The Instagrammable Pulpit

Within the last 24 hours, another public resignation was announced from a prominent evangelical leader. The specifics are tragic: secret online accounts, years of duplicity, slander against fellow elders and pastors—all while publicly preaching orthodoxy. It is yet another example in an increasingly predictable cycle. Not long ago, it was a different man—this time caught in adultery—whose voice had been platformed, honoured, published, and quoted widely. These aren’t isolated moments of personal failure but symptoms of a much deeper sickness.

Celebrity culture exists. And it must be quashed. But we deceive ourselves if we think this is merely an American problem. It is alive and well on our own shores. The pride. The platformism. The thinly veiled self-importance dressed in theological robes. It may not always be overt, but it’s present and growing. I’ve had several people reach out over the last 24 hours asking what I think, and the honest answer is: I think we’ve let this go on for too long.

The Apostle’s words are more than relevant: ‘Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall‘ (1 Cor. 10:12). That verse isn’t a vague caution; it’s a thunderclap warning. It was written not for the morally compromised, but for the confident. And that’s what makes it so searching. We think the danger lies in doctrinal drift, but Paul reminds us that the greater threat is pride—especially the kind that flourishes beneath sound teaching and public affirmation. We fall not just when we disobey, but when we presume.

I’m struck by how much ministry today is mediated through image. Facebook has become the Instagram of the pulpit. Preachers post photos of themselves mid-sermon, snapshots of conference stages, filtered shots of their open Bible beside artisan coffee, and carefully composed reflections on ‘what God is doing.’ We share our own highlights under the banner of gratitude. But too often, it’s not Christ we’re showcasing—it’s ourselves. We don’t just want to be faithful; we want to be seen being faithful.

This isn’t simply a matter of social media etiquette. It’s an issue of spiritual formation. When ministry becomes a performance—curated, captured, and consumed—it stops being pastoral. And what’s more, the quiet inner life of communion with Christ gets replaced by the noisy outer life of public affirmation. Likes replace prayer. Comments substitute for communion. The shepherd becomes a brand. And slowly, imperceptibly, the pulpit becomes a mirror.

We see it in our conference culture as well. Ministries—even here in Australia—are willing to pay staggering fees to fly in celebrity speakers with a long list of demands. And I’m not referring to the charismatic fringe—I’m speaking about conservative evangelicalism. One speaker, well-known and regularly hosted in this country, states plainly on his ministry website that he will only consider invitations from churches or ministries with conference attendance of at least 1,500 or for churches that have congregations of 2,500 or more. Conference organisers comply because they know his name will draw a crowd. But that’s precisely the problem. The substance becomes secondary. It’s not the truth that attracts people—it’s the aura of fame.

And this creates a vicious cycle. The bigger the profile, the more invitations received. The more invitations, the more exposure. The more exposure, the greater the sense of indispensability. And with that comes the delusion: ‘I matter more than most.’ What starts as gospel zeal turns into self-importance. And few people close enough are willing to challenge it. Who rebukes the headliner? Not the sycophants who want a photo. Not the organisers who need the ticket sales. So the applause continues unchecked, and the soul slowly withers under the weight of its own fame.

Indeed, the cultural context should make us wary. What Chuck DeGroat describes in When Narcissism Comes to Church is chilling because it is so recognisable. Narcissistic leaders are not always easy to spot. They are often gifted, articulate, visionary, and externally devoted to the cause of Christ. But beneath the polish lies a shadow. As DeGroat notes, their mantra is: “I am bigger, I am better, and I have no interest in understanding my impact on you except in so far as you can feed my ego.” That’s not a shepherd. That’s a wolf in shepherd’s clothing. Ezekiel 34 could have been written yesterday.^[1]See Chuck DeGroat, When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2020), 67–86.

