The death of Hulk Hogan and the transforming power of faith

Hulk Hogan died this week at the age of seventy-one. There was a day when you had to be a wrestling fan to know much about him. Then came his visibility in the world of politics with his shirt-shredding endorsement of Donald Trump at the last Republican National Convention and his frequent media appearances in the months after.

What many people don’t know is that Hogan (whose real name was Terry Bollea) was a public Christian as well, stating that Jesus “died on the cross and paid for my sins” and that “the only thing that is really real is the stuff that’s gonna last forever: your faith and your belief in God and knowing that once you’re a Christian and you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior, you’re not gonna perish but you’re gonna have everlasting life.”

Hogan was baptized with his wife, Sky Daily, in 2023. “Total surrender and dedication to Jesus is the greatest day of my life,” he wrote on X. “No worries, no hate, no judgment . . . only love!”

After his death, we are also seeing reports of serious health issues he faced for years before his sudden death after a cardiac arrest. He said on a podcast, “I’ve had ten back surgeries,” adding that “both knees and both hips were replaced, shoulders—everything.” It was also reported that he underwent neck surgery in May. His injuries were reportedly the result of years in the wrestling industry and the heavy weight training he did to maintain his massive physique.

Here’s my question: How were Hulk Hogan’s health issues related to his faith commitments?

They were obviously correlated, experiences that took place over the same time period in his life. But were they causative? Did his significant health challenges help him recognize that, despite his superstar athletic status and remarkable physical strength, he was mortal and in need of a power beyond himself?

The “existential insecurity theory”

According to a report published by the National Library of Medicine, studies show “a link between the experience of one’s vulnerability and religiosity in the sense that the former has a positive effect on the latter.” Scholars call this the “existential insecurity theory.” It claims that “people who experience existential insecurity are, on average, more religious because their religiosity helps them to cope with the insecure situation.”

However, the report also notes that the increasing secularization of our society has diminished religion’s power to orient people’s lives. When faced with personal or social challenges, we are more likely to turn to scientific and existential solutions rather than religious help.

As Dr. Phil would ask, How is this working for us?

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the US, affecting forty million adults every year. An estimated twenty-one million adults in the US have had at least one major depressive episode as well. Over forty-nine thousand people in the US died by suicide in 2023, one death every eleven minutes.

Secularism, it would seem, is not the solution to the existential issues we face.

“The inaugural activity of the Holy Spirit”

Hulk Hogan was right: faith in Christ is “the only thing that is really real.” This makes sense: if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, he can bring about transformation no other source can produce and provide a peace “which surpasses all understanding” when we seek it from him (Philippians 4:7). He can give us courage in the face of calamity and joy in the midst of despair.

He sometimes prevents tragedy or rescues us from peril. The rest of the time, he sustains us in the storms and enables us to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

All of this is possible because the same Holy Spirit who brought order from disorder at the beginning of time now lives in us and works to do the same in our lives (1 Corinthians 3:16). Max Lucado writes regarding him:

His first act in earthly history was to turn chaos into calm. “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2 NKJV). The inaugural activity of the Holy Spirit was to hover over a frenzied world. Before God created the world, the Spirit of God calmed the world.

Now he works to calm our world today.

The paradoxical result of submission to Christ

Our problem is that, as the poet William Wordsworth observed,

The secularization of our society can tempt us to separate religion from the “real world” and Sunday from Monday, so that we turn to ourselves and other secular sources in the face of challenges, just like the secular people with whom we live.

Or secularization can encourage us to turn to God in the wrong way for the wrong reasons. We can make him a “genie in the bottle” to whom we pray in hard times, but not in good. He can be the spare tire we hope we don’t need, the parachute available in case of emergency.

The better approach is to refuse secularism for submission to the Spirit. It is to begin every day by yielding that day to the Spirit’s control and purposes (Ephesians 5:18), to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” in every dimension of our lives (Matthew 6:33).

Then, when calamity strikes, we ask God to be glorified in this storm. We ask him to redeem our suffering in ways that advance his kingdom through us. We make ourselves a means to his ends rather than the reverse.

When we do, the paradoxical result of our humble submission to our Lord is that we experience his best in and through our lives. His peace is the product rather than the goal of our prayers; his joy is the consequence rather than the objective of our faith.

“Faith is taking the first step”

So, let me ask you to name your pain, distress, or anxiety today. Submit it to God, asking him to be glorified in and through it and to redeem it for his eternal purposes. Trust him to do whatever is best in your life as he answers your prayers in his perfect will. And ask him to use you to demonstrate the difference Christ makes in every life fully submitted to him.

These are prayers our Lord delights to answer.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted,

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

What is this “step” for you today?