The Lonely Hero and the Church

I’ve got this theory that loneliness has been romanticised. It could be the by-product of living in a world where individualism is so highly prized and where your ‘strength’ comes from not having to rely on other people. Then again it could be something way older.

Here’s some evidence for my theory. When I think of some of the most popular fictional characters, many of them are versions of what I have dubbed the Lonely Hero. Doctor Who for instance: his companions come and go but he always remains, saving worlds and travelling the universe, etc etc. Aragorn (from Lord of the Rings), the ultimate survivalist and Lone Wolf, is another great example, as are James Bond, Wolverine and a whole host of cowboy protagonists and detectives (I can’t seem to think of many female Lonely Heroes – please let me know if you’ve got any).

What is our fascination with the Lonely Hero? Why would an Aragorn with a wife and children be so much less sexy? Or a Doctor Who with a home to go to? Or James Bond going to the pub with a bunch of friends he’s known for years? I think that we have a habit of romanticising loneliness, which is a lot more worrying than it might sound.

We, as humans, seem to be designed to spend our lives with other humans. Even if we claim to ‘need our own space’ or ‘enjoy our own company’ the fact remains that whoever you are, if you spend too much time on your own, you tend to become more self absorbed, less able to interact socially.

I have been lonely at times in my life but often I didn’t fully recognise how lonely I was; it was very easy to convince myself that I just wasn’t a social person, I was a lone wolf, I enjoyed my freedom. And the thing about loneliness is that it can become a cycle that’s difficult to break. The more time I spent on my own, the harder it became to spend time with other people.

Perhaps it’s because loneliness is so common in this century: from the quintessential image of an elderly man or woman living alone, to the youths isolated by technology, the migrant who moves to a new place and knows no one, to office workers who spend their lives in cars and in front of screens. We are all lonely sometimes and if it can become a ‘strength’, something to be admired, then we feel a little bit better about things. Because it’s a humiliating, depressing, crushing state of existence; difficult to talk about and even harder to escape.

Cue the church.

‘The church is a people called out of the world to embody a social alternative’ (Jesus for President). When people think of church they think of (on the positive end of the scale) Sunday mornings, singing songs, coffee, prayer, Bibles and Sunday school. But that is not the church. Jesus wants the church to be a radical social movement, which heals the hurts of the world through love, kindness, gentleness, tolerance, generosity and self sacrifice.

The church is the ultimate barrier to loneliness. The buzzword ‘community’ has been flying about a lot recently, and although it seems to have lost much of its meaning with overuse, I really believe that community is what the church ought to be. We need to be the first people to admit that loneliness is a problem, whether it’s our own loneliness or that of the people we see every day. But we aren't perfect, in fact we are often so far from Jesus' idea of what the church should be that we exclude or isolate people rather than embracing and loving them. 

That’s why I’m praying that my church will be unified by Jesus, so that it will be a welcoming community and a haven for the lonely. After all, the Lonely Heroes never save the world all by themselves.

Two are better than one,

because they have a good return for their labour:

If either of them falls down,

one can help the other up.

But pity anyone who falls

and has no one to help them up.

If two lie down together, they will keep warm.

But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered,

two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

This is a big topic, and one that several people were keen that I wrote about. So I probably didn't cover what you had in mind, and for that reason any thoughts/questions/alternative arguments are very much welcome as usual. 

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