If you’ve been connected at all to the Christian blogosphere
in the past month or so you will have undoubtedly heard the saga of celebrity
pastor Mark Driscoll and his sudden (though not at all surprising) fall from
grace. Now Driscoll’s troubles are well documented and a quick Google
search will provide you with more information and commentary
than I could ever provide in this blog – so I’m not going to bore you with the
details of the case – nor am I going to pile on the criticisms and judgments
that you might expect from someone like me who has openly stood against many of
the things that Driscoll and his buddies have been famous for in the past
decade. What I want to look at instead today in this blog is what I have taken
away from the Mark Driscoll saga and how I need to become a different type of
pastor as a result of it.
A few weeks back I was driving to Portage La Prairie (about
50 minutes down the highway from me) to pick up my dog who had been kennelled
while my family was away on vacation. Having just gotten off of a
transcontinental flight about 12 hours earlier no one felt much like making the
trip with me so I took the opportunity to fire up my iPhone that had been
sitting in mothballs while I was away and catch up on some podcasts. Seeing as
this was the height of the media storm concerning Driscoll you can guess what
the conversations were about. It was during this drive, and while listening to
one of my regular podcasts (The Phil Vischer Podcast
if you’re interested) that one of the hosts turned the discussion from the
specifics of the Driscoll controversy to the much larger problem of Western
Christianity’s obsession with celebrity.
Celebrity is not a phenomenon that is unique to modern
western expressions of the faith. There have been celebrities within the
church, as long as the church has been around. Great teachers, leaders,
theologians, writers, revolutionaries and evangelists have long risen above
their local and immediate contexts to become the voice of a movement or a
generation. This sort of celebrity comes when greatness is thrust upon someone
by circumstance, happenstance, and/or (one would hope) divine appointment for
the purposes of fulfilling God’s will. However in the last 100 years (an
arbitrary, but I would guess fairly accurate timeframe) we as a western culture
have turned celebrity into less of an occurrence and more of a product that is
meticulously manufactured and marketed to a public that has developed a
voracious appetite and addiction to the idol that celebrity represents.
Consider the popular music scene as a chief example – where attractive young
artists (a term that must be used loosely) are scouted, trained, groomed and
auto-tuned into an irresistible package of the-next-big-thing and then shoved
down our throats through every available media channel until we are infatuated
with them. Manufacturing and marketing celebrity is big business.
And the church, not wanting to be left out of the business
of culture making at some point decided it should begin manufacturing
celebrities too. Skye Jethani (who was the co-host on the podcast that I
mentioned earlier) followed up that episode with a blog of his own where he
elaborated on his thesis. He calls it the Evangelical Industrial Complex (EIC);
an industry that has an ever increasing capacity for authors, speakers, and
gimmicks to market, which demand an ever increasing pool of Christian
celebrities to meet its quota. He actually
likens it to the military industrial complex that emerged out of the end of
World War II and which has so driven US defence spending out of need to feed
the machine. But what I see is a culture that encourages people to aspire to
celebrity status, in the hopes that one day they will be “noticed” by someone
in the industry, in much the same way that modern pop stars like Justin Bieber
and Ariana Grande were noticed my music moguls from their self-promoting
YouTube videos.
Which brings me back to Mark Driscoll. Mark, for all the
harm he has caused, and all the good he has done, was someone who had celebrity
thrust upon him. Not in the traditional way, but by the forces of the EIC. He
was a young (and by his own admission probably too young), hip, different and
influential pastor of a church in a heavily unchurched part of the USA that was
finding success. He has the right connections, and his team was media savvy and
that voice found an outlet and he found a following. Shortly thereafter came
the book deals, and the speaking tours, and the recognition of being one of
America’s foremost celebrity pastors. He told people all around the world to
worship Jesus – but the truth of the matter is that many of us secretly
worshipped him. We wanted a celebrity and the industry found some talent and
made one for us in our own image – and we declared him good. Should we be
surprised at all that he has now fallen from grace? Should we be surprised at
all that the very same industrial complex that made him a celebrity has now
sacrificed him on the altar of public opinion?
Mark Driscoll is a cautionary tale for any pastor who may
have aspirations of being anything more than the faithful under-shepherd of the
flock that God has assigned him or her to. It’s not about his theology, his
politics, or his leadership style in the end – those may be the things that are
pulling him back down to earth, but the fall was induced by the unsustainable
gravity of his celebrity status. The bigger they are, the farther they fall.
And that is why this will be my final blog post on
chrisssmithtopher.com
A colleague of mine popped in for a friendly visit shortly
after I began my ministry here in Winnipeg he was telling me about his prayer
when he became the lead pastor of his church (and he will forgive me I’m sure
if I slightly misquote him here – it’s been a year), he asked God that his
influence would never exceed his maturity; in many ways that’s the same thing
that I’m trying to ensure here. I don’t want to be conflicted by the work of
building my “brand” and the co-labour I have been called to in building the
church as a shepherd of this local flock. I know without needing any outside
critique that my maturity does not warrant more influence than I already have
(perhaps not even what I have), and I know that no matter how humble my words
or how self-depreciating I can be, that the seeds of wanting to be more lie
buried deep within me. And so I am choosing to deny them the light they so
desire that would allow them to grow into something that would choke out the
good seed of the Gospel that God has planted in me.
I am not naïve or arrogant enough to believe for a second
that I am destined to be the next Mark Driscoll, or Rob Bell, or Craig Groschel
(or pick your favourite celebrity pastor and insert them into this list); I
will likely never have a world famous podcast or best selling book (I will
likely never write a book so that’s almost a certainty). I will likely never be
invited to join the touring circuit as a Christian speaker or ascend to great
positions of power within my denomination – but it would be far too easy for me
to manipulate my “brand” so that even in much smaller ways the gravity of
celebrity could pull me crashing back to earth and jeopardize the small, but
significant work that God IS doing through me in my ministry. And so after much
prayer and deliberation I have decided to discontinue my practice of blogging
on chrissmithtopher.com and instead take my periodic thoughts, musings and
teachings onto our new and improved church website. From now on all of my
blogging will be done under the banner and authority of my local congregation
and for the edification of my local congregation. And because it will no longer
be my blog that I contribute to, I will just be one of several voices that will
lend insight and interest to that blog – further diluting my capacity to have
my influence exceed my maturity.
I know that some of you will be reading this and think that
I’m overreacting. You will think that I’ve taken this idea way too far and am
throwing away a perfectly good platform to share Christ through my writings. I
appreciate your perspective but I cannot ignore what I feel the Holy Spirit is
convicting me of – whether it seems like common sense or not. I also know that some
of you will think that I’m making a mountain out of a molehill – and that my
decision is no big deal and not worth this self-aggrandizing explanation –
perhaps you’re correct, but after 258 posts I felt like some explanation was
warranted. And lastly I know that some of you will think that in posting this I
am judging other pastors who have not, and will not, take the same steps in
relation to their brand-building. Please hear me that God has not told me that
this practice of personal brand-building is wrong, or sinful full-stop – he has
merely told me that it is wrong for me. And in the same way that a Christian
can choose to abstain from alcohol without passing judgment on a brother or
sister who drinks responsibly – I harbour no judgement toward anyone else who
chooses a different path. This is
something I must do, something that God has asked me to do.
And so I say goodbye. Thank you for all the praise,
encouragement and constructive feedback you’ve all given me over the years.
It’s been an amazing and exciting ride. Chrissmithtopher.com will continue to
exist as an archive of my past writings until the domain expires – at which
point I will probably keep it up under a new name as long as blogger will host
it for free.
God bless,
Christopher
