3 Reasons The Celebs Are Hurting Us All

Ending The Numbers Game

In my last post, I made two, related points about celebrity pastors and celebrity church culture:

• We need to keep talking about the problem of celebrity Christianity and confront it.

• Celebrity Christianity might not be our biggest problem because (at least in my denomination) 80% of churches are not generally at risk of becoming Christian celebrity culture hotspots.

I also noted that celebrity church culture still has a negative effect on the 80%. A number of you sent feedback, pressing me to address that negative relationship.

Here are a handful of ways I think celebrity Christianity is negatively affecting the 80%.

1. Many of the 80% feel that in order to be successful (I use that word advisedly), they need to have the impeccable showmanship of the megachurches. The lights. The cameras. The action. The sneakers. All of this can attract a crowd, and everyone knows it. But Christianity isn’t about success per se, and it’s not about showmanship. Christian “success” is more about clipping the toenails of nursing home residents than it is about slapping on a new pair of Nikes (unless, of course, you’re slapping those Nikes on the resident post-pedicure).

2. The pressure to engage in showmanship can easily translate into inauthenticity (another word I use advisedly). Of course, the showmanship at the megachurches is always paired with a rhetoric of authenticity. Slogans abound in these contexts like, “We here at Babbling Brook Church want to empower you to be who you were truly meant to be—your authentic self!” Here’s the problem: so much authenticity is so emphatically inauthentic. When you try to mimic what you see elsewhere, people can tell, and it’s exhausting. Teenagers in particular are astute at sniffing out bad productions. They can tell when you’re borrowing someone else’s brand, and it’s a turnoff. Christianity is not in the brand marketplace. And true authenticity comes, not from the lights, camera, and pithy sayings, but from the Spirit’s training in virtue.

3. The showmanship and inauthentic authenticity find their root in the numbers game. By that I mean that success is measured first and foremost in terms of how many people attend your church. The desire to see full churches is not entirely wrongheaded. But anything from a monstrosity to the coronation of a king can draw a crowd. Five thousand met Jesus in the wilderness, but the crowd also shouted for Barabbas. The pressure to grow, grow, grow the church can all too easily lead the 80% to forget Jesus’ parting command, which was to make disciples. And we should remember that he only had twelve of them.

This is not an exhaustive list. But I am speaking from experience. I am the 80%. I feel the mega-pressure.

What is the solution? It’s manifold, but perhaps we could start with what my colleague Kathy Cannon suggested, which is to “stop talking about the 80% of our local church pastors by using a diminutive.” As she put it, we can’t get on to the real business of talking about the real problems of the local church if we’re too busy telling them that their inability to grow, grow, grow is their only real problem.