Guest Post—James Danaher on "The Saint and the Celebrity"

Here are the reflections of philosopher James Danaher on saints and celebrities in contemporary culture and church. They are from chapter 11 of his book Contemplative Prayer (Cascade, forthcoming). Thanks to James for permission to post his reflections here.

We are familiar in our culture with the idea of some people being different from the rest of us. In our contemporary American culture, the celebrity is such an individual. The reason for their being different is that mass media gives the celebrity a notoriety that goes way beyond that of the average person. Since the celebrity is identifiable by a great multitude of people, their identity appears to be more substantial than the rest of us who are only identifiable by a handful of people who make up our rather small world. Certainly, this idea that some people’s identity is greater than others because they are identifiable by more people is an illusion, but it is an illusion deeply entrenched in contemporary culture.

In fact, this illusion that the celebrity has a greater identity than the rest of us is so deeply entrenched in our social reality that it should not be surprising that we have replaced the idea of the saintly Christian with the idea of the celebrity Christian. Evidence of this is all around us. At a recent local prayer breakfast, the guest speaker was a movie star who had, two years previously, had a conversion experience. They chose him because many people would be interested in his testimony, not because of his saintliness, but because of his celebrity. Many churches that have extensive standards for a person to be a ministering member, ironically would invite a celebrity to their pulpit with little reservation. Some time ago, I voiced a disagreement to something a television preacher was saying. My mother-in-law’s response was that I was not on T.V., and he was. Obviously, his opinion was more authoritative, not because of what he said but because of his celebrity. Go to any bookstore and you will see that celebrities make up the vast majority of those who are authoring books that purport to instruct us in the Christian life. Publishers know that in order to sell great quantities of books, the author has to be identifiable by a great many people. Consequently, television preachers, sports stars, and every other imaginable celebrity are the ones from whom we take our spiritual direction. Sadly, their spiritual authority comes from their celebrity rather than their saintliness. Our culture has taught us that what we should revere about a person is the fact that they have an identity established by a great many people. Thus, baseball players tell us what coffee to drink and movie stars what credit card to use. How strange! It is, however, more than simply strange when celebrities are the ones we look to in order to understand how to follow Jesus.

It is especially strange that the celebrity has replaced the saint in our culture because the celebrity is the complete opposite of the saint. While the celebrity draws their identity from the notoriety that masses of people provide, the saint draws her identity from God alone. Unlike the celebrity, and all who desire to be celebrities and have their identities established by great numbers of people, the saint rejects such an identity and seeks only to be who God says they are, no more and no less. The saint repeatedly turns from the identity others attempt to impose upon her and only identifies herself as God’s beloved daughter. The saint sees the notoriety and prestige that the celebrity has and the rest of us seek as the illusion that it is. It is an illusion because the masses of people who serve to provide the celebrity with their identity have no real knowledge of who the celebrity actually is. Since our identity is largely the result of our relationship and interaction with others, an identity founded upon our relationship with people who really do not know us is the least substantial identity. The celebrity’s identity may have the illusion of being more substantial because a great multitude of people establishes that identity, but they are people without any personal knowledge of the celebrity.

By contrast, the saint’s identity appears to be the least substantial since it rests upon the saint’s relationship with one person alone. It is, however, our only true source of identity, since that one person is the only one who does truly know us. This is what makes the saint so different not only from the celebrity, but from the rest of us as well. While we form an identity out of our relationships with those people who make up our small worlds, and the celebrity out of their relationship with the masses, the saint’s identity is rooted in the only one whose notice really matters.

Comments

Alex Smith said…
James makes some good observations.

With greater power/status, should come a greater expectation to be an example, both in godliness/generosity. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way, as greater power/status also brings greater temptations.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Franchesca De Leon said…
Greatly explained by Dr. Danaher. Intelligent Man- my former professor.
MikeG said…
But there are some "celebrities" who also live a saintly life... whilst the observations are interesting, we shouldn't be quick to judge all celebrities in the same way.

As Alex says, "greater power/status also bring greater temptations." When such a celebrity falls, it runs rife in the media... and these are the people that are representing Christianity to the rest of the world.

Maybe it's the non-celebrated "saints" who need to stop moaning and get alongside the "celebrities", encouraging them to live life the Jesus way...?
Robin Parry said…
MikeG,

I think that you may have missed James's point. He is not saying that celebrity Christians cannot be saints and I am sure that there are some saintly celebrities. So he is not judging all celebrities.

As I understand it, his point is simply that Christians are often more interested in listening to "Christian advice" from person X simply because person X is a celebrity (even though celebrity pre se provides no basis for offering Christian wisdom) and not because person X is a saint (which does provide a basis for offering Christian wisdom).

Non-celebrated saints don't moan about not being celebrated but those who have a concern for the health of the church do have grounds to worry when celebrity rather than godliness becomes the prime virtue amongst believers.
Robin Parry said…
I meant "per se" not "pre se"
I agree with you MikeG, not all celebrities are person X. We shouldn't be quick judge all celebrities in the way.
All I can say is "Don't judge the book by it's cover".
Robin Parry said…
rkwl

Hi. I think that you have misunderstood James' point (see my reply to Mike above)
Cody Lee said…
This is totally off the subject, but I would really like your imput on this issue Robin.

Me and an Orthodox friend of mine have been discussing Christology, and he doesn't like the emphasis that I put of the vicarious asspect of Christ's life where He does everything even my believing, so his rebutal was that Christ is a Divine Person who assumed a human nature, anhypostasis. He thinks this gets him around that asspect because then what Christ redeemed was just my nature, and not my actions, since He is not a human person, therefor faith is my part.

I told him I didn't like the way He said that Christ is a Divine Person who has a human nature, because it was like he wasn't giving full creedance to the humanity of Christ, though I know it is true He is the Logos who took on our humanity, but I stand with Torrance in the enhypostatic asspect where His hypostasis personalized that human nature and He became a real man. Therefor He is both Divine and human. I want to call Him the Divine-human Person, but my friend accuses me of Nestorianism, saying that I am implying that Christ became a human person too.

Can you see the problem here, and maybe offer some advice?

Thanks
Robin Parry said…
Cody

Flumps of Doom! That is a HEAVY question! I am afraid I have no authoritative answer on this one. My instinct are to follow T. F. Torrance (he is an amazing theologian). His book "Incarnation" is brilliant.

But I find that when I have not kept up with christological reading my Christology gets rusty and I end up all confused . . . like now.

Sorry I cannot help.
Anonymous said…
The scariest bit of the article was where he had a run-in with his mother-in-law -- Yikes!
Peter said…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYwmjqA3jaA

Popular Posts