Popularity or Character? The Modern Cult of Personality

Who on earth would want to be a secular leader in today's world?

I watched the emotional resignation of Sir Keir Starmer this morning. I heard a commentor point out the PA guy who had to set up the podium and sound - the commentator knew him well because he's been called out 6 times in a mere 10 years. 

Personally, I don't vote colour, so this blog has nothing to do with "politics." Rather it's a personal reflection on the flighty, fissiparous nature of British politics today.

Here's our tragic record over the last decade:

• David Cameron (May 2010 – July 2016)
• Theresa May (July 2016 – July 2019)
• Boris Johnson (July 2019 – September 2022)
• Liz Truss (September 2022 – October 2022)
• Rishi Sunak (October 2022 – July 2024)
• Sir Keir Starmer (July 2024 – June 2026)

Who on earth would want to be a secular leader in today's world, when the moment you make a mistake (real or perceived, small or large, but always exploded in the media), or the moment a more snazzy personality comes along, you are doomed.

What, I wonder, might common sense or Scripture say to our present crisis?

Long-suffering

Rome wasn't built in a day, and nor is a prime minister or his/her government. What savage impatience marks our day! Two years into a premiership is the blink of an eye. And so much global turbulence to deal with in those two years.... 

Character, always character

When Scripture talks about church leaders (whether deacons or elders) it always lists the characteristics required. Personality is irrelevant. Among the Twelve Jesus chose, can we not discern, a wide range of personalities, from the out-there Peter to the more reserved Thomas and in-the-background John? 

From all I have seen and heard and read about Starmer, he is a man of good character. Even his enemies agree. But character today is not as highly regarded as personality. Along can come someone (anyone) with more charm, dynamism - and perhaps youth - and everyone will flock to him/her. 

Church Leadership Implications

I gather from my American friends that leadership in the American Church is just as flighty as leadership in British politics. There are many reasons for this, no doubt one of which is that in the large American churches, the megapastor is by and large unknown to most of the flock - and hence easily dispensed with. 

Fortunately though the US Church has thus sneezed, we have not yet caught this particular cold. The qualifications for church leaders are very clear, here they are, and not one of them is remotely about personality:

When the church is looking for future leaders, the only quality they should look for is godly character, which Paul explains with a series of 21 characteristics for elders and 7 for deacons / deaconesses.  

Let not this cold wind blow over true Christian churches!

"Expository Preaching" in an age of Distraction

What is "expository preaching?"

Expositional or expository preaching is preaching through a whole book of the Bible, consecutively, week by week.

It has become the accepted norm in many churches, even though it is not found in the Bible. The sermons we find in the book of Acts, for example, rely and refer to multiple verses scattered all over the Scriptures, gathered together. 

For that single Biblical reason alone, no preacher need feel compelled to adopt expository preaching. 

There are times when a church may need a series of sermons about marriage or money or parenting, or other topical themes. There is nothing wrong with the topical method of preaching.

My guess is that the expositional method originates from the academy rather than the Scriptures. So we can imagine students of literature making their way, systematically, chapter by chapter, line by line, through Homer's Iliad or Fitzgerald's The Great Gadsby.

Both Topical and Expositional are Valid

It is argued that the expositional method is superior because the preacher is forced to address issues that he would not otherwise have chosen. This makes human sense. But of course an expositional preacher can decide to expand upon certain verses and skim swiftly over others. It is a fallacy to imagine that expositional preachers preach "the whole counsel of God" merely by virtue of method. The preacher is a fallen biased saint just like everyone else. 

(I once heard an expository preacher make his way through Colossians and completely ignore "I am present with you in spirit." (2:5) Far too spