Last week I pointed you towards a post by Rachel Held Evans that looked at the Church’s obsession with celebrity pastors and the problems it often causes.
In response Skye Jethani took a look behind the dangers to ask why. Why does contemporary evangelicalism seem to have such a preoccupation with megachurch pastors who expand their “brand” by writing and speaking at all the relevant conferences? He suggests that this can be attributed, at least in part, to what he terms the evangelical industrial complex.
“There is an evangelical industrial complex that helps create, and then relies upon, the existence of celebrity leaders. Have you ever wondered why you don’t see pastors from small or medium sized churches on the main stage at big conferences? Or why most of the best-selling Christian authors are megachurch leaders?
Here’s one possibility (the one people like to believe): The most godly, intelligent, and gifted leaders naturally attract large followings, so they naturally are going to have large churches, and their ideas are so great and their writing so sharp that publishers pick their book proposals, and the books strike a nerve with so many people that they naturally become best-sellers, and these leaders are therefore the obvious choice to speak at the biggest conferences. As a result they find themselves quite naturally becoming popular, even rising to celebrity status.
Is this possible? Yes. Does it happen? Sometimes. Is it the norm? I don’t think so.
Here’s the other possibility (one I’ve seen from the inside): Through any number of methods–powerful gifting, shrewd marketing, dumb luck–a pastor leads a congregation to megachurch status. Publishers eager for a guaranteed sales win offer the megachurch pastor a book deal knowing that if only a third of the pastor’s own congregation buys a copy, it’s still a profitable deal. The book is published on the basis of the leader’s market platform, not necessarily the strength of his ideas or the book’s quality. Sometimes the pastor will actually write the book, and other times a ghost writer hired by the publisher will do the hard work of transforming his sermon notes into 180 pages with something resembling a coherent idea.
Wanting to maximize the return on their investment, the publisher will then promote the pastor at the publisher-sponsored ministry conference or other events. As a result of the pastor’s own megachurch customer base and the publisher’s conference platform, the book becomes a best-seller.”
On the flip side, Bob Hyatt discusses the intentional pursuit of obscurity in his Out of Ur essay The Dangerous Pursuit of Pastoral Fame.
“Over the last few years, I’ve thought long and hard about “my platform” as a pastor, a writer, an occasional speaker. And as I’ve done so, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a danger to my soul in pursuing more exposure, more name recognition, more money to be made from thinking, writing, and speaking about ministry issues. Especially while I am still in full-time, paid ministry to a local community.
I want to be clear, though: I have no issue with writers/speakers who sell lots of books, go on speaking tours, and generally promote their works however they can. But there’s something very “off” in the proliferation of pastors who are mixing ministry in and to a local community with “building their brand.” I think a good case can be made that the self-promotion that’s inevitably needed to build a brand in today’s world in incongruous with the servant-leader model of pastoring and the attitude of humility that ought to accompany it.
The Celebrity Pastor certainly isn’t a new phenomenon. But the extent to which some take it today, I think, is.”
What do you think? Is the growing pushback on the celebrity pastor phenomenon justified? If not, why? If so, how can we work towards something better and what would that look like?
On the other hand, there are cynical Christians who like to find one or two outspoken pastors on whom to continually focus their anger. I really struggle with this in my own life, as I tend to vilify those celebrity pastors with whom I disagree. This may seem like an entirely different problem than the idolization of celebrity pastors, but these attitudes actually represent two sides of the same coin. Both flatten and objectify the pastors in question. While one group sees a pastor as wholly good, the other sees the pastor as wholly evil. But neither sees the leader for who he or she actually is—a person: fallen yet redeemed, imperfect and in need of our grace.”
. I’ve only just started flipping through it, but it seems like it has potential – expect more on this one if it proves to be a good read. From what I can tell it touches on themes of creativity and story which I am quite interested in right now.
. Simply Jesus is a popular-level presentation of Wright’s theological project, including his developments over the last decade, and the Review did well in hitting on the book’s main themes.
Well, yes. I mean, it’s a very interesting question the way you asked that because, of course, we in the West are all dyed-in-the-wool social democrats to a lesser or greater extent, and we look at the tyrannies in old Eastern Europe or in some parts of the Middle East to this day and we shudder. We say, “We really don’t want to be like that.”
, by Lauren Winner
Last Friday I got up early before work and wrote a response to Piper’s suggestion that Christianity has “a masculine feel.”
Recently a friend of mine, Louis at Baker Book House, was the subject of 
Now it has become about defending one specific theory about what the bible must be, and militantly protecting the identity, security, power, fame, and yes, money, that come along with promoting that theory by attacking anyone who disagrees.
blog tour. I’d encourage you to check out the 
