It’s so alluring, so pervasive. On the one hand, so glaring – and on the other, so subtle.

It’s so much a part of the US evangelical church culture that we may live and breathe it, and never see it.

I can tell you, from experience:

Even when we think we’re not susceptible
to the lure of celebrity,
it may deceive us into agreeing
with much that is not God.

Two experiences, a year apart, served as my rude awakening. Neither was fun. Both opened my eyes. Together, they set me off on the long journey out of the counterfeit – and into relationships marked by true honor, true belonging and genuine love.

In both cases, I received an invitation, and accepted it.

The first time, I found myself behind the scenes in a celebrity culture fostered by my own (then) denomination.

The second time, I accepted a very different invitation, and found the lure of celebrity in a place I never would have thought.

Rude awakening

In 2007, I traveled to India with a small team of women recruited by an “indigenous mission.” Indigenous means “home-grown, not imported, authentic to the land.” Only after arriving onsite, did I realize the mission wasn’t indigenous at all.

Its leaders were, indeed, Indian. An upper-caste couple, they had set up their ministry in a much lower-caste region. They had built their ministry there for 20-plus years.

At the time we went, all their funding – all of it – came from American Christians and churches. A sophisticated strategy recruited such donors.

In a nutshell: Media outreach, networking efforts and mission trips promoted an “indigenous” mission – designed to mirror the US evangelical church.

On the large campus, the buildings, the organizations, the worship center, the worship services, even the songs, reflected little of the culture of the region. Ah, but it all felt very familiar to anyone visiting from the US.

What’s more, an American-style church hierarchy kept the Indian caste system in place – with the husband and wife at the top.

The wife oversaw our trip. She spoke fluent English, in addition to the language of her home region. Yet, she had apparently never learned the language of the people her ministry was set up to serve. While we were there, she always, only, spoke to them through an interpreter.

Ostensibly, we had been invited to speak at a women’s conference the ministry was hosting.

Ahead of the trip, we were each told to prepare several talks, on topics that supported the conference theme and encouraged Christian growth. Using the detailed instructions sent to us, we worked to prepare teachings that would be acceptable to the ministry, relevant for women of another culture and easy to translate.

We submitted our proposed talks by email, and they were reviewed. In some cases, modifications were required. But all of us arrived with two to three approved teachings we were ready to share.

We did not know until well into the conference how few teaching slots had been assigned to our team – not even enough for each of us to speak once. Before each session, the woman in charge chose which of us, if any, would teach.

Mostly, we sat in the spotlight, silent.

But silence allows for watching, listening, pondering. And thus, I saw: The invitation to speak had been a hook. An enticement, for those of us who could be so enticed, to pay our own way to India.

In reality, we had been invited so that we would see the mission structure first-hand, get lots of perks in the process, and return home to give lots of money and/or to get our churches to invest.

While there, we were provided an all-day shopping trip, a spa night, an extended tour of the mission and a lot of Americanized meals. We were given almost no opportunity to get to know the culture or to serve the people.

Celebrity treatment

Most disturbing of all was the women’s conference itself.

The conference convened in a large, newly built, Western-church-style auditorium. As groups of women arrived from churches all over the region, nearly every seat was filled. Yet we were not allowed to meet, mingle with, or hear from, the women.

At each session, we arrived after everyone else. While the opening music played, we were escorted in through the main door to the auditorium, and were paraded down the center aisle.

At meal times and after the sessions, we were paraded out to a sequestered place before the women were allowed to dismiss.

I hated all of that. So did another team member. One day as we were paraded in, she said with dismay, “I feel like Elvis Presley.”

We were certainly being treated like celebrities. It was eerily reminiscent of my previous rude awakening, at a Christian women’s event a year earlier.

Regardless who was speaking in a given session, our whole team was required to stay on stage the entire time.

The worship music sounded similar to the music in our own churches, but did not include any songs any of us knew. A large screen displayed the lyrics, in a language and alphabet we did not know.

Why did those who planned for us to be on stage during the music not help us participate in it? A transliteration of the lyrics, a version in English, links to some of the songs prior to the trip – any of that would have helped.

Instead, when the congregation stood to sing, we stood, to stand there.

Today as I write, I’m standing there again. Song after song, I look out from that platform into that vast auditorium, straining to see the faces of the women there. But always, I’m blocked from being able to do it by the structure’s design.

Literally, physically, we had been placed a great distance from the conference attendees. What’s more, the platform was so high above them that, even when the women stood, their heads were lower than our feet.

The lighting inside the building focused on the stage, on us.

Natural light did come in through tall windows. But those windows were located behind the congregants and above their heads. So the women who shared the room with us were hidden in shadows. And our eyes were drawn toward the view of the campus outside.

And so we stood, facing women whose faces we could not see, as they sang songs we could not join. Then we sat, on display, as different speakers spoke, sometimes in English with translation, sometimes in a language we did not know.

Only one time were we allowed to be among the women for a few minutes. We were told we were going to have a prayer time, and each of us was escorted to a different place in that large auditorium. Then the women all around us were told, in their language, that we would now pray for them in English. And we were told to do it.

