How to Be a Hero

Oink oink

Any Christian who is not a hero is a pig.

- Leon Bloy

This quote has haunted me since I first saw it at the beginning of John Irving’s 1989 novel A Prayer for Owen Meany.¹ Now, there are many different types of heroism, and not all of them physical. For Christians, spiritual heroism is something we all strive for. But the physical aspect cannot be discounted, especially as I look at the disturbing trends occurring in this nation of ours.²

For example, the SatanCon in Boston. That devil-worship is so publicly accepted is disturbing enough—and as David Cole says regarding other societal trends, that genie is never going back into the bottle so expect to see more widely accepted public devil worship as an immutable part of American life—but also is the fact that us Christian’s don’t do anything about it.

Case in point: the convention kicked off by shredding a Bible, a move so edgy, Marilyn Manson was doing it 30 years ago. Nothing happened to him, and nothing happened to those who did the shredding in Boston. God did not strike them down, they faced no economic, professional, personal consequences, nor did Christians riot and murder blasphemers like everyone’s favorite Romania-based pimp Andrew Tate’s co-religionists would had the Quran been desecrated.³ Tate, who was I guess trying to show solidarity with us wimpy Christians, dared the satan people to try shredding a Quran if they were so brave. We all know the implication: fuck around with Muslims and find out.⁴ Fuck around with Christians, and . . .

. . . and what? Get applauded? Become free speech⁵ heroes? Have someone write a very cordial, mildly disapproving letter to you? Have a Christian pray for you?

You can do all you want to a Bible and nothing will happen to you. Nothing ever does. And i Christians did try anything stabby and bomby, the full force of the American legal system would come down on all of us so hard that even the remnants of ISIS would be like, “Damn . . .”

But you know what? That’s okay. We were never promised an easy life. Being a Christian was always going to be hard, even in the good times. Having standards of behavior and an immutable moral code that is almost tailor-made to prevent you from acquiring any worldly power and influence and wealth, especially in our garbage anti-human, post-industrial society, isn’t exactly a walk in the park.⁶ It’s also a hard sell—no wonder church attendance is down, atheism is on the rise, and so on.

There are many ways to be a hero and a Christian, and one way is to persevere in the face of adversity. Look at the martyrs throughout history, from Rome to Baghdad. My own ancestors labored under the yoke of four centuries of Ottoman occupation and if anything it made their faith stronger.

We should not—I repeat, not—take to the streets; even if the cards weren’t stacked against us, I do not condone violence in any circumstance other than self-defense. There’s always lawfare, after all. There is no upside to “taking action” like some glow-in-the-dark bozo might urge you to do. I’d caution against even peaceful protesting. Prayer is action.

---

If you want to make heads explode and “own the [fill in the blank]s,” be like musician Nick Cave and go to church. Don’t be like supposedly devout Catholic Tom Araya, lead singer and bassist of thrash-metal veterans Slayer, who have albums with titles and covers I’m not going to share and has a band mate, guitarist and songwriter Kerry King, who says things like this:

“I don’t really have a life philosophy; my thing is just rebelling against pretty much organized religion. That is my main thing, because personally I think it’s a crutch for people that are too weak to get through life on their own. I’m the kind of guy that says if I don’t see it, then it doesn’t work. And nobody can show me God.” When asked by Revolver Magazine what superpower would he want if he was a supervillain, King replied “the ability to burst a church into flames by simply walking by it.”

Araya, on the other hand, says stuff like this:

Araya commented about the misconception of the band labeled as Satan worshippers, “Yeah, yeah I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions towards the band, but next to that just the fact that we’re normal.”⁷ If guitarist King writes a good song, Araya puts his beliefs aside, “I’m not one that's going to go, ‘This sucks because it's contrary to my beliefs.’ To me it's more like ‘This is really good stuff. You're going to piss people off with this.’”

In 2016, Araya further explained that the main reason Slayer used satanic imagery was to scare people, in particular, the “Hollywood people”, wanting to separate themselves from the “androgynous Sunset Strip metal scene of the 1980s.”

I mean, he sounds reasonable, but heroism is often unreasonable. I wonder if Araya ever thinks about the people his music has turned away from the church?⁸ Is he insulted by his supposed friend who thinks that Araya is “too weak” to get through life without the “crutch” of Christianity? What if Araya and his family were in the church that Kerry King would like to immolate? Does that matter to him, or was the paycheck too good? While we’re discussing the nexus of heavy metal and religion, I have much for respect for relatively new Christian Dave Mustaine of Megadeth who refused to share a bill with a blasphemous Swedish and Greek⁹ death metal bands.

So we come back to my point: Christians have no power in the earthly sense, and we have to plan accordingly. I predict Bible desecration will be taught in schools and universities in the next five to ten years, and Christian churches—and only Christian churches—will start to be taxed into oblivion. Constitutional privileges for mosques, synagogues, satanic temples, etc., will be discovered in penumbras and emanations spewing forth from the first amendment, and those same penumbras and emanations will demand taxes on the churches and their properties. These are the least of the coming tribulations.

The first amendment is ridiculous anyway, because you can’t espouse “freedom of religion” on one hand and then object to satanism being given the same protections as your denomination of choice. Define your limits. Start to define "religion" for purposes of the Constitution. Once you start arguing about definitions, you've lost. This is baked in the cake of America, and sometimes I wonder if weakening the church to the point of parody was the idea of it, and the Enlightenment generally, all along.¹⁰

This isn’t blackpilling, and I’m not saying “Stop fighting.” This hardship will steel us, temper us, prepare us for harder battles that will truly test our faith, and no gaggle of smelly Satanist edgelords who hate their dads will defeat us. And we will pass. There will be plenty of opportunities for heroism in the days ahead. There are plenty now, actually, if you only look.

-Alexander

1. I’m from New Hampshire, so there’s an unwritten rule that I had to have read at least one John Irving novel.

2. I live in the USA, so my assumption is that you do too. If you don’t, consider yourself lucky.

3. Remember: Muslims in Afghanistan murdered people over rumors that American soldiers flushed a Quran down a toilet.

4. I.e., die.

5. Free speech . . . LOL.

6. It’s one reason I find the theories that Christianity was a conspiracy to gain power so laughable. My brother in Christ, have you even read Scripture?

7. My brother in Christ, your deceased band mate Jeff Hanneman had an unhealthy obsession with collecting Nazi memorabilia. At least drummer Dave Lombardo seems like a relatively normal guy.

8. Don’t start with the “pop culture doesn’t influence people!” nonsense. Of course it does, and you know it.

9. Come on, Greek people: we’re better than this!

10. Spoiler: it was the point of the Enlightenment.