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Evangelical Celebrity and the Root Problem behind ‘Big Eva’
OK. prior to yesterday, I never heard of "Big Eva", but today I've encountered the phrase three times?
Anybody got a line on this?
OK. prior to yesterday, I never heard of "Big Eva", but today I've encountered the phrase three times?
Anybody got a line on this?
Earlier this year Joshua Harris separated from his wife and renounced the faith. The public aftermath was the inevitable cascade of articles, blogs, and posts questioning and critiquing evangelical celebrity culture.
It’s healthy to critically evaluate evangelicalism’s embrace of pastors or other “important” Christians as celebrities (I’d commend Trueman and Anyabwile’s discussions from a few years back). Sometimes, the Christian “movements” that grab our attention have less to do with Christ than with replicating worldly trends, and it’s good for us to allow the tragedy of a “big fall” to temper our hubris with humility before both God and men.
Critiquing celebrity comes most naturally in the form of criticizing “Big Eva”: the Christian celebrities and the mysterious gatekeepers standing just behind the curtain. Undoubtedly the decision to promote the latest attention-grabber, rather than someone who has exemplified decades of steady faithfulness, has too often been made. Such decisions seem to reflect greater loyalty to the Almighty Dollar than to the believers such organizations claim to serve.
But I get nervous when Christians, in critiquing celebrity, blame “the system.” “The system” is out of reach of the ordinary believer, so blaming it is an excellent way to shift responsibility away from ourselves. We get to shake our heads, frustrated at Christian celebrity culture “out there,” and then carry on, smug in our own behavior. Those men (whether here at TGC, or elsewhere) will give an account to the Lord for their decisions. But so will you. It seems to me a particularly sinister plot of Satan to persuade us that the most serious problems in Christian culture have their origins far away from us.
Root of the Problem
The most urgent crisis we must address is the one easily overlooked: the role of worldly beliefs in our own hearts that fuel whatever man-centered Evangelical Industrial Complex exists.
Fundamentally, the negative aspects of a Christian celebrity culture are an outgrowth of our desire to have a leader we can see. We want a king like the nations have to lead us into battle. We want the Christian movie star, musician, or pro athlete to appeal to our non-Christian neighbor and persuade them that Christianity is reasonable. We want these kinds of figures because we love Christ (good!), but also, perhaps, because we’re unsure whether the regular, ordinary Christian can accomplish the mission.
We are the ones who make evangelical celebrities too big to fail. At least, until they break our hearts.
It’s healthy to critically evaluate evangelicalism’s embrace of pastors or other “important” Christians as celebrities (I’d commend Trueman and Anyabwile’s discussions from a few years back). Sometimes, the Christian “movements” that grab our attention have less to do with Christ than with replicating worldly trends, and it’s good for us to allow the tragedy of a “big fall” to temper our hubris with humility before both God and men.
Critiquing celebrity comes most naturally in the form of criticizing “Big Eva”: the Christian celebrities and the mysterious gatekeepers standing just behind the curtain. Undoubtedly the decision to promote the latest attention-grabber, rather than someone who has exemplified decades of steady faithfulness, has too often been made. Such decisions seem to reflect greater loyalty to the Almighty Dollar than to the believers such organizations claim to serve.
But I get nervous when Christians, in critiquing celebrity, blame “the system.” “The system” is out of reach of the ordinary believer, so blaming it is an excellent way to shift responsibility away from ourselves. We get to shake our heads, frustrated at Christian celebrity culture “out there,” and then carry on, smug in our own behavior. Those men (whether here at TGC, or elsewhere) will give an account to the Lord for their decisions. But so will you. It seems to me a particularly sinister plot of Satan to persuade us that the most serious problems in Christian culture have their origins far away from us.
Root of the Problem
The most urgent crisis we must address is the one easily overlooked: the role of worldly beliefs in our own hearts that fuel whatever man-centered Evangelical Industrial Complex exists.
Fundamentally, the negative aspects of a Christian celebrity culture are an outgrowth of our desire to have a leader we can see. We want a king like the nations have to lead us into battle. We want the Christian movie star, musician, or pro athlete to appeal to our non-Christian neighbor and persuade them that Christianity is reasonable. We want these kinds of figures because we love Christ (good!), but also, perhaps, because we’re unsure whether the regular, ordinary Christian can accomplish the mission.
We are the ones who make evangelical celebrities too big to fail. At least, until they break our hearts.
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