Christian celebrity culture
Playback speed
It’s hard to spend any time in the church these days without constantly coming up against so-called Christian celebrities. Whether it’s worship leaders, authors or big-name pastors and speakers, it seems the entire infrastructure of the church relies on these high-profile individuals who have become famous for their ministries. But is any of this actually healthy? Nicky Gumbel, the head of Alpha has announced their next leadership conference will not publicise the names of its speakers and worship leaders in advance to try and counteract ‘Christian celebrity culture’. Should we celebrate efforts to damp down on fame? Or is it unavoidable that gifted Christians who offer their ministry to the church will become well-known, and, well, why shouldn’t they? This week I’m joined by Emma Fowle and Sam Hailes from Premier Christianity magazine to try and think through the pitfalls and blessings of celebrity culture in the church.
Released on 3 Apr 2023
Coming up next
Still good news for the poor?
Denominations are much quicker to close down churches based in poorer areas than those serving the rich. That’s the headline finding a report from the charity Church Action on Poverty, which scrutinised five denominations in Greater Manchester to exa...
Faith in the BBC
Last month, staff at BBC local radio stations went on strike in protest at major cuts heading their way. Among locally-produced shows due to be scrapped to make millions of pounds of savings are Sunday services and religious broadcasting, mostly to b...
Church attendance after the pandemic
A new survey of more than a thousand churches has concluded weekly attendance has dropped by about 22% on average since before the pandemic. Intriguingly, the research also suggested a large part of this decline was because churches had cut the numbe...
