Look, friends certainly have the right to support friends. But the culture of celebrity pastor is proving to be a danger to the church in one important area: the agenda. Most will tell you that the “agenda” is about the gospel. In reality, it is about advancing the personal agendas/vision-casting of the celebrity pastor. Plainly said, the monolithic big ministry culture is controlling the narrative in America. Mefferd’s fate, along with that of other whistleblowers, proves that the Christian media are in large part identical to that of the secular media: intent on crushing dissent and smearing opponents.

My grandparents’ pastor was a simple guy: Simple home, simple old van, simple garden, simple church building, complete with wooden pews. Well actually, the church building for the first 25 years of ministry was a wooden structure, built in Iowa and hauled – in sections – to the South. It had a pot-bellied stove and cement floor. The new building wasn’t much fancier.

Bro. Ronald Shoesmith didn’t have a book contract or a television ministry. The only jet he’d ever seen flew high overhead. He was a simple gospel preacher, and when he died in 1995, after 53 years of ministry in a rural area, grown men stood and cried, recounting how the Shoesmiths had picked them up for Sunday school, rain or shine.

So it is that I lament the current state of the celebrity preacher in 2013 America.

The hallmark of the modern celebrity preacher is something awfully close to narcissism. They don’t haul their own water. No utilitarian facilities for them. That’s old school, man.

And the flat-out abuses of power that have cropped up only recently are like something out of a crime novel. Seattle Pastor Mark Driscoll was recently outed as a plagiarist by radio show host Janet Mefferd and, incredibly, after several days of a relentless PR machine in action, Driscoll – who never said one word publicly after the infamous radio interview – pulled an apology from Mefferd, who also deleted the clear evidence of his plagiarism, from her website.

This is the same Mark Driscoll, humble shepherd, who infamously advocates running over “bodies” with the “bus” of the vision-casting celebrity preacher when dissenters question the vision and implementation of said vision.

He also referred to discernment ministry folks as “extremist.”

Not a peep from national evangelical leadership.

When Rick Warren tweets that a person’s character is measured by how he or she treats others, then hours later urges followers to un-follow “negative twits,” one is left wondering: Where is the outrage? Where is the accountability?

The modern celebrity preacher’s ministry is marked by privilege, perks, protection from scrutiny and hubris. No one in a position of authority says a word.

And the fawning!

The adulation, backslapping and cross promotion is breathtaking. Steven Furtick provides canned endorsements for his friends’ books, and they in turn invite him to speak at top conferences, et cetera. The marketing of the modern American pastor, something aggressively endorsed by men like Andy Stanley, is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Many of them spend so much time advancing their own personal brands – on church time – it’s amazing members put up with it.

And each celebrity pastor has another’s back.

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