The protagonist of the animated series King of the Hill, which ran from 1997 to 2010, is the eponymously named Hank Hill. The show focused on the family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors of this seller of “propane and propane accessories” in the fictional town of Arlen, Texas. In many ways the show captured Southern culture, or more specifically Texas culture, and middle-to-working-class America at the turn of the century. Now the series has been brought back to life by Hulu to overwhelming praise from fans and critics alike. At first sight, the series seems like a subtle mockery of small-town Southern culture. Still, little by little, it becomes a very respectful portrait of mundane, moral life, a life embodied by a man who believes there is a right way of doing a steak and educating a child.
Hank Hill would be disappointed to learn that I’ve always preferred charcoal. There’s something about the slow burn, the hiss of fat hitting coals, and the simplicity of smoke and fire that feels right to me. He believed propane was cleaner, more efficient, and, as he put it, “the fuel of the future.” He had strong opinions about fuel, and even stronger opinions about steak. When his “tween-age” son, Bobby, once asked what to do if someone didn’t want their steak cooked medium, Hank answered plainly: “We ask them politely, but firmly, to leave.” I’ve never said it out loud, but I’ve thought it more than once.
That’s the brilliance of King of the Hill. The characters are flawed, provincial, and sometimes ridiculous. But they are also trying. They are, in their clumsy ways, attempting to live good lives. No one does this more clearly than Hank.
When I was younger, I didn’t see King of the Hill as a show with moral significance. It was just always there, steady and unchanging. But as I’ve grown older, especially in my life as a priest, I’ve started to see it differently. The older I grow, the more I recognize the value of slow virtues, such as loyalty, restraint, humility, and daily faithfulness. I’ve come to understand it as one of the most serious and underrated reflections on how people develop a conscience and what it means to live rightly when no one is watching.
Hank Hill is not a complicated man. He is loyal to his employer, Strickland Propane. He mows his lawn on Saturdays. He attends Arlen First Methodist. He prays before meals. He believes in truth-telling, hard work, loyalty, and staying faithful to one’s commitments. He doesn’t announce his beliefs, but he lives them. That, I think, is the difference between values and virtues. A value can be spoken. A virtue must be practiced.
Hank is neither imposing nor heroic. But he is good, not in an abstract way, and not in a way that calls attention to itself. He is good in the way that a properly fitted fence post is good, strong, upright, not going anywhere.
That alone sets him apart from most of the television fathers who came before and after him. Starting with Archie Bunker (All in the Family, 1971-79), sitcom dads became foils. This was likely a reaction to the perfect fathers on earlier shows like My Three Sons, Leave It to Beaver, and The Andy Griffith Show. By the 1980s, Dad was the buffoon, highlighting the wisdom of others. One can only surmise the cultural reverberations. Unlike those late 20th-century sitcom dads who drink too much, deflect blame, or stumble from one failure to another with a shrug, Hank doesn’t use incompetence as a personality trait. He doesn’t coast on charm. He doesn’t fall apart under pressure. But he does fail.
And when he fails, which he does often, he doesn’t unravel or lash out. He doesn’t retreat into shame or shift the blame to others. He takes responsibility. He adjusts the course. And when he does, he repents, not theatrically, not to score points, but quietly and sincerely.
In a television landscape crowded with fathers who are emotionally absent, perpetually immature, or stuck in cycles of self-destruction, Hank is a rare figure, a man who apologizes, learns, and keeps going. He tries to do what is right, not for credit, not out of guilt, but because that’s what good men do.
That kind of moral imagination is hard to come by now. We live in a time when public life is dominated by charisma, performance, and constant reinvention. Stability is rarely celebrated. Conviction is often confused with arrogance. Restraint is mistaken for weakness. Hank Hill is none of those things. He does not seek applause. He does not craft an image. He is not trying to win anyone over. He is simply trying to live a decent life in a world that keeps making that harder to do.
What’s remarkable about Hank is that he isn’t naturally open-minded. He’s skeptical of differences. He doesn’t embrace change easily. But when someone earns his trust, when someone demonstrates integrity or consistency, he listens. It may be gradual and with hesitation, but it is sincere., His humility doesn’t stem from being ideologically flexible; it arises from the awareness that he isn’t always right. This willingness to be corrected and shaped over time is a deeper, less common form of humility than we often recognize.
The show consistently upholds Hank’s integrity, refraining from disparaging his values or penalizing him for his beliefs. His ethical principles are portrayed with genuine respect. While humor is present, it is never expressed with scorn. In contrast to media that frequently depend on cynicism and irony, King of the Hill provides an alternative perspective: a setting in which individuals are treated with dignity, even when they are mistaken.
Hank’s faith isn’t performative, but his life is shaped by habits any pastor would recognize: Sunday worship. Grace before meals. Service to his neighbors. Loyalty to friends. Deep respect for his elders. He may not always know how to discuss faith, but he knows how to live it. And that might be more important in the end.
The Church has always depended on people like Hank. They sit in the same pew every Sunday. They fix the door when it squeaks. They bring coffee when no one asks. They pass on quiet moral wisdom to their children. And they do all of it without needing credit.
They are the kind of people who make parish life possible, not with slogans or branding, but with quiet, persistent faithfulness. That’s what King of the Hill understood so well: the real drama of life isn’t in grand transformations but in daily decisions; that it’s not about becoming extraordinary, but remaining true to what is good. That it’s not always about understanding the world, but staying steady inside it.
The Church could do worse than look again at someone like Hank Hill. We chase trends. We worry about messaging. We agonize over relevance. But maybe the better question is whether we are forming people of character—people who show up. People who tell the truth, who say their prayers, and keep their promises. People who try, every day, to be a little more decent than they were the day before. People who know that they are not perfect, confess it, seek grace, and offer grace.
We don’t need more heroes; we need more Hank Hills. They’re trustworthy because they remind us that decency is still possible and that faithfulness, even if unglamorous, remains a virtue. When everything falls apart, the person you want beside you isn’t the cleverest or the flashiest but the one who has quietly done what’s right all along.
And if the Church hopes to regain its moral voice, it won’t come from better branding or louder messaging. It will come from shaping people like Hank—steady, grounded, slow to speak, quick to act. The kind of people who still believe in keeping their word, honoring their commitments, and caring for what’s been entrusted to them.
People who do good not for recognition but because they believe goodness is worth it, even when no one is watching.
The Rev. Omar Cisneros is a Guest Writer. He is rector of Grace Church, Muskogee, Oklahoma.
