The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Relevant
The American church has always had a thing for celebrity — but something shifted over the past five years.
We used to point to cool megachurch pastors befriending high-profile believers as proof that Christianity still had cultural pull. Then came a stretch of very public pastoral scandals — resignations, affairs, whole ministries unraveling in real time — and the shine wore off fast.
But while one kind of platform crumbled, another rose. In place of celebrity pastors, today we have the Christian influencer.
These are people who might not lead a church or hold theological degrees, but they rack up millions of views by talking about God online. Whether it’s an aesthetic devotional or a car confessional, they’re massively popular.
“There’s been a significant decline in trust in institutions,” said author Katelyn Beaty, whose book Celebrities for Jesus explores how platform culture has changed the American church. “In their place, I think many Americans are predisposed to attach themselves to individual figures, most of whom they’ve never encountered in any personal way. But these individuals come to not only symbolize some kind of value or aspiration or political ideology, but also a theological flavor.”
So who is forming us? Who are we actually being discipled by?
If we’re being honest, many of us spend more time listening to Christian influencers than we do talking about our faith in community. We’re not building church families — we’re building an algorithm.
The problem isn’t that influencers talk about Jesus. It’s that we don’t ask who they’re accountable to. We ask how many followers they have. There’s no social media metric for spiritual maturity, and no viral moment that substitutes for long-haul discipleship. There’s no shortcut to Christlikeness — only community, humility and time.
“What if the smaller church and the more localized understanding of Christian discipleship is a way that we are being refined,” Beaty said, “so that the Gospel we attest to actually has staying power and real credibility among our neighbors?”
That’s not glamorous. But it might be the kind of credibility the world actually needs.