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Mentors and Heroes
Mentors are like heroes. Young men need them, but they are exotically rare. Since I’ve been a Christian, God has seen fit to put five men in my life who would become my mentors.
I’ve had a personal relationship with all of them, except for one. Each of them, in their own way, is responsible for a certain aspect of my ministry today. I will speak about two of them later on. But one of them deserves honorable mention right now. For in a number of ways, he inspired this book.
He was a talk radio show host. I was in my early 20s when I discovered him. In my own estimation, the man was a pure genius. A genuine “one of a kind.” As far as the gift of communication goes, he was without peer. As far as his gift for story-telling, I’ve never met nor heard anyone who could top him. His ability to mesmerize an audience was unmatched. His skill at debating issues was unbeatable. His knack for creative humor was untouchable. If verbal acumen was measured in square miles, he would be Alaska. He possessed a brutal sincerity that was both refreshing and arresting.
He was the most gifted communicator I had ever heard, before or since—bar none. He was a legend. A talk radio giant. And he was my hero. My “radio hero,” as I’ve come to affectionately call him.
I would faithfully listen to his show each day as I drove home from work. It was a constant parade of unpredictable wit, drama, and provocative discussion. His smoldering talk style provided gripping theater of the mind. Many afternoons I would pull up in my drive-way . . . frozen. I simply couldn’t open the door to leave the vehicle. My radio hero held me spellbound for hours on end. If there is such a thing as “radio magic,” he possessed it.
“Entertained” is too insipid a word to describe my experience as I listened to this man. Mesmerized comes a little closer.
He was thoughtful, shamelessly provocative, and often confrontational. He refused to fit into anyone’s mold. His opinions were unique and seamlessly thought out. He constantly challenged the status quo and forced his listeners to reexamine their beliefs. He was controversial, but always intriguing. As a result, he was venerated and vilified, loved and loathed, hailed and hammered.
While some saw him as little more than a raging provocateur, his demand for intellectual honesty made a profound impression on me. He was a master at skewering sacred cows . . . even his own. He provoked laughter, reappraisal, and sometimes fury from his listeners. But he always left them thinking and rethinking.
I examined how he spoke. I observed his strategy in debate (as I said, he was unbeatable). But most of all, I sat in rapt attention as he delivered his extraordinary monologues. They were his trademark.
His monologues permeated with gritty intellectual honesty and bristled with extraordinary insight. They were clever, poignant, and peppered with lashing wit. Sometimes edgy, sometimes enraging, periodically sentimental, but always fascinating.
I studied them. Not the content, but the technique. (I often disagreed with his suppositions. So it wasn’t his beliefs that inspired me. It was how he communicated them.) Later, I discovered how he crafted his monologues and gut-wrenching stories.
Sometimes his monologues would run one hour straight. Sometimes two. On occasion he would give a three hour monologue. Yet time stood still for me as I sat captivated in my car listening to this incredibly gifted man speak passionately about an issue that he felt important. It’s no wonder his ratings were off the charts. In those days, he was “king of the hill” of talk radio, by far and away—the unparralled ruler of the airwaves. (He retired years ago.)
He was a man of immense and extraordinary talent. To put it in a word, he was brilliant. There has never been another like him. And I suspect there never will be.
One of the many lessons my radio hero taught me during his meteoric career was this: That if you want people to listen to your message, then you have to cut your stomach open, heave your guts on the table and let people pick through them.
Though I’ve always found that metaphor a tad too graphic, it makes the point. People are more apt to listen to those who are willing to reveal something of their personal lives.
The Zimmerman Trial and Race Cards
The world of the first-century was littered with racism and oppression. In the mind of a first-century Jew, Gentiles (Africans, Romans, Greeks, Syrians, Asians, etc.) were created to fuel the fires of hell.
When a Jew called a Gentile “uncircumcised,” he spit it. It was a name of profound contempt.
If a Jewish person married a Gentile, the Jewish parents held a funeral service for their child. In their eyes, their child was dead.
On the flip side, Gentiles regarded Jews to be sub-human. Historically, the Jews have been an oppressed people, living under the thumb of one Gentile nation after another (e.g., Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome).
In all of human history, there has never been so much animosity, hatred, and violence between two groups of people as there has been between the Jew and the Gentile.
But alas, in the first-century, there emerged a group of people on the planet who transcended this racial hostility.
Here was a group of people who saw themselves as members of the same family . . . a people made up of Jews, Gentles, slaves, free, rich, poor, male and female.
These were the early Christians. The Roman world stood in awe as they saw a people who hated each other began to love one another and do life together in the Name of Jesus.
Watch them walking into the market place together, arm and arm, singing with joy in their hearts.
Jew and Gentile.
Slave and free.
Rich and poor.
Male and female.
Look at them closely. Jew and Gentile eating together, working together, greeting one another with a holy kiss, raising their children together, taking care of one another, marrying one another, and burying one another.
This fact blew the circuitry of every person living in Century One. It shook the Roman Empire to its very foundations.
The church of Jesus Christ was a classless society. It’s members didn’t regard social status, color, or position. For them, there was no Jew or Greek in the body of Christ. There was no slave or free. There was no rich or poor.
Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Colossians 3:11
For the first two hundred years, the Christians only addressed each other by their first names. The reason? Because their last names indicated their social position in society.
Here was a classless, raceless society where all social distinctions were erased.
To their minds, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor no longer existed. The early believers saw themselves as part of the same family . They were a new race . . . a colony from another realm, not of or from this earth. Yet for this earth.
A Tale of Two Mentors
Early on in my Christian walk, I sought out those who were ahead of me in the Lord and made myself an apprentice, learning all I could from them.
In total, I’ve had about five spiritual mentors in my life.
In this post, I want to talk about two of them.
To keep their identities anonymous, we’ll call the first one David and the second one John.
The Story of David
David was one of the most gifted people I’ve ever met. He was a talented writer, speaker, and he had a keen mind littered with uncommon spiritual insight.
At one time, David was utterly sold out to his Lord and God used him mightily.
His ministry was powerful and those who received from him grew close to Jesus.
However, he had an inflated ego that never went to the cross, but only increased with his age. So much so, that he was threatened by anyone who was more or equally gifted as he was.
This created jealousy on his part toward others.
His insecurity and enormous ego prevented him from having peers who could speak into his life. Every attempted co-worker he had eventually broke ranks with him after they got a good look at his character. (All of them tried to talk to him about his character patterns, but their words weren’t heeded.)
To protect his self-image, David was deceptive and dishonest. And he would quickly trash anyone of whom he was jealous.
Sometimes he’d cloak the trashing under the guise of humor. Other times he was outright mean-spirited, yet he’d justify himself as being concerned for the person.
For this reason, David was never interested in my life. I couldn’t talk to him about my struggles and when I would ask him questions, he resented it.
Especially questions that challenged his presuppositions.
He was often short with me and others on the phone, having better things to do.
David was only interested in one thing: David and David’s ministry.
That said, he would use whomever was in his life — including their gifts and talents — to further his own ministry and bolster his legacy (something with which he was obsessed.)
At one time, David’s ministry was well known and looked upon favorably by the general body of Christ. Today, however — many years after I first met him — his ministry has dwindled to the point where few people even know who he is.
In addition, virtually everyone who followed his ministry at one time has removed themselves from it.
Worse still, the anointing of God that was once upon David’s life left. I remember the year that “the glory departed” from him, after he was urged by the Lord in various ways to repent.
Regrettably, he refused to change.
Not long after, I ended my relationship with him.
When the anointing left him, he could repeat the same words, but the unction behind them was gone.
I wrote about the dilemma of mentors turning on their mentees here. What I wrote there can be applied to this situation as well as many others, I’m sure.
Enter now my other mentor . . . John.
The Divided States of America
America is divided. Zimmerman and OJ cases are examples.
United States? Maybe technically.
Don’t Make the Mistake of Believing Everything You Hear or Read
Note: Author Frank Viola doesn’t run this blog. You can contact Frank directly at TheDeeperJourney @ gmail.com
Here is an article he wrote in 2013:
—–
I remember it well. A zealous but naïve follower of Jesus in my mid-20s. That was me.
One of my friends had been part of the church to which I belonged. He had recently moved to another city and joined another group.
He called me on the phone from the other state to unload. He told me how he had been mistreated by this other group. And he singled-out one particular person who was (according to him) the source of his pain.
As I listened to him vent, my blood began to boil. I was angry at this group . . . and I was angry at the particular person who mistreated my friend.
Some time went by, and I was talking to another friend who knew more about the situation than I did. One thing led to another, and I found myself on the phone with the very person from that other group whom (I had thought) mistreated my friend.
As I listened to this man carefully, my blood began to boil again. But this time, I was angry at my friend. And more, I was angry at myself for drawing a conclusion based on hearing only one side of a story.
Everything became clear. I lovingly confronted my friend and the truth came out. Even though he did his best to deny it, my friend was cornered. He had slanted the entire account to his side. He was posturing himself to get others to regard him as a victim.
To protect his own ego and reputation, he was trying to turn the people he knew against a group of blood-washed, blood-bought, precious followers of Jesus and against one of its members.
Frank Viola on John Lennon
John Lennon, founding member of The Beatles, was one of the most controversial people in America during the 60s and 70s.
And he still is today.
Not too long ago, a fascinating interview with Lennon from 1969 has resurfaced. The interview was lost for around 30 years and only recently emerged.
No doubt, many of you are aware of this, but in 1966, Lennon put his foot in the gluepot by making a statement published in a magazine wherein he said that The Beatles were “bigger than Jesus.”
Immediately, a frenzy erupted. Bonfires across the south torching Beatle records ensued.
(If you are reading this and you were part of any of those bonfires, would you please comment. I’d love to ask you about it.)
However, if one looks at the context of the statement, an important question emerges.
Was Lennon saying, “The Beatles are better than Jesus”?
Or was he saying . . .
“The Beatles mean more to many young people than Jesus does.”
If the latter was Lennon’s intention, can this be doubted?
Just look at old Beatle concert clips where millions of young teen fans are screaming out of obsession. The screaming was so loud that The Beatles stopped touring because they couldn’t hear themselves.
Where these particular people more in love with Jesus than with the “Fab Four?”
If this was his meaning, it was an indictment on the poor state of Christianity more than anything else.
Here are Lennon’s own words:
“It’s just an expression meaning the Beatles seem to me to have more influence over youth than Christ. Now I wasn’t saying that was a good idea, ‘cos I’m one of Christ’s biggest fans. And if I can turn the focus on the Beatles on to Christ’s message, then that’s what we’re here to do.”
Nevertheless, that controversial question — which is open for interpretation — isn’t my reason for writing this post.
What the 1969 interview with Lennon reveals is that Lennon was genuinely interested in and fascinated by Jesus.
Certainly, Lennon had a bad taste in his mouth for organized Christianity when he was kicked out of church for giggling as a young boy. But Lennon said in this uncovered interview that his bad feelings were directed toward organized church, not at Jesus.
According to Lennon, it was ”Christians” who made him not want to be a part of the church (as we know it). A common sentiment . . . even among many true followers of Jesus.
Lennon says,
“If the Beatles get on the side of Christ, which they always were, and let people know that, then maybe the churches won’t be full, but there’ll be a lot of Christians dancing in the dance halls. Whatever they celebrate, God and Christ, I don’t think it matters as long as they’re aware of Him and His message.”
Yes, that’s a statement by John Lennon.
Author Frank Viola Quote
“Jesus Christ is ALL, everything else is commentary.”
~Frank Viola
Do You Believe Everything You Read or Hear?
An excerpt from author Frank Viola’s blog post from today.
“Late last year, I came across a website alleging a sex scandal involving President Obama. The “story” first came out in 2008 just before the primary. It was shown to be baseless and quickly faded away. Then it resurfaced again in 2010. (The original story was removed by the source after staying online for 4 years.)
Another site purports alleged “proof” that Obama is a Muslim terrorist in disguise. Again, a baseless rumor.
And another alleges that Obama is gay, has sexually harassed males, and abuses drugs. Again, baseless.
Note: I don’t agree with many of Obama’s policies. But these accusations are scurrilous, vicious, outrageous, and just plain slimy. There’s no good evidence to support any of them. That’s why they’ve never gained traction.
Earlier this year, Rick Warren was personally attacked, judged, and lied about by professing Christians.
We live in a very dark world where rumors abound. Gossip abounds. Slander abounds. Even in the “Christian” community (so-called), tragically.
Slander is a serious sin, and according to Paul, slanderers will be barred from the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
I have good friends and people whom I respect who have been lied about on the Internet, and I’ve quickly come to their defense wherever I’ve seen such lies (as I did with Rick Warren).
Point: Anyone who has profound influence is going to have detractors and enemies. And some of them will go on a personal “smear” attack using distortions and fabrications.
Just look at the things Jesus and Paul were accused of during their day.
History tells us the same thing about John Wesley, Watchman Nee, T. Austin-Sparks, and just about every other servant of God who was turning the sod on important issues during their time.
Many years ago I learned a valuable lesson from a BIG mistake I made. It was a first-class screw up that still haunts me till this day.
I listened to slander about a fellow Christian and I believed it. Thankfully, I repented when I found out the truth, but I still feel remorse over it when it comes to mind.
Last year, I wrote a post about it. The post hit a chord with many people. I’m reposting it below so that those of you who are new subscribers can read it.
It’s a lesson I learned from failure that I’ll never forget.
Rule of thumb: If you read something negative about another person, especially a fellow Christian, take it with a grain of salt. Tilt toward not believing it. Just as you would want others to do if it you were being smeared (Matthew 7:12).
If you’re concerned, go to the person directly to hear their response. There are always two sides to any story (as least). And unfortunately, some people desire to defame others, usually out of jealousy, so dishonesty abounds.”
Frank Viola Author 