Timely observations from @ahc here: thegospelcoalition.org/article/time-r….
Related considerations:
1. Does ecclesiastical polity matter here? Does evangelicalism’s penchant for freelance, non-denom start-up congregations make it susceptible to this in unique ways?
Related considerations:
1. Does ecclesiastical polity matter here? Does evangelicalism’s penchant for freelance, non-denom start-up congregations make it susceptible to this in unique ways?
Not that episcopacy is any magical guarantee against abuse (see: Rome). But worth considering whether Presbyterian ecclesiastical polity (for example) is a check & balance that non-denoms lack.
I’d also be interested to see some social scientific work on any correlation between these cults of pastoral celebrity and “male-headship” ethos. I’ll suspend my suspicions given absence of data at this point.
2. Seems the pastorate is a Petri dish for celebrity in a way the academy is not. While academics can be famous (see: Al Plantinga), they actually have very little institutional authority. (For heaven’s sake, we do most of our own photocopying!)
But more importantly, the academy is rife with accountability structures and checks & balances—from doctoral committees to peer-review, rank & tenure reviews, deans & provosts, all the way up to university BOTs and accreditation agencies.
(And I’m talking about academics *in the academy*—who inhabit universities & colleges with all the drudgery of such institutional life—not roaming speakers who happen to have PhDs. None of what I’m saying here applies to them, actually.)
Again, none of this is a guarantee against abuse, but it does seriously mitigate the unique power that accrues to celebrity *pastors*, it seems to me. These pastors have an agency and authority almost unheard of for academics.
(Indeed, I imagine some university presidents are a tad envious of the power these pastor-CEOs yield.)
There are days when when I’m frustrated by the strictures of my “day job” as a professor. But then I remember that the classroom is my laboratory for creativity, and how much I learn from my students who keep me stretched and colleagues who challenge me.
And now in light of Andy’s reflections, I’d add that the university is an institutional guardrail against the deformations he notes here—and it’s not one that I’ve invented.