A near-riot ensued, as women whose language we neither spoke nor understood pushed in to reach us, fighting to touch our white American skin. Come to find out: They had been led to believe that power from God would flow out from us and fix all the pain in their lives.

Before that hellish pretense of a prayer time was over, I was crying, and praying aloud, “Lord, show them the truth! Show us the truth! Have mercy on us all!”

Betrayed trust

My dad was something of a celebrity in our small hometown. “Everybody” knew him. Everybody “just loved” him. Or at least, that’s what random people told my siblings and me, all the time.

I just loved him too. Remembering my childhood, I can still see the way he had of owning a room, of making us laugh. He could create such an aura of benevolent presence that I did not notice all the times when, emotionally and physically, he was not there.

Being like Daddy, being approved by him, seemed all-important back then. During the years that I did have his approval, I did not notice what it did not include – real conversation, real relationship, real love.

From my earliest childhood, Daddy taught me I could be a star. Like him. Just by shining in ways that made him more admired. For many years, I tried.

Did you know? You can have a celebrity culture without a famous celebrity in sight.

 I was born into one.

Then, well into adulthood and halfway around the world, I found myself in another one.

Now, I’m having a real struggle telling what I’ve seen and learned. Sixteen years after my India trip and nine years after my father’s death, I’ve been stuck for weeks trying to write this post.

It feels like I’m betraying a trust. But no. That’s backwards.

Celebrity culture gains our trust – and then repeatedly betrays it.

What’s more, celebrity culture breeds profound loyalty – and then uses it to keep people in that culture from seeing, or caring, or speaking up when the betrayals occur.

Celebrity culture may seem glamorous, and harmless, and fun. But behind the veneer, it is …

Illusion and image

Celebrity culture is built on illusion. Lots of illusions, actually. But primarily, it is illusion’s job to create, sustain and promote an image.

That’s because celebrity culture hinges on an image, an impressive and attractive image, centered around one or more persons.

The image and the illusions are designed to elevate the celebrity high above everyone else – yet also somehow to convey to the other people in the culture: “Here, you can be an integral part of something great! Here, you will know and be known. You will love and be loved. Here, you will count.”

The more invested we become in a celebrity culture:

• the more willing we are to believe the image is reality, and the illusion, truth;
• the more likely we are to defend and protect the image and the illusion, regardless the cost.

Idolizing and dehumanizing

As we value ourselves and others based on image and illusion:

• A few people are idolized. Many are dehumanized.
• A few faces and voices are amplified, and treated as godlike. The voices of the many are heard only when they sing the lyrics provided for them. The faces of the many are obscured.

Using and being used

The celebrities, the people creating celebrities, the would-be celebrities and the people seeking closeness to celebrity are all taught:

Seek first what you want. Use one another, to get it. That’s the only way to succeed.

As a result of all this mutual exploitation, the few with power, prestige and money tend to accrue more and more. Everyone else emerges with … bread crumbs. Ah, but because of illusion, those bread crumbs may seem a great treasure.

Choosing God

Recently, a friend and I were discussing celebrity culture in the church.

“Don’t you think people who were neglected or abused in childhood may be especially vulnerable to that?” she asked, then added, “We’re used to settling for bread crumbs.”

Oh my, yes. When we have no idea what real relationship looks like, we’re ripe to believe anything that may appear to promise it. And when we’ve been fed a very skewed view of greatness, we’re liable to latch onto whatever seems to offer it.

It is crushing to find such betrayal of trust in the church. But the God who is Father, Son and Spirit has warned us that we will. (See, for example, Matthew 7:15-20.) And he has made the way for us to recognize it, and to walk free from it.

In Christ, we can know firsthand the sacrificial love of God for us and for all people. We can hear his voice when he teaches us. We can lay hold of his grace when he calls us:

• to worship him alone – and “not make for yourself an image in the form of anything” (Ex. 20:3-4);
• to know and love the truth that sets us free;
• to love one another;
• to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The Lord says:

Whoever wants to become great among you
must be your servant. (Matt. 20:26)

Celebrity culture says:

Whoever wants to become great among you
must be your celebrity.

Since those are opposite paths, how can we even have celebrity culture … in the church?

Remember! Such a culture trains us to trust in illusion. So …

Celebrity culture takes hold in the church by creating the most insidious illusion of all. It assures us that we are following Christ alone, while luring us ever deeper into a system that repeatedly betrays him and us.

I can tell you, from experience:

God’s grace is sufficient to deliver you,
if you will choose him.

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“Celebrity culture in the church” is based on an excerpt from The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life, pp. 54-56.

Image by Monika from Pixabay

My companion post about this extraordinary trip

The Lord who breaks open the way

See also

• Illusionists! The abusers we have not seen
• The world in church clothing
• Adulthood and the church
• Witchcraft in the church
• Behind the scenes at Living Proof Live – an inside look at one celebrity culture
• Beth Moore and LifeWay: The ploy – an inside look at tactics used to protect the celebrity image
• Spiritual schizophrenia and the two-headed snake