Platforms for Jesus
When a celebrity pastor gives you his cell phone number
There’s a celebrity pastor with a huge following and a primary audience of Millennials and Gen-Z.
He has a website where everything is fashionable, everything is #aesthetic. At the top of the site, on a banner that sits up there no matter what page you visit, he writes, “I desire to build a personal relationship with you. TEXT MY CELL NOW and stay connected (XXX) XXX-XXXX.”1
My great-grandmother gave a lot of money to three separate televangelists who all ended up being crooks. She watched them from her house in Chandler, Oklahoma and believed the things they said, connecting them with the mission of God. Her money was going towards any number of luxury items—assisting them in living like the elite—but in her mind that money was going to the kingdom of God.
Television provided these men a way to use Jesus to grow their platform and their wealth. And my great-grandma was along for the ride.
At the beginning of this series I wrote about Evangelicals’ conditioning to be social media influencers, about how we were raised to seek the biggest crowds possible to spread the Good News as far as possible.
Something I failed to mention is the collision of capitalism, influence, and ministry.
It’s easy to gain the world using Jesus’ name.
My curiosity got the best of me. I texted the number. Maybe he really does build personal relationships.
“Is this _________?”
Two minutes later I received a response:
The link took me to an online form that asked for my information: name, email, occupation, gender, location, etc etc. Logging all my contact information into his “new phone” looked and felt like signing up for a credit card.
Then, under the text asking me to share my information, he provided me his contact card to add to my phone. It included his profile picture, the name of the church he pastors, and links to his Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and website.
Somewhere in some cloud or server, this pastor now has my personal information, and I have his Instagram handle.
Capitalism. Influence. Ministry.
There has been a method to becoming famous within Christianity for a long, long time (there are even books written about it), and it has evolved as society has evolved.
When my great-grandmother was giving money to televangelists, they were checking the boxes of Evangelical fame. While they were using it in manipulative and abusive ways, there were others (i.e. Billy Graham) using it to truly spread the Gospel. So it’s not like the system is inherently bad. Perhaps just inherently suspect.
Today it revolves around “follower count,” “platform,” and email subscriber numbers. To get that first book deal, the industry wants 10,000 social media followers and / or 3,000-5,000 email subscribers. The more a pastor / writer / human being points people to his or her IG / Twitter / Facebook / Newsletter, the more followers they will gain. And the more followers they gain, the bigger the influence and the bigger the potential payday.
Again, there are wonderful examples of faithful stewardship across the theological spectrum: Max Lucado, Beth Moore, Jemar Tisby, Francis Chan, Lecrae, Tim Keller, Russell Moore, Austin Channing Brown, Danté Stewart, etc. etc.
But manipulators are still out there, still using the insidious spread of social media and technology to make money using Jesus’ name.
Once I filled out the form, I immediately received two follow up texts:
I clicked the link to the YouTube page, and a one-minute welcome video began playing. He told me they created this YouTube channel for me “to be transformed, in whatever area you need to be.” Then he told me there are a few things he needed me to do:
“Hit that subscribe button.”
“Watch a video and share it with somebody else. Like, share, comment.”
“Pray about giving. If this ministry is helping you in any way…you can go to our app or our website and give.”
The first mention of God comes in the final fifteen seconds when he said the content on the YouTube page would help me become the person God has called me to be.
My journey with this celebrity pastor began with this promise: “I desire to build a personal relationship with you. TEXT MY CELL NOW and stay connected (XXX) XXX-XXXX.”
That phrase—“personal relationship”—is not a common phrase. I have never begun a friendship or asked a woman on a date by telling them I’m seeking a personal relationship.
I have only ever heard this phrase in one place: church. As in, Jesus wants a personal relationship with me. So I don’t believe this celebrity pastor coincidentally chose this exact phrase in his invitation to me. Instead, he chose to use religious language to get more followers and—through the capitalistic system of American Christian fame—more money.
The temptation to gain the world using the name of Christ is ever-present, and capitalism + technology provide ample opportunities to do it. It was televangelism and fake tans with my great-grandma, and it’s social media platform building and slim-fit suit jackets with me.
Jesus’s name is being used to build platforms rather than platforms used to share Jesus.2
After that YouTube video, I went back to our messages—this birthplace of our personal relationship—and asked a question.
I didn’t hear back right away. Finally, three days later, I got a response.
Looks like I was never actually locked in.
I’m purposefully being vague and not revealing the name of the pastor because I’m not interested in this being a hit piece. I’m more interested in the broader trends this example represents than in this specific example. So, in order to keep things non-identifiable, I slightly changed the phrase on his banner (not where it matters) so as not to lead back to him via Google.
I don’t have the space to dive into this angle, but by using that phrase—“personal relationship”—this pastor is placing himself in the role of Christ, seeking a personal relationship with his followers. But what happens when people realize that this “personal relationship” is hollow and self-serving? How does that affect their understanding of God?