June 17 marked 50 years since Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward broke the Watergate scandal, thanks to their anonymous source, Deep Throat. As a senior in high school, I was not only hooked on watching the Watergate hearings day after day after day, but also hooked on journalism. Bernstein and Woodward became my heroes for not revealing their source and exposing the likes of Haldeman, Hunt, Liddy and Colson.

From 1972 to 2005 Deep Throat remained anonymous, and then he revealed his identity: Mark Felt, the number two official at the FBI in the early 1970s. Felt was then 91, and four years later he died. It seems so quaint nowadays that someone would choose anonymity over fame.

Scripture is full of anonymous sources, unnamed individuals who had a part in a story that was bigger than theirs. In 1 Kings 5, it’s the little girl from the land of Israel who got things going for Naaman when she said to Naaman’s wife, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” (1 Kings 5:3) We teach Bible stories about Naaman and rarely mention the little girl.

The gospel writer Mark liked his anonymous sources: Simon’s mother-in-law, a leper imploring with Jesus to be healed, four friends and one paralytic, whose sins were forgiven. There were tax collectors and sinners around a table, a man with a withered hand in the synagogue, a woman exhausted from her chronic illness and a Gentile woman who didn’t back down.

Except for the leper who wanted his 15 minutes, the rest of these people came and went from Mark’s account, leaving Pharisees and disciples to ponder this Jesus who had the authority to forgive sins and to order around the wind and sea.

These anonymous sources weren't part of a story of high-level corruption in the halls of power. Theirs was a different story, altogether more wonderful than anything Mark Felt had to say. This was the best news ever.

Mark describes anonymous crowds who followed Jesus, and townspeople who begged Jesus to depart after he healed the demon-possessed man. Unlike the man, now in his right mind, who begged to stay with Jesus and was told no. Instead, Jesus said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” The man did exactly that, promoting Jesus, not himself. I am fairly certain that he knew he had nothing to boast about, save Christ’s mercy.

We, yes, unlike the man who was formerly demon-possessed, have become decent practitioners of self-promotion. It's an unavoidable fact of modern life. We have platforms, followers, likes and websites. Or we follow, like and quote celebrity Christians, a term that seems a bit oxymoronic to me. Imagine if the Apostle Paul were writing today. Paul, what’s your platform? How many followers do you have on Facebook or Twitter? Do you have a website? "Rubbish" probably would have been his response.

The final verse of the hymn “May the Mind of Christ My Savior” puts self-promotion and Christian celebrity culture in their proper perspective:

May His beauty rest upon me
As I seek the lost to win,
And may they forget the channel,
Seeing only Him.

And it was Paul who first wrote, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.” (Philippians 2:5-7)