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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, September 11, 1979
Page 8
hero." Ours is the age of the "Me Generation," with the emphasis on "self
improvement," "self-realization," "self-actualization." Most people don't
even know that it is possible to sacrifice one's own desires and needs-
and one's life--for a higher cause!
On this point Pete Axthelm, writing in the August 6 Newsweek (article:
"Where Have All The Heroes Gone?") wondered how many people today would
have done what James Butler Bonham did in 1836. Bonham was sent by the
defenders of the Alamo in San Antonio to seek reinforcements 95 miles away.
Informed no troops could be spared, he turned around and fought his way
back through the beseiging Mexican army to rejoin his Alamo comrades in
their fight to a certain death.
Perhaps modern analysts, Axthelm said, would speak of Bonham's "obsession
with death" or that he had "self-destructive tendencies." They might muse
on what they call the "male bonding'' relationship (with vague hints of
homosexuality) which supposedly held the defenders of the Alamo together�
"God save us from analysts" said Axthelm, "the hoofbeats of Bonham's ride
express it much better."
As a result largely of this conditioning (plus lack of respect for author
ity in general, compounded by the effects of Watergate and Vietnam, the
United States possesses a culture,said Fairlie,that "cannot grasp the idea
of a hero." Concluded this noted author: "We used to think that our
civilization should be guarded, and even that at times it should advance,
so that our soldiers were heroes but now we think of our generals only as
stupid and knavish and war-hungry ...."America is the first country of the
West whose high culture does not now know how to be patriotic, that does
not seem to understand that patriotism is one of the deepst expressions of
the human need for community, for which there is no substitute in the
absence of a universal church or great world empire...."
--Gene Hogberg, News Bureau