Train Up a Green Lantern in the Way He Should Go

Toward the end of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he notes that his young protégé Timothy will be visiting soon and goes out of his way to tell the church to be nice to him. “When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord” (16:10). 

Some scholars have taken this to suggest that Timothy was not a naturally easygoing person—maybe he was anxious or shy. Then again, he may have also just been young and, like many young people, not always welcomed into leadership positions with open arms. After all, Paul wrote to Timothy with a personal encouragement: “Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). Paul—not particularly young or healthy—took his role as mentor seriously.

The concept of passing the torch isn’t particularly pleasant. It’s a reminder of our own transient relevance, to say nothing of our mortality. Maybe that’s why so many older leaders seem so hesitant to hand the reins over to younger generations. You see it in our politics, where four of the last five presidents were born in the 1940s. You see it in our churches, where a 2017 Barna study found that the median age of pastors had climbed from 44 to 54 over the previous 25 years. And you see it in the Green Lantern Corps, where Hal Jordan refuses to cede his title to John Stewart. 

I’m not sure why Lanterns surprised me so much. I’m a fan of superhero comics, co-producer Damon Lindelof, and the stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre. I’m a native of rural Nebraska, where the show is set. And yet, I couldn’t get excited about the show’s gritty, dusty setting—it just felt wrong for a longstanding sci-fi comic series. 

But egg on my face, because Lindelof—along with co-producer and comic book veteran Tom King—has cooked up a corker of a series. It’s not as delightfully weird as Lost and lacks the emotional wallop of The Leftovers, but structurally and thematically, it’s punching way above its weight. And it got me thinking hard about legacy. I’m not sure a superhero show has ever done that before. 

Hal Jordan (Chandler) is the Green Lantern, a member of an intergalactic police force that assigns individuals on various planets with the task of protecting their species. Whoever is found worthy of being a Green Lantern is given a very unique service weapon: a ring that can create any object the wearer can imagine. Hal, a former fighter pilot, is chosen for the job on the strength of his moxie, and he takes to the gig with the sort of easy, unearned swagger that only a white man could muster.

But Hal was chosen for this job a long time ago. It turns out the Green Lantern Corps suits are getting a little tired of Hal’s authority-flouting recklessness, and they’ve got their eye on a new Lantern: sturdy, rule-following ex-Marine John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). Hal is given the task of mentoring John, but he knows this means the clock is ticking on his own career. He’s not thrilled, and he doesn’t mind if John knows it. This sets up a terrific odd-couple dynamic. Hal’s a grizzled veteran who doesn’t have any need for rules and regulations anymore. John’s an eager-to-impress company man who’s not going to blow his shot at being a Green Lantern. So when there’s a mysterious shooting in Rushville, Neb., that seems to have some sort of extraterrestrial connection, the men are forced to work together. The show got a lot of True Detective comparisons, but I was reminded more of Training Day. 

Chandler is terrific in the role, a devil-may-care rascal whose constant flouting of everyone else’s considerations would be aggravating if he wasn’t such a charming cuss. He’s always been a welcome presence on shows like Early Edition and, of course, Friday Night Lights, but this role gives him a chance to shine in a light we haven’t seen before. And Pierre proves that the attention he attracted in the excellent Rebel Ridge was no fluke. It’s not easy to make an obedient, by-the-book soldier a compelling onscreen presence, but as John Stewart, he makes it look easy. Remember Pierre’s name; he will go far.

But the show’s secret strength is in the generational resentments the two men get saddled with. When Hal confides in his own mentor that he suspects John of aiming to replace him, he gets chided for being afraid to admit that he’s getting old. “Experienced,” Hal spits in correction. It becomes clear that Hal’s issues with John (who he derisively refers to as “Junior”) have less to do with John’s qualifications than Hal’s own looming insecurities about the weight of the ring. 

But John’s got his own issues to work out. A Black man in the U.S., John is used to working twice as hard to earn the opportunities an aging white guy like Hal got served on a silver platter. Stewart’s parents prepared John for this role in ways that blur the lines between “tough” and “abusive,” but the results speak for themselves. John’s green, sure, but he’s got more potential than Hal ever did, and he knows it. The resentment this breeds in John is understandable, maybe even justifiable. But does resenting your partner help solve a transplanetary murder mystery, or complicate it? Take a wild guess.

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It is interesting how much time the biblical narrative devotes to the training of mentees. Moses had Joshua. Elijah had Elisha. Naomi had Ruth. Eli had Samuel. Paul himself was mentored by Barnabas. Almost every single story we have of Jesus’ own ministry is within the context of his mentoring of his disciples. It’s also interesting to note how many of these relationships ended in the mentee achieving even more than their mentor did. Joshua was the one who actually led the Israelites into the Promised Land. Elisha received a double portion of Elijah’s own spirit. Paul, of course, is far better remembered than Barnabas. Jesus himself tells his disciples that they “will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12). The consistent pattern throughout the Bible is one where mentors prepare the next generation to not only keep the faith, but to take it to new heights and unexplored depths. 

I think this might be the most frightening thing about mentoring. You are not only preparing the next generation to have more success than you did, but possibly to achieve it in a different way than you would have wanted. That takes real humility, but it is also, in the final analysis, the true test of a good mentor. After all, what good is passing the torch if they’re only going to use it to light the same path? All of history would be humanity walking in a small circle. 

That’s a circle Hal seems determined to walk in Lanterns. “The only way you’re gonna get this ring is over my dead f---ing body,” he growls at John. And while not many of our current crop of aging leaders would use that exact language, that is more or less their attitude. What else are we supposed to make of this galling affair with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) before him, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before her, and so on? These men and women have seemed determined to spend their final days—days that could and should be spent at peace with loved ones—at work. This is obviously no way for a person to live and die. It’s also been plainly catastrophic for U.S. democracy. And how is it working for our churches? 

In Lanterns, what should be a passing of the torch becomes a wrestling match, and the collateral damage reverberates throughout Rushville and across generations. It’s the same fate we see playing out across the country, in many of our aging and increasingly rickety institutions. It would be unfair to lay all the blame for this at the feet of aging generations. But it is absolutely fair to task them with the responsibility for helping prepare a new generation to fix it. That’s a responsibility Hal doesn’t take seriously until it’s too late. But we still have time to learn to pass the torch. Or the ring, as it were.

In Lanterns, what should be a passing of the torch becomes a wrestling match, and the collateral damage reverberates throughout Rushville and across generations.