The answers to these questions are ultimately found in Christ. True heroes are not always “the visible winners in our society.” Such was the certainly the case with Jesus whose earthly ministry appeared to suffer the ultimate defeat but in the end he was the ultimate hero in all of human history. Jesus Christ—fully God and fully man—embodied the highest aspirations of moral virtue, self-sacrifice, and courage. Christ, the true hero, engages our imagination and motivates us to try to make that virtue our own. Granted, we must be aided in these efforts by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit but for those whose souls have been quickened by His grace; the choice to do so remains ours.
The Church must press the virtues of Christ as the standard by which all heroes are measured and once again incorporate stories that illustrate and teach these virtues to our nation’s children. Our values have changed, which in turn changed our “heroes” and how we define heroism. Subsequently our stories have changed as well. Instead of inspiring a generation to aspire to human excellence in the moral virtues, we are indoctrinating children in secular humanist propaganda over and against biblical truth. Perhaps telling schoolchildren the story of the
Good Samaritan would better serve the needs of society than the story of
Heather has Two Mommies.
© 2007 by S. Michael Craven
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S. Michael Craven is the Founding Director of the
Center for Christ
& Culture, a ministry of the
National Coalition for the Protection
of Children & Families. The
Center for Christ & Culture is
dedicated to renewal within the Church and works to equip Christians
with an intelligent and thoroughly Christian approach to matters of
culture in order to recapture and demonstrate the relevance of
Christianity to all of life. For more information on the
Center for
Christ & Culture, additional resources and other works by S.
Michael Craven visit:
www.battlefortruth.orgMichael lives in the Dallas area with his wife Carol and their three children.
