Why You'll Never Hear Me Say That Someone is the Real Deal

Several years ago, as I was scrolling through Instagram stories, I saw a story from someone I followed who was talking about being in Franklin, Tennessee. Franklin is a couple of minutes from my house. Immediately, I was curious to hear what she had to say.

Over photos of historic downtown Franklin, right in front of the Franklin Theatre, she had overlaid text describing her experience. She mentioned seeing a couple of high-profile Christians in the wild. The second image had text that said this:

“One of them went out of his way to give up his place in line for a family with children. The other, a head of a massive ministry with over 1,000 employees, I saw getting into an old, un-flashy car. I later heard from someone else who had interacted with him how wise, kind and humble he was.”

(If you’re wondering how I can quote something posted in April 2023, that’s a fair question. I took a screenshot at the time. I don’t include it in this article because it has pictures of young children)

She wrapped up her story by saying that for all the bad stories you hear, there are also people who are doing good.

The message I received was clear: this guy is the “real deal.”

(Not the person she was mentioning, but a nice photo, right? photo credit: Image by olcay ertem from Pixabay)

I spent the rest of that day thinking through the phenomenon of running into someone we admire whom we might only know from reading their books, hearing their songs, or seeing what they share on social media. We love to report back that this person is the real deal.

I’ve done it myself.

I don’t blame anyone for reporting back what we see as evidence of goodness.

I kept thinking about this because the description of one of the individuals sounded very familiar. I can’t say for certain who she was referring to. She didn’t say. I do know that, at that time(and still today), there was probably only one person in the Middle Tennessee area who could come close to what she described as a Christian man who led a business of 1,000 people.

It’s very likely that several years before this woman saw this person “in the wild,” I declared, with confidence, the same conclusion about that same individual.

I defended and promoted them and sincerely believed they were the real deal.

And I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I want to talk about a couple of reasons I believe we love to vouch for someone in situations like this before I share why you’ll never hear me refer to anyone as the “real deal” again and why I was wrong to do it in that situation I just mentioned.

We especially love to relay these accounts when it feels out of the ordinary. The woman who shared this anecdote rightfully pointed out that we hear a lot of bad news about badly behaving pastors and ministry leaders. Of course, it felt natural to capture the moment and share it.

If I stumbled across a flower growing in the middle of a desert, I’d take a photo and share it because it seems like evidence of beating the odds- good triumphing in the face of adversity.

It makes sense that it would be encouraging to hear that what we want to be true about someone actually is true. I don’t fault anyone happy to hear these reassurances. Who doesn’t want to hear that their admiration is well-founded? We were right!

Isn’t it nice to be right?

I’m sure there are more reasons I could include here, but I think these are the strongest ones.

I’ll set this up with an explanation of what I think we mean when we vouch for someone- especially when it comes to someone with power and influence.

I believe this type of statement means to communicate that the version of the person presented to the public is the same person behind the scenes. What you see is what you get. You can trust that the good you see is real.

That’s my experience.

I spent years defending and vouching for someone I believed to be wise, kind, and humble- just like the report that man gave to my social media friend.

And then our family experienced great harm and trauma at the hands of this person, and we weren’t the only ones.

At the very least, these actions are only one thing that’s real.

In our experience, the extravagant parties to celebrate employees were real.

And also, the mocking, misrepresentation of my husband, and the threats we experienced from this person were also real.

I understand why seeing someone you admire give up their place in line for someone gives you warm fuzzy feelings about them. But here’s what I want you to know- that public sidewalk, where the line had formed, can be just as much a stage to perform on as Bridgestone arena, or a carefully curated social media post.

The more powerful someone is, the riskier it is for someone to be willing to point out things that reflect poorly on that person.

In some cases, people with the most day-to-day experience with a ministry or business leaders, or well-known artists, are legally gagged from saying anything negative (even if it’s true). I know this to be true about several organizations in the Franklin, Tennessee area.

How would one even know what is real when the people most likely to be able to tell you one way are another could lose their jobs, face a lawsuit, or have their subsequent employment threatened?

Here’s what’s true about my experience in declaring someone to be the real deal: My husband’s job security was impacted by what I said publicly (and sometimes privately) about his employer. I desperately wanted the good things I saw to be the most real thing. I grasped for evidence of goodness as if our family’s financial security depended on it. Because it did.

A healthy and safe person or community doesn’t pressure members/fans/employees to declare their goodness to others.

They don’t encourage people to make sure to give credit to them when they do something generous.

They don’t require you to wear the t-shirt declaring your love for them or their organization/ministry.

They don’t pressure people to give them glowing reviews on surveys so they can win “Best Place to Work.”1

Here’s what I know, for sure:

We may never know what is real about people we don’t have true proximity to.

We need to be willing to be open to the idea that both good and bad things can be true about people we admire.

What is real stands the test of time.

I’d love to hear how this resonates with you.