New Testament Scholar, Michael J. Kruger, too, rightly notes that the problem is not only those who fall publicly, but the systems that kept them in place long after the damage was done.^[2]See see Michael J. Kruger, Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Reflective, 2022), 74. Bully pastors, spiritual abusers, narcissists in the pulpit—these aren’t rare phenomena anymore. They are a feature of what happens when churches elevate gifting over character, charisma over covenantal fidelity, and protect image at the expense of the flock. As Kruger writes, the tragic pattern is now familiar: the abuser is platformed, the abused are silenced, the board is immobilised, and by the time action is taken, the trust has already evaporated. And what of the sheep? They are scattered.^[3]Kruger, Bully Pulpit, 19.

When Steve Lawson’s moral failure became public last year, Mark Jones rightly warned that adultery and scandal are not isolated acts of passion but deliberate patterns of deception. They are often carried along by pride, entitlement, and years of platform immunity. The public fall is merely the final tremor of a long-festering fault line. But as Jones notes, the problem is not simply individual—it is systemic. “We also need to re-evaluate the celebrity-culture that continues to exist because parachurch organizations persist with their selective inbreeding whereby the same men are platformed repeatedly so that we begin to think that they have something to tell us that ordinary pastors can’t.… Ostensibly Reformed parachurch ministries are not helping the church by making certain men into gods, and these men start to believe the lie.” It is a damning indictment—not just of the fallen, but of the culture that built their platform and then protected it.

So when such a fall occurs, and the defenders rush in to ‘extend grace,’ they often do so in a way that enables destruction. Grace is not the opposite of discipline. It is never a licence to restore a man too quickly, nor a reason to ignore the damage done to Christ’s sheep. Perhaps, as Jones suggests, ‘Pastor Bill from an hour outside of Chicago’—the unknown, faithful man who has been pouring himself out among his people—has more to say to the church than the celebrity whose sermons have been preached on autopilot for years. If we are to guard the integrity of gospel ministry, then we must be willing to resist the cult of notoriety—even when it wears a Reformed label.

So, where do we go from here? We recalibrate. We stop pretending that platforms make men authoritative. We remember that the church is not built on the gifting of men but the blood of Christ. We resist the urge to feed the machine. We honour the boring, faithful, under-shepherds who walk with God, preach the Word, and know their people. They are the ones heaven applauds. And their reward is not on this side of glory.

After all, Jesus did not say, ‘Take up your brand and follow me.’ He said, ‘Take up your cross.’

And the cross doesn’t elevate—it crucifies. It doesn’t amplify ego—it kills it. If we want to see renewal in our churches, it won’t come through better lighting or louder applause. It will come through the death of self and the exaltation of Christ. Indeed, may we decrease, so that He might increase (John 3:30). The church would do well to learn that obscurity in faithfulness is infinitely better than fame with compromise.

But… that’s undoubtedly hard in an age of platforms and personal brands. As I said to a friend recently, pride and arrogance are frighteningly easy to cultivate in our circles. Ministry can feed the flesh as much as any other pursuit, perhaps even more so. And social media has only added fuel to the fire—it’s Genesis 3 with a retweet button. This is why we must embrace humility and seek out real accountability. Neither is easy. Both go against the grain of our carnal selves. But, my goodness, we need them. We need friends who aren’t impressed by us. We need elders who ask hard questions. We need congregations that prize godliness over gifting.

Augustine once said that the chief sin is pride—and he was right.^[4]Such is evident through a large number of Augustine’s writings, particularly his Confessions. However, the following is also helpful to remember: ‘For “pride is the beginning of sin.” … Continue reading It was the sin that undid Eden. And it is the same sin that now topples pulpits and rends churches. But there is hope: Christ came not for the strong, but for the weak; not for the impressive, but for the poor in spirit. If He bore a crown of thorns, why would we ever reach for one of gold?

Lord, save us from ourselves. And build your church not on personalities, but on your Word. Strip us of the delusions of grandeur, and make us glad to be nothing—so long as Christ is everything.