alike.

However, on the other hand, the other extreme is to disassociate oneself from any influence besides EXACTLY that which I believe. This is terribly closed minded and doesn't really solve the problem, as rather than elevating others to the place of heroes, it simply serves to elevate yourself, your ideology and your ego to the hero pedestal.

These things occurred to me during a recent Bible study on 1 Corinthians 1, which reads; "...there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: one of you says, "I follow Paul", another, "I follow Apollos", another, "I follow Cephas", still another, "I follow Christ.""

The letter that Paul writes to this church in Corinth serves to address, among other things, this very issue of hero worship. Different factions in the church are saying that they follow one apostolic voice over another, they are following one body of teaching over, and at the expense of, other teaching. However, one faction has decided to play the trump card and claim to follow Christ. Very crafty, but actually this group's thinking is just as divided as the other groups. By placing Christ as one choice among many they have fallen into the trap of lowering Christ to a pawn in their game. And Paul treats all four factions to the same rebuke, which almost sounds silly the more he writes; "is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?"

There is a profound lesson here. We fall so easily into the trap of elevating certain people, thoughts, musical styles, ideologies, theologies or traditions to the place of heroes to be worshipped, and when we do so we do so at the expense of Christ being first in our hearts. These things become idols, and idols cannot be destroyed, only replaced. Only Christ, if you seek Him is infinitely satisfying, but if you fail Him He's already died for your sins to forgive you!

We must pay special attention to the things we value most dearly. We must keep in mind that only God can claim perfection, and therefore everything else we revere, however good and useful, is imperfect and so should be followed wisely and with a pinch of salt.