The Church of God cultivates its own breed of celebrities and the immature attach themselves to personages of eminence in the hope that some of their glory will rub off and create the sheen of luster upon themselves. This constitutes the cult of religious groupies. It is bad for the folk elevated to their pedestals (it attracts temptation and instils pride) and it is bad for those who place them there (who need to adjust their gaze towards the Lord Jesus). It establishes the anti-grace environment of charisma and achievement in a community of equality before God and utter dependence upon him, whatever talents (and these are subject to withdrawal) happen to be possessed by any individual within a gathering of mere "unworthy servants" (you may purchase a Benny Hinn autograph in your Bible for the bargain fee of only $100, or so it was alleged on one television documentary:) ).

Evangelicalism is particularly susceptible to the adulation of the spiritual celebrity (which shows that the worship of saints can be awakened from dormancy even in the children of the Protestant Reformation). The temptation always exists to make an idol of man.

Devotion to the celebrity fosters within them (the celebrity) an air of superiority, infallibility, and indispensability. Their personal preferences in Christian life and service become obligatory laws laid down for others who happen to be their ardent followers, and those deemed to be their disciples replicate their habits and speech thinking themselves to be better established in the faith than they actually are.

It is to be noted that increase in publicity and pre-eminence in ministry often leads to dilution of the gospel in that ministry and the development of commercial activity - more books (repetitive) and trinkets for the market. Admittedly, it is hard to distinguish between appreciation and encouragement from the people of God and the fawning and flattery that is sometimes offered to servants of God And from those in ministry it is difficult to discriminate fellowship and sharing in that which they dispense from just plain showing-off and self-love.

A minister of the gospel does not need pleasurable promotion of the ego but simply prayer and faithful support in his calling. How shocked and cruel people become when the feet of clay of the minister poke out from beneath the cassock (Whitefield noted as to how those who would once have plucked out their eyes for him subsequently turned towards enmity to him). The minister is simply one poor sinner announcing the grace of God to other sinners - a foolish and errant individual called by Christ to the task he dare not undertake at his own volition.

We ought not to boast in man, however useful he may be to God (simply an instrument) or among and to the Lord's people (a flock of wandering, skittish, and confused sheep, here one day, and there the next). The perspective of history, biblical and otherwise, spotlights the folly and even serious mistakes of those who received a degree of fame in their exploits for the kingdom. We do not follow men, but only the voice of Christ through them as it accords with Holy Scripture. Our commendation of men sometimes needs to be muted - their published titles, their ecclesiastical titles, their wondrous attainments. Sometimes it is a case of creating the allusion of "the king's new clothes" and folk are wooed into a mood of approval that is neither merited nor safe.

Let those regarded as sages speak for themselves:

"Besides, what am I? what does it signify where I am? A poor dumb dog, the vilest, the basest of all the servants of my Lord. If you could see what is passing from any hour in my heart, you would not think anything of me: you would only admire and extol the riches of Jesus' love. Wonderful it is that he should set his heart upon such a very incarnate devil, and humble me so as to make me willing to be saved by his sovereign grace; and that he should send such a one to preach his gospel, and bless it to many, many souls (while every sermon covers me with shame and confusion). O this is wonderful, wonderful, eternally to be admired grace! What cannot he do, who can form a preacher out of such a dry rotten stick, fit for nothing but the fire of hell?" William Romaine, Lambeth, May 14th, 1763.

"I have frequently known the lives of most eminent saints to have had rather a bad effect, than otherwise . . . . The first thing obvious in the account of very eminent saints, as generally given by their friends, is the exhibition only of their excellencies; - not a fault is allowed to mingle with the description of their character; - you are led to judge, they go on conquering, like their Saviour, in the greatness of his strength. But this is very far from the case. We must remember to make a large allowance for partiality, and fervent love for their persons so strongly felt by those who have received inestimable benefit from their bright example and shining attainments. We must remember, also, we have infallible authority to pronounce them polluted, offenders in many things, and defective also above all that we can conceive, "when judgment is laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet."

I prove this by a most decisive instance. St. Paul appears more like an angel than a man - a very flame of love to Christ and the souls of men - in labours more abundant than any of the Apostles - in affection to the saints so tender, that he compares his concern for them to that which a mother feels for her own child at the breast. He appeals unto God, as well as to the Church, how holily, how justly, how unblameably he had walked. And had he chosen to put himself off for better than he was, how easily might he have deceived the Churches, and led them to think that he had no plague in his own heart to lament and bewail - no conflict with manifold corruptions - nothing, at least, similar to what you and I, my honoured friends, so often, to our shame and grief, feel moving within! But this man of God (the first, many suppose, of the fallen race) will not suffer such deception, respecting his own character, to be entertained. Behold! he opens a window into his own heart. He owns to all the Churches, that, not withstanding, he had once been a murderer of the members of Christ - notwithstanding the grace he had received - his constant preaching of humility - and his having been admitted into the third heaven - he owns he needed (lest he should perish by exalting himself above measure) - he owns he needed (what in mercy was given him) a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet him. What strength of depravity is here! - what evil, mixed with the most shining excellencies! - what cause for Paul to say, 'Oh, wretched man that I am! who should deliver me from the body of this death?' here the Apostle, the first of men, is sick with our malady. We stand together on a level, as fallen lost sinners; equally in need of redemption of Christ, and the robe of his righteousness". Henry Venn, to Lady Mary Fitzgerald, Yelling, March 3, 1787.

[Here it is apt to intrude that a subtle perfectionism is rife within the church to cause much trouble and discord among believers through harsh accusations from folk unsuspecting of the power of indwelling sin within themselves and those whom they condemn so pitilessly}.

Celebrity ought not to be courted or conferred within the family of the Lord Jesus Christ. "For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you" (Romans 12:3). "Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not" (Jeremiah 45:5). "Baruch must stop thinking of himself first; he must think of God first and take whatever comes for himself on that basis. This is Baruch's crossroads of decision. Either he must give up the service of Jeremiah, in which case he is free to carve out a career for himself as he wishes; or he must go forward and and accept whatever comes in the service of the mission that God has entrusted to Jeremiah. And in such a time of doom there may be a lot to accept. Baruch must count his life an unexpected and undeserved sign of God's mercy to him" (H. Cunliffe-Jones, commentary on Jeremiah). The principle of humility before divine mercy, and not self-seeking, obtains through all aspects of ministry, circumstantial and in terms of reputation, as Jeremiah himself learned so well.

John Calvin, so often unjustly misjudged, but by no means perfect, wisely advises, "We must always speak of the efficacy of the ministry in such a manner that entire praise of the work may be reserved for God alone". There is a fine line between gratitude for the ministry of the word and the exaltation of the messenger for whom praise is a poison. Calvin warns in drastic terms, almost too forceful, "It will not be lawful to transfer to man even the smallest portion of praise. We cannot transfer the smallest portion of the praise due to him without awful sacrilege."

The Rev. Roger Salter is an ordained Church of England minister where he had parishes in the dioceses of Bristol and Portsmouth before coming to Birmingham, Alabama to serve as Rector of St. Matthew's Anglican Church