I have spent sometime pondering the role of status in human society and in fact I have made it one of the labels of this blog. Included under the "status" label is this very post which looks at a pertinent article appearing in the August Edition of Premier Christianity magazine. This article was titled "The Problem with Pedestals" and deals with the subject of Christian celebrities and leaders who have been caught in wrong doing (i.e. sinned!) and fallen from their position of high regard among their respective Christian communities and following.
The fact is human beings seek the approval, regard and care of their fellow human beings. For a gregarious animal which depends on a diverse range of support from their communities this is not only natural but in many ways an essential survival instinct; one can't easily live by being at odds with one's social surroundings. It's fairly obvious that at the very least human beings need the material support of their society but once this is satisfied the higher goal of human beings is to get emotional support as well and this takes the form of having a sense of role, purpose, acceptance, recognition, attention, regard, respect, approval, honour, pride, prestige, esteem and kudos etc from one's community; all these are extrinsic properties that can only be conferred by being in relationship with one's community and which I would like to subsume under the general heading of "status" or "community glory". Let me stick my neck out here and say that once one's basic survival needs are satisfied, status seeking is among the primary motives of just about all human beings and constitutes a drive so strong that it often trumps all other considerations. In fact for the really gregarious among us some measure of status is essential for mental health. Like food, sex and other appetites the instinct that seeks status is natural and is part of the repertoire of motives to be expected of healthy human beings needing material and emotional support.
But like all appetites, especially if there is an ongoing desire for excessive satiation, status seeking can go badly wrong; we can become addicted to status, always demanding more of it. Since the tokens of status hood are a mix of attention and accolade from one's community along with the status symbols of material wealth, the implicit zero sum games which constrain status markers has the potential to lead us into a competitive world where people become rivals in a race for status tokens. Accompanying this competitiveness there are a cluster of negative emotions such as a sense of unfulfillment, envy and bitterness if we don't get our way. Once again, then, we face the age old conflict between service to others vs service to self. In the New Testament Philippians 2:1-11 directly addresses the conflicts of interest that status seeking implies: It is a passage which talks about the mind of Christ and implicitly tells us how status should be handled and why we need salvation. If the meaning of life, the universe and everything is actually found in the goals of successful community then Philippians 2:1-11 tells us why right meaning and right purpose have been lost and how Christ has saved the human community by doing the very thing we ourselves find very difficult - namely, letting go of our hold on status because strong claims to status come at a cost to other members of the community.
The cut and thrust of human society revolves round the subject of status and so much of human behaviour is about maintaining the facades of status via image control. This was the subject of my series on my trip to the city of Bath.
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In the Christianity article I'm thinking of we read a very familiar story: Viz: Otherwise much admired Christian leaders, movers and shakers (now called "influencers"!) who have been exposed in some sin or other and subsequently fallen from grace. One of them is Steve Timmis who I blogged about here. Very common is sexual abuse, but I'm less interested in that than the case of Steve Timmis whose sin wasn't some hidden sexual vice but in fact an on going policy of power abuse at the heart of which was a harmful Restorationist ideology. However, I've always maintained that part of the problem is less to do with the "influencers" than it is the followers of "influencers" whose support has effectively made the celebrity and put them on a pedestal of power in the first place by giving them uncritical adulation, glory and honour they don't deserve. There is a free market of influencers out there and it is the demands of this market which gives these influencers their power.
But in spite of the danger of pratfalls, elevating certain people to a higher status is not only a very human trait found in society but may be entirely necessary; society needs clever leaders and innovators. Where the problem lies is less in status per se than in those celebrities and leaders who, all said and done are only human after all, are potentially corruptible through their power, influence and celebrity. Like life in general celebrity is beset by temptations.
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The story that did intrigue me in the Christianity article was about the one time head of Wycliffe Bible Translators, Eddie Arthur, who tells us of the effect on him of stepping down from this prestigious role:
On his blog, [Arthur] describes the difficulty of leaving this role and his feelings about the subsequent loss of rank and invitations to speak. People who'd called him a "really good friend" have not contacted him since. Though he was aware he "shouldn't" find it hard, in reality: "This loss of status was horrible.....Leadership is insidious and it is dangerous. I didn't realise how important my role, influence and title were to me until I stepped down....At this distance, I can see that it would have been all too easy to see myself as being more important than I am and to believe that normal rules didn't apply to me. I can understand why leaders fall and I can see why those responsible for monitoring them allow it to happen"
A very sobering confession that brings one up with a start. The fact is many, if not most of us have (in vary degrees) an appetite for those status markers; attention, recognition, kudos, high position, accolades, praise, social glory, material status symbols and what have you. Nothing wrong there in and of itself but the status appetites, like most appetites, may present us with the temptation of glutting on those appetites in a way which brings ruin. Also at fault are those social scenes which are apt to lavish these things upon us; the tempter is as much a sinner as the tempted.
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Another instructive article in the same edition of Christianity is by Christian band leader Chris Llewellyn who is a middle ranking Christian celebrity. In an article entitled Confessions of a Christian Celebrity Llewellyn expands further on the temptations of celebrity: He confesses that his minor celebrity makes him feel uncomfortable, especially as a worship leader is supposed to direct glory to Christ and not oneself. Clearly Llewellyn understands the all too human tension between worshiping "the only one worth worshiping" and the pleasures of celebrity which in his case are bound up with him being a skilled musician and a (relatively) famous rock band member. He tells us of the good example of John Baptist who said "He [Jesus] must become greater; I must become less" (John 3:30). And then in a further confession Llewellyn says: "Honestly, I'm not even fully sure I want to become less for the Kingdom...I'm a minor Christian celebrity - get me out of here!". That's the central conflict of the human predicament in a nutshell; how do we cope with our pleasures in a society full of zero sum games? Well, guess what, Llewellyn ends by quoting Philippians 2:6-8.
There is tight rope to walk here. There's nothing wrong with talent in and of itself and neither I feel is there anything wrong in the wake of celebrity that talent leaves behind it; after all, worthy talent comes from God and deserves celebration. Moreover, there's nothing wrong with good leadership. In fact healthy society and community needs all these things; it needs leaders, movers, shakers, and talented showmen and innovators. But it's how our culture copes with these facts of life that is the crux of the matter.
Fame, celebrity and concomitant status, are mathematically inevitable: They are extrinsic relationship properties not unlike web site connectivity. Hence, like website connectivity it is likely that celebrity has a power law distribution over the population. Given, then, that we are likely to be dealing with a mathematical fact of society then the temptations associated with celebrity and power will also be a fact. But it helps, as Llewellyn suggests, if Christians become more aware of the temptations they are heaping on celebrities and leaders via their accolades, regard and admiration. It may also help if the celebrities themselves become aware that our status appetites, though not wrong in & of themselves, all too easily lead into temptation and corruption.
Like other human appetites our status appetites are not going to go away; they are part and parcel of gregarious humanity; in fact a necessary part. So it is inevitable that these appetites are going to be abused at some point or other; it is a hazard of living, a hazard of community. But the first step is to recognise the inevitable, be braced for it when it comes and then above all recall Philippians 2:5ff: In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.....
