I recently suffered through a depressing but necessary experience—reading Charles Shepard’s Forgiven, the painfully detailed account of the rise and fall of Jim Bakker.
It was depressing because the story contains all the elements of classic Greek tragedy: a leading character trapped in his own web of deceit. Only this isn’t ancient literature, it’s real life. And the tragedy has wrought incalculable harm upon the cause of Christ.
Studying the book was necessary, however, because of its sobering lessons for the thousands of us in Christian service. As I read, I was reminded of how vulnerable we all are. Let no one be self-righteous: The terrifying truth is that what happened to Bakker could happen to any of us.
But as I labored through the pages of Forgiven, another lesson came home to me, one that applies to the evangelical movement as a whole: In a sense we created Jim Bakker, or at least the lethal environment in which he fell. This is not to excuse his misdeeds, but the lesson is plain. Jim Bakker’s demise was the nearly inescapable consequence of a popular idolatry: celebrity worship.
Raised in a modest Muskegon, Michigan, neighborhood, a poor student with a self-confessed inferiority complex, Bakker managed only three semesters of Bible college before launching out on a small-town revival circuit. When Jim was 25, his and Tammy’s puppet show for kids hit the big time on then-fledgling Christian television.
Fame came fast. Adoring crowds heaped mountains of money on the “house” that Jim built, gorgeous buildings full of high-tech studios. Jet setters, Jim and Tammy cruised Palm Springs in leather-lined limousines, and were even courted by presidential candidates.
Such instant fame often destroys, as it has countless other celebrities. Most of us are not as immune to pride as Mother Teresa.
Star Worship
Celebrity worship has become so pervasive that, as Richard Schickel writes in Intimate Strangers, it substitutes “for a sense of organization, purpose, and stability in our society.” This is understandable perhaps in the values vacuum of secular America; but the baffling part is that Christians have fallen into the same trap.
We evangelicals mindlessly elevate our own superstars: honey-tongued TV preachers, baby-faced World Series heroes, converted rock stars, and yes, a former White House aide who supposedly would have run over his own grandmother.
We worship fame for fame’s sake. So what if the celebrity is long on outward looks and short on inward substance? Theological depth, spiritual maturity, and even integrity matter less than worldly fame.
There are at least two possible explanations for this very nonbiblical attitude.
One is that ordinary citizens who may feel insignificant in this super-hyped media age can experience power and privilege vicariously through the celebrity. Why else do widows living on social security send their $10 or $20 checks to televangelists who wear Rolex watches and live in ministry-provided palatial estates? Somehow these supporters must be living out the fantasy of the Christian high life right along with the celebrity, a phenomenon Schickel describes at length in his book.
There is a second explanation: The celebrity affirms our faith. “If God could convert him,” I remember people saying about me, “he can convert anyone.” This leads to a tendency to paint the convert’s past more sinful and his present more saintly than either deserves. I know.
Shortly after my release from prison, I was waiting to give my testimony to a packed auditorium of students. A former White House colleague, on hand to introduce me, leaned over and whispered to the emcee, “I’m going to tell the audience what a great guy Chuck was before.” The emcee turned ashen. “No, no,” he stammered, “you’ll ruin the whole thing.”
God’S Paid Professionals
But the danger of celebrityism in the Christian world is not just that we puff up mere mortals with pride, put them on pedestals, throw our coins at them, and then shake our heads disgustedly when they fall. No, there is a less obvious but even more deadly effect of Christian idol-worship: Celebrityism lets individual believers off the hook.
It’s tragic that the illusions of our culture have us believing that only big names or big organizations can accomplish anything. And so we send our checks off to worldwide Christian ministries and settle back in the easy chair. We serve God by remote control.
In truth, the most important work of the gospel is done directly by citizens living out their biblical responsibility in their everyday circumstances. This is one reason I look forward to visiting Third World countries. In most there are no evangelical superstars, no big organizations, and so those “poor” Christians simply go out and do the gospel themselves.
In Peru, for example, during last year’s financial crisis, the government cut funds for prisons, threatening food supplies for 7,000 inmates at the infamous Luringancho prison. Volunteers went door to door, filling trucks with canned goods, home-cooked stews, or whatever they could gather. When those trucks rolled through Luringancho’s imposing gates, they were greeted by swarms of inmates. As the volunteers busily served the food, the inmates spontaneously broke out in hymns of praise.
These Christians had to trust solely in God to work through their hands. I was confronted with a similar story in Madagascar where I found that the diligent efforts of one man kept alive several hundred inmates. I was so moved I asked if there was anything I could do to help, expecting him to say, “send money.” “Oh no,” came his astonishing reply, “our God is sufficient for all things.”
Those simple words and solid examples are a sobering message for today’s evangelicals: We must forsake the worship of Christian megamen—which, as the Bakker tragedy showed us, spells doom—and get on with our duty to do the gospel. Our faith belongs not in corruptible media icons but in our God who is sufficient for all things.
