Whitney and the Cult of Personality

Whitney Houston died yesterday, aged forty-eight. It was a tragic death, after such a charmed life. The obituaries in print and online observe that she was a victim of her own success, of the cult of personality. They chronicle the reign of the diva in the '80s and '90s, and the addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol that destroyed her.

Right now, I'm watching the news: live footage of stars walking the red carpet at the Grammys. Though an official pall has been cast over the celebrations, the stars still can't help posturing in front of the cameras. After all, it's who they are, it's what they do. More than that, it's who our culture has made them. It's the cult of personality. As one mourner just stated on TV, "She was our American idol before there was American idol."

There's something deep within us that gravitates towards idolizing people, towards hero worship. This is true inside the church, as well as outside the church.

I'm halfway through a superb biography of Bonhoeffer. The following sentence in my reading today jumped out in light of Whitney’s death: "He never wanted his classes or the seminary to become a cult of personality, centered on him" (p 265).

The country was drunk on nationalism and the messianic persona of the new Fuhrer, a word which literally means 'Leader.' Bonhoeffer saw the ease with which fuhrer worship outside the church so quickly seeped into the church. The 'German Christians,' as the state church was known, embraced many of the values of the Nazis--largely out of nationalistic fervor and loyalty to Hitler. Bonhoeffer recognized this damnable human inclination and sought to guard against it in the breakaway church movement which became known as the 'Confessing Church.' The last thing that would be tolerated in this new collection of protesting pastors was the unhealthy elevation of any individual, especially him.

Like Paul, he recognized the fleshly tendencies that can be so divisive in the church:

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that 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.’          (1 Corinthians 1:10-12)

Bonhoeffer knew that each one of us must guard our hearts in what we both give and receive since, in the words of John the Baptist, there is only one who deserves adulation. He is the Leader par excellence. The Christ. The One and Only, our Savior.

And so, with John, we affirm this essential truth:

“He must increase, but I must decrease”  (John 3:30).

Don't Canonize Steve Jobs

Yeah, I've confessed to wishing I had some Apple products (all donations gladly accepted!). So it might sound like sour grapes (or apples) to point you to this very excellent article from Gawker.com titled, What Everyone is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs. It provides enough realism to temper our sadness, our adulation, and our near-deification of this remarkable, but deeply-flawed man. I think it's well worth a read, so here's an excerpt with the link afterwards:

It's the dream of any entrepreneur to effect change in one industry. Jobs transformed half a dozen of them forever, from personal computers to phones to animation to music to publishing to video games. He was a polymath, a skilled motivator, a decisive judge, a farsighted tastemaker, an excellent showman, and a gifted strategist. 

One thing he wasn't, though, was perfect. Indeed there were things Jobs did while at Apple that were deeply disturbing. Rude, dismissive, hostile, spiteful: Apple employees—the ones not bound by confidentiality agreements—have had a different story to tell over the years about Jobs and the bullying, manipulation and fear that followed him around Apple. Jobs contributed to global problems, too. Apple's success has been built literally on the backs of Chinese workers, many of them children and all of them enduring long shifts and the specter of brutal penalties for mistakes. And, for all his talk of enabling individual expression, Jobs imposed paranoid rules that centralized control of who could say what on his devices and in his company.

The article (perhaps unintentionally) raises a very important question for all of us: What price are we willing to pay for success? What virtues or relationships or principles are we prepared to incinerate on the altar of achievement? Jobs was uniquely successful. He's been compared to Edison and Einstein and called the greatest innovator of the last century. But as this article demonstrates, the cost was exceptionally high.

Here's where you can read more:
 http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-steve-jobs

Leadership Conference

LakeView's six staff ministry heads attended an all-day leadership conference in Madison today. I confess considerable disappointment with the content. But it's always a treat to hang out with the team. And the local coffee shop was very pleased, indeed, that we attended the seminar.