Thabiti Anyabwile’s blog, The Deadly Death of Definitions: On the Use of Terms, a carefully reasoned appeal for greater precision in our use of language when characterizing people and the organizations and ministries they lead, first led me to this online conversation. Anyabwile was responding to Carl Trueman’s piece, Public Figures and Celebrities: A Key Distinction.
Both pieces are fine writing, and valuable reading.
The issue is what Trueman views as the celebrification of too many Christian leaders. This hearkens back, I believe, to ancient Corinth, where Christians were ghettoizing with their favorite preachers and leaders.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. [1 Cor. 3:1-9]
Some readers may feel I am misusing Paul’s text, that he was addressing factions within the local church at Corinth, but in principle, he was addressing the ongoing problem of sectarianism and improper “hero worship.” It is a major problem within North American Christianity. And at its heart, I believe, is our incessant need to have our favorite preachers and teachers; to be seen as belonging to the group that is really standing for the truth; to be perceived as on the cutting edge of what we believe God is doing in our world today. However it is viewed, the end result seems always to be the lifting up of a personality of movment to the obscuring of the glory of Christ himself.
The problem is not that a leader or movement is well-known, or even well-appreciated. In my view, Trueman is right when he says:
Being known as a public figure – whether by a very small group or by countless millions – is not the same as being a celebrity. Anyone who performs any public action such as writing, preaching, or making a speech, becomes known by some section of the public at some level.
…… Portion deleted……
I would argue that being a celebrity, though, involves more than performing public actions, more than being widely known and more than simply being popular. It also carries with it connotations of branding and marketing: just as J-Lo will have her line of perfumes, so certain writers and speakers come to carry the sense of being a brand: hence, study Bibles named after church leaders; popular devotional commentary series at least notionally authored by a specific name so that they can therefore be sold; ghost writers who produce the goods that are then sold under a famous name; ministries and conferences focused on personalities etc. This is not to say that any of these things are necessarily bad (though some may be more questionable than others). As with shoes, ties, computers and washing machines, it is genuinely helpful to the consumer to know that some brands are worthy of trust. It is merely to point out that there is a difference between someone who writes and speaks, even one who is very popular, and someone who has actually achieved a level of popularity combined with particular market appeal and particular marketing mechanisms.
Respond to Trueman’s overall thesis, Anyabwile makes the important observation that three of Trueman’s four observations about becoming a celebrity have more to do with people’s perception of a leader than with an overt intention of the leader.
He summarizes Trueman’s thinking:
1. Being a celebrity “carries with it connotations of branding and marketing.” He adds: “There is a difference between someone who writes and speaks, even one who is very popular, and someone who has actually achieved a level of popularity combined with particular market appeal and particular marketing mechanisms.”
2. Being a celebrity “is often accompanied by a strange familiarity whereby the celebrities are referred to in quite intimate terms by people who have never met them or have only the most passing of connections with them.” Celebrities are people that other people feel strongly about even though there’s little or no actual relationship. Trueman comments: “Being the object of such pseudo-familiarity is often a sign of the possession of celebrity status.”
3. “Celebrity also brings with it a certain fetish quality whereby peculiar power is ascribed to the person, a power which they do not instrinsically possess.” Trueman here takes aim at the tendency of some to invest unquestionable authority in a person (“this must be right because ‘X’ says it”).
4. “Celebrity often today brings with it a certain aesthetic influence.” In other words, people begin to dress, speak, and act like the “celebrity” in question.
I agree that a leader has little control over the actions of another. If enough people wish to see a leader celebrified, it will be difficult for that leader to stop it. But the leader does have control over how they respond to the celebrification. They can choose to embrace it, encourage it, or ignore it. They might begin by declining the invitation to autograph the Bibles of their admirers. Now that would send a strong, clear message that the leader is interested in lifting up Christ - as John the Baptizer put it when speaking of Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30 ESV).
While I truly appreciate Anyabwile’s call for precision in definitions, I believe Trueman is on the mark in laying bare an unsavoury tendency in North American Christianity. The seductive nature of the public arena is such that we must always be on guard to avoid obscuring the Christ of the gospel, and the gospel of Christ, behind our personalities and movements.
And finally, consider looking at the potential damage to individual Christians when leaders promote celebrification. Mark Driscoll, while not really addressing celebrification, nevertheless underscores the importance of the problem in The Crisis of Conference Christians. Celebrification may well stunt the Christian’s spiritual growth.
All three articles are worthy of sustained reflection.
