One of my favorite shows on tv right now is Succession. It’s the story of Logan Roy, the billionaire owner of a media empire, and his four children, all of whom are vying for his love and attention now, as well as his throne once he is gone. The family has more money than they know what to do with, but they’re not happy. Life is not working that well for any of them.
In each episode the viewer sees just how much Logan’s children and employees hate him. He is simply a mean bully. A kind word out of his mouth is never true kindness – there’s always an ulterior motive. It’s no wonder that there is hatred for the man. What is shocking is that there is also love, awe, and a desperate attempt for approval from these same children and employees.
It’s shocking, but it’s really not that shocking. We’ve seen it before. It’s part of the human story. It’s the worship of man at its finest. Logan is on such a powerful pedestal for all around him to see. He’s placed himself there, but they too have placed him there. And once a person is in that type of position for those around him, destruction follows, and that’s the essence of what we see throughout this show.
I’ve also been listening to the podcast “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” I was in seminary and then in the early years of starting a church during the 2000’s, and during that time I was definitely influenced by the work of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, along with it’s founder and lead pastor Mark Driscoll. I have known the story of what happened there over its almost twenty year history, but hearing it on this podcast has been an unsettling experience.
In my opinion, at the core of what went wrong there was the celebrity culture that so many church leaders strive to attain. But it’s not just about those leaders. Those in the church want it too. And it doesn’t end well. In interview after interview, you see the love for Mark Driscoll from those who were impacted by his ministry. And along with that love was so often that desperate attempt for approval. He could have channeled this into a different direction, but he too was desperate for approval.
This worship led to destruction.
I often think about the commencement speech that David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. Here is an excerpt.
You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
The rest of the speech is worth your time to read or listen to, but this is the big part for me. People are not meant to be worshipped. And when I say “worship”, I don’t mean sing songs to or bow down to. As Wallace says, it’s all about where you get ultimate meaning. Humans were never meant to give ultimate meaning to a person. And when it happens, it doesn’t end well.
One note…While a lot of Driscoll’s behavior has made me sick, I don’t put him in the same evil monster category as I do Logan Roy. However, I find myself thinking about these things as I listen to both stories. And I think there’s something we can learn from both.