For those of us who have followed Jesus since childhood, or been raised in a Christian home, we can usually name some prominent voices we heard. Voices of teachers, preachers, and other ministers. On the radio. On the TV, as small as those were back in the day. We would hear their programs again and again, be familiar with the little jingles that came before and after them, and know that these voices meant following Jesus.

I am old enough now to have seen many of the icons and gurus of those days flame out. So many prominent voices that had vast ministries and taught a version of following Christ to so many people - all gone. Or are they? Some passed on and then were disgraced, to be sure. But most of these teachers who fell have gone on teaching in their own way.

Who am I talking about? I'm glad you asked - but if I went into all of it, this would be a book instead of a blog post... Here are a few examples:

• James MacDonald - megachurch pastor who for many years had his sermons broadcast on the radio on Walk in the Word. I remember him also speaking at a conference at my college. He is quite charismatic, but also became known for some high-profile abusive behavior toward employees, missions teams, congregants, and more. His church eventually fired him in 2019, but he continues to teach and preach.

• Joshua Harris - megachurch pastor and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which was a big deal in the courtship movement. His is quite the cautionary tale - having pastored his church for a number of years, he became more aware of some of the negative effects his book had in evangelicalism. As a matter of conscience, he stepped down from his ministry, then went to seminary as a student (which he had never done before). And then deconstructed from the faith and no longer identifies as a Christian. And then tried to sell a program online to help others with their deconstruction.

• Ravi Zacharias - apologist, teacher, and author who had a worldwide reach to his ministry. If the questions surrounding his touted academic credentials weren't enough, he was posthumously investigated for issues of habitual sexual abuse.

So what draws us, the people, to listen to these voices?

In the Old Testament, we have a story that provides some insight here. The people of Israel were tired of their judges, so they went to Samuel and demanded to have a king. He, in turn, warned them of some of the negatives of that plan, but they persisted. Give us a king!

And that started off well, didn't it? Saul began with some good kingly acts that would appear to show a heart of godliness. But we know that eventually he fell off the rails and lost God's blessing.

Every one of these teachers starts off in a movement of power and success. And each has character traits that lead them to end up playing chess with their ministries. Each flips a switch at some point, where protecting the brand becomes more important than keeping testimony in lock-step with reality. "We can't investigate," they'd say, "because it would air the church's dirty laundry before the world." Or - "If you bring me down, so many people who would hear the gospel will not."

Is this all teachers and preachers? Of course not - there are the many faithful who do not make much of themselves. But we have a culture of celebrity that causes us to gravitate toward voices that do not deserve our ears.

Why do we follow them? Well, the fog has a lot to do with it. In the fog we know that God is out there and we can see some of his effects in the world and in history - but we don't feel the whole "personal relationship with Jesus" thing so much. But that's out there, it's being taught, and there are these voices that seem to charismatically capture it.

We feel like we need someone out there to be closer to God than we are. Our sight is so dim (in our estimation), we want those who seem to see more brightly to describe to us what the light is really like. In our quest to leave the fog by proxy, we hitch our wagons to the rising stars. And what do we generally look for? Success. Charisma. Toughness. Someone who does not feel the need to apologize for telling the truth.

It's part of our basic soul DNA, in this fallen world, to equate church success and celebrity with God's blessing and presence. We'll throw in the caveat that it only counts if they agree with my theology, but that doesn't make it right.

What we see here is the interplay between the narcissism of Christian celebrity and the codependent inclinations we experience in the fog. Realize that those who seem to shine brightly may yet dim. Don't say, "but my teacher would never fall!" They may yet.

Our business in this life is to seek after truth and justice with love. When we do that, we will often find ourselves gravitating toward quieter, less shiny voices - the ones who toil faithfully in relative obscurity for years. The ones who are not gaining the whole (evangelical) world. The ones who mirror Jesus in laying down their lives day by day.

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"Chess King" by karpidis is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0