When the Shine Comes Off

Many things look good on a post card. Cities, hair and teeth gleam when treated to a professional lens. What one needs is to get up close and personal, to see it for oneself. The trouble with the first-hand method of observation is that there is an inevitable loss of nobility – the shine always comes off.

It takes years of first-hand experience to realize that media feeds us a fake, that people with shiny teeth often have disappointing personalities, that nothing is really as good as it looks in a photograph. It has to do with the inescapable problem of idolatry and the endless production of things and personas that are said to be “the real deal.”

Christians, who know about human evil, have the same problem. We are often guilty of raising something to divine status, refusing to believe our favorite worship leader, preacher or youth leader would have a flaw. Surely God took care of those. Well, yes and no. He has taken care of sin in the sense that a Christian is justified in the sight of God due to the merits of Christ. But the same person, while “in the flesh,” struggles with his or her former nature and remains prone to sin.