Does it matter that valor and achievement are earned?

Referring to a boast that is ultimately untruthful, "blowing smoke" is a wonderful colloquialism. When I was attending seminary in the early '90s, a surprising number of my fellow students would pipe up in class and say, "I marched with Dr. King," meaning the great civil rights leader and Baptist pastor Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated 1968. In my hearing, these students were not challenged to provide details.

Since seminaries tend to be forgiving places, it was assumed that if a student said he did it, he must be telling the truth. I was rarely convinced of such assertions of reflected glory. Marching with King in places like Selma, Alabama, were dangerous excursions in the 1960s. I recall hearing these boasts and thinking, "You must have been pretty young to march with King. Did they let children march? I don't recall seeing kids in any of the newsreels!"

I didn't say anything, though, in rebuttal. What held me back is my own predilection toward caution. They might have been there, they might have marched, although the possibility seems to be nearly zero that the tales were true.

There is such a thing as stolen valor, claiming to have done something courageous or otherwise noteworthy when there seems a more-than-reasonable likelihood you weren't even there and didn't do it. There is even a law prohibiting someone from wearing military medals not actually awarded (Stolen Valor Act of 2013).

But stealing valor need not be an actual crime for it to be wrong. When we fake courage or achievement, it is a pathetic attempt to pump ourselves up. Just being you doesn't seem to be enough.

The outrageous lie told by Brian Williams, the perfectly coifed NBC news anchor, is a splendid example of stolen valor. For a dozen years, Williams claimed to have been riding in a helicopter that was assaulted by a rocket-propelled grenade and forced down during the Iraq War in 2003. He now says, after years of telling the falsehood, that he "misremembered" the facts.

The temptation for some to puff themselves up through stealing valor seems irresistible to those in the public eye. In her unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton claimed she and daughter Chelsea had to run from sniper fire in war-torn Bosnia in 1996. A tape later emerged showing that it was all made up. Hillary and Chelsea, as the video reveals, exited their plane on a peaceful tarmac and walked calmly to a waiting car.

What is true for well-known figures seems to hold for ordinary folks as well. I have an extended family relative who has made the title "Dr." part of his name for nearly 30 years. He didn't achieve the degree the way others have, myself included, through years of research and writing and testing. It was an honorary bestowal, yet his need for reflected glory, for stolen valor, is so great that his imagined "doctorate" has become real for him. Sad when it no longer matters whether valor and achievement are earned.

Jesus once met with a young man who asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus advised him to pay close heed to the commandments. "The commandments?" the man replied. "I've followed them since my youth!" Jesus' reaction to this boast is priceless: "Jesus, looking at him, loved him." (Mark 10:21)

The Master knew when smoke was being blown into his face. We should, too. File it away and keep it in mind. The knowledge may one day come in handy.