The scandal of Steve Lawson has hurt many, perhaps an understatement. I never knew Steve Lawson was this big until this story blew up far beyond my wildest expectations. The formation of my faith has so little to do with celebrity pastors that I largely entered into the field of Christian newsgathering with casual familiarity with major megachurch figures. I was simply a believer who hated how gay Christianity Today was. Though I have familiarity with many megachurch pastors, Steve Lawson has never been mentioned on Evangelical Dark Web before, to my knowledge, and is not referenced in my book either (and I name-drop many.)
Yet this story proves how many people looked up to Lawson, and they have my deepest sympathies. I know what it’s like to see a pastor fall and refuse to get back up. Hopefully, the latter detail does not describe Steve Lawson. Steve Lawson’s impact may be described as a Grand Prince in the MacArthur camp. Perhaps he was set to succeed John MacArthur as the figurehead of this strain of Evangelicalism. John MacArthur is an Evangelical Pope to many, and Steve Lawson was perhaps a pope to many as well.
In Winning Not Winsome: 10 Commandments of Spiritual Warfare, Commandment 3 is “Never Erect Popes.” This is the third item because they are ordered in a certain way, following a specific set of operations. The first two chapters help Christians find churches and pastors, but here I write a caution on elevating men beyond their capacity to lead. The preceding context to this is me writing about Ravi Zacharias.
Heartbreak is inevitable in the Christian walk. It is a narrow road we walk and not everyone perseveres to finish the race—even those we look up to. And when this happens, it hurts. The pastor who baptized me would leave the church over adultery. There is a sting there, but Romans 8:28 holds true in times such as that. Erecting Evangelical Popes increases your risk of having your faith shaken if the person venerated is not who you thought that they were.
Anyone involved with discernment will frequently be asked who they do recommend. This is the natural curiosity that follows those who critique celebrity pastors. The correct answer that should apply to everyone is their local pastor. That is my blanket recommendation. There are those I like. However, there is this tendency to believe that we need a Christian celebrity to look up to and follow, that our pastor is fine, but we need an Evangelical Pope above them.
That being said, your local pastor should be the preeminent ecclesiastical influence in your life. It is their job to shepherd your souls, to guard against false teaching, and disciple believers. Thus is why the first two commandments are about your direct ecclesiastical hierarchy. You should not crave a celebrity pastor to follow. (54)
Additionally, I warn that overreliance on celebrity pastors causes believers to ignore or overlook threats facing the church that these papal figures are not focused on. Well-known for fighting Easy-Believims and hyper-charismaticism, Steve Lawson neglected to use his gravitas to other key fights. The reason that I never mention Steve Lawson is largely due to his past unwillingness to be in the fight against wokeness.
Bottom line, when we erect Evagelical Popes, we set ourselves up for major heartbreak for distant celebrity pastors while also being underequipped to handle certain challenges. In an era of specialization, we need multitude of counsel and the elevation of a vicar is unsuitable for those who understand the times.
5 Responses
Hear hear. While I am disappointed in his fall, our faith should never be in any other man besides Jesus Christ. I prayed for his repentance. I ordered your book last night. Hopefully it comes in soon.
I don’t think I can agree with the assessment that he was a “pope”. He was definitely a celebrity and definitely influential, but not a “pope”. He was certainly well-known and loved in Reformed circles, and, prior to the knowledge of his “fall”, there was no real reason to question that. The first time I ever heard him speak was at our local conference on Reformed Theology, which was in 2009. I had only been Reformed for about 3 years at that time, and I had never heard of the guy. Having no knowledge of him, I heard him expound the Doctrines of Grace from John 6, and it was excellent. In more recent years, I twice attended his “Institute for Expository Preaching” (unfortunately, the most recent was in that 5 year time frame of his sin). In the past I have listened to random sermons of his and my family and I somewhat recently listened to a significant portion of his “Men Who Rocked the World” series. In all of these cases, I was always blessed, encouraged, and challenged by what I heard. In other words, he wasn’t “who he was” by accident or for no reason. Don’t get me wrong– he certainly hobnobbed with those who would be better candidates for “popes” (although I would still take issue with calling them that), such as MacArthur and Sproul. But my point is that based on his ministry there was never really any question mark hanging over his head.
But, I agree with your point about local elders being the most influential. The problem here is that none of them would have ever taken issue with Lawson. Wouldn’t have a reason to.
So, the real question is: should we even have celebrity pastors/preachers? The truth is, even in smaller circles, there still (possibly) ends up being an “elite”. I see this at the youth camp we attend among some of the elders who bring their youth groups. What can we do (if anything) to avoid this celebrity? CAN we even avoid it? Should we even have ministries like “One Passion”? How about Ligonier or Grace to You? Would Steve Lawson have been in this predicament if he had stuck to being a local pastor rather being the president and main speaker of a traveling ministry? Even though things do not currently bode well for him, I still pray that he will evidence genuine repentance, submit to his local elders, and be able to serve faithfully in his local church (though not in a preaching or leadership capacity). I also hope that he can salvage his marriage and other family relationships. Time will tell. (I also experienced seeing someone who was influential in my life after coming to a Reformed perspective [which was SIGNIFICANT] essentially apostasize and commit adultery.)
So, to wrap it up, while I don’t agree with the “pope” assessment, I do have to wonder if we need to find a way to limit preacher celebrity status. But ultimately, while this is all very tragic, our hope should always be in Christ, and not in man, celebrity, “pope”, or not.
Though “local pastor should be the preeminent ecclesiastical influence in your life. It is their job to shepherd your souls, to guard against false teaching, and disciple believers.”, they often don’t do this. Though one may substantively study the Bible alone, it’s so encouraging to hear someone else expound it with clarity, substance, and conviction.
In our small, local churches in the “Bible Belt”, the teachings are often generic and deliberately inoffensive. They also tend to skip/gloss over passages that are theologically or logically challenging. They do a poor job of tying passages to other passages. They don’t warn against false teachers or false teaching in a specific, educational way, because they hold to “Counterfeit Money Analogy”. Truly, they just don’t take the time to know what lies are prevalent in our age, and who are peddling those lies.
The local churches usually take on a few stereo types within the camp of “conservative theology”.
1. They want to be relevant, so they mimic the mega churches in externals in hopes of becoming one, one day. These will be the most morally and theologically liberal, and will shift with the culture the more they grow.
2. In another, the pastor is casually drawing a paycheck from his steady income, but non-growing business (“church”). These are usually the inoffensive separatist. They have their small enclave of people that think like they do, but the teaching is impotent, with radically redundant and generic points in every sermon (love God more, love the Bible more, do more stuff at the church, pray more, etc…), has no outreach, and has very little conviction. It thinks all the sinners are outside the church, so the preaching never says anything that might cause some friction amongst the faithful patrons present. It’s separation mixed with conflict avoidance. They’re content to be ignored by the world, but they are also content to not engage the world for Christ.
3. Another prevalent stereo type is the gospel music / countrified CCM. They’re carnal. They’re emotion centric. They’re actually okay with preaching against sin, but they’re shallow-witted in Bible exposition. The pastors tend to be overlords, with short fuses to anyone challenging them. But, even these that I’ve visited often fall prey to some cultural sentiments, particularly feminism. They tend to have the big Lady’s conferences where the latest Beth Moore wannabe will speak. They’re the church where every woman present is assumed/treated as Proverbs 31 woman just for breathing. Every Father’s Day and every Mother’s Day is “beat up Dad” Sunday, or “Praise Mom” Sunday. You’ll hear all of the usual pious language with Southern twang, “God told me…”, “I felt the Lord lead…”, “God bless you”, etc… Many of their children see the farce and weirdness of it, and tend to grow up, leave, and go to a cool/hip megachurch, which is also emotion centric, just with a different variant from pop culture they grew up in. In this one, the songs are man-centric about the congregants feelings towards God, and the sermons also tend to be about encouraging the struggling, righteous, victim in the pew. The church is an emotional pyschotherapy session, often times.
In all of the common stereotypes above (which collectively are near universal in North Georgia), children’s ministries are nearly coerced, and often actually coerced.
Also, in these circles, they’ll punish you for asking genuine questions about the validity of the pre-trib rapture.
They’ll come after you for causing division for asking about an undereducated Sunday School teacher claiming that listening to heretics like Joel Osteen is harmless. I’ve heard multiple IFB pastors say that even if you apostatize and die hating God that you’re still eternally secure because of a past profession of faith in youth or childhood. They literally get more angry with you for calling out false teaching than that their church members accidentally peddle false teaching. Voddie Baucham’s “Thou shalt be nice” commandment is the overarching, unquestionable belief here.
Last, they’ll come after you for expressing that you think Trump (or any GOP candidate) is nearly as openly evil and liberal as Biden/Harris. Zionism and unquestionable Republican partyism are two of the religious untouchables. For clarity, my issues with the GOP are its radical, unbiblical liberalism. I have no Democratic sympathies whatsoever.
These are their strongest convictions that they’ll actually fight for. Reading the book of Jeremiah and seeing the hatred of God towards sin in a nation and sin in preachers gets glossed over or ignored. Every Bible story in the Old Testament is reduced to ONLY a moral lesson, rather than God revealing Himself in history and to people.
I’m not reformed, though I am a Baptist futurist premillenial predestinationist. I am a member of a church that has a number of the concerns listed above. In order to hear someone substantively teach the Bible, I often have to turn to the Internet. So, I find men like John MacArthur, Doug Wilson (and those in his church), Chris Rosebrough, Voddie Baucham, etc… to listen to. Though I hear 3 messages and 1 Sunday School lesson at my church each week, I probably get more teaching outside of my church. These men can often convey more substantive truth in 35 minutes, than preachers in my area can convey in 4 hours of filling time.
My faith is in no way dependent on these “celebrities”, but it is certainly nourished by them. When any one of them falls, I’m simply grateful that my trust is in Christ, not these sinners. What I appreciate so much about them is they genuinely seem to care and try.
They’re not just going through the motions because it’s time for church again, and they’re also not trying to offer artificial stimulants to grow the church. These two failings seem to dominate pulpits in Baptist circles in the Bible belt.
Sorry for last post not being formatted. I formatted it while typing, and I’m not sure why it smushed it all together when I submitted.
honestly it’s hard to believe that NO ONE knew this was happening
the JMac style is to belittle or remove those that ask questions and so accountability is discouraged
@ GCC almost every elder gets a check from GCC or associated ministries so if they speak up, there goes the paycheck
truth is not offended by questions
lies always are