Look around you. It seems that in America these days, Superman just doesn't cut it anymore. Neither does General Schwarzkpof or Clinton, or Evel Knievel. Ask yourself this question: What type of figures get the most play on the nightly news?
a. all-around good guys
b. political leaders
c. life-savers
d. heretics
If you answered "d," you're right. Our culture is a culture addicted to the idolatry of heretics. I'm not talking about the heretics of old, when figures such as Martin Luther, true heretics if you will, were in a position of some sort of nobility. Noble in that they dared to counter structures as big as the church, dared to put up an ideological fight. Nobility is different now. Now, such nobility is granted to the one-percent lunatic fringe.
"If anyone were obstinately to deny [matters of faith] after they had been defined by the authority of the universal Church," said Thomas Aquinas, "he would be deemed a heretic. And much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Hmmm... doesn't this sound familiar, just with a different authority? Say... Dahmer, or John Wayne Gacy? It's not really the Church anymore that's the benchmark as much as it is our warped sense of what's right and what's wrong.
The title "Heretic" is granted to anyone who dares smoke a cigarette on the street in Boulder, Colorado. We scour to find the next one to put on the front of the paper. Will it be the Nanny who Shakes the Baby, the Man who Eats the Dead, or the American Psycho to whom we lend our full, undivided attention? We'll take whatever we can get.
Maybe it's about fascination, and maybe it's about boredom, but it most probably has to do with relative deprivation. We like to see people take the plunge for us, take the dive. And you must admit that it's far more exciting to see someone lose than win. I mean, you have to admit that; otherwise Fox would change its programming, start showing stories of success instead of "Cops."
We have an obsession with the obsessed, and we make them noble. Look, and you'll see that the real "royalty" of our culture resides in the courtrooms. Now, heretics are lumped with underdogs. Being a heretic is too easy. There's even a video game in which the player (that's you, bucko) is the heretic. What does a heretic do? He shoots people and dogs and wades waist-deep in toxic aqueducts. This is what it's come to.
The Apostle Paul says in 1 Cor. 11:19, "For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you."
Don't leave us, crazy nannies and disturbed butchers! We want you!
We need you.
Dan Weinshenker has a thing for the macabre. E-mail him at [email protected].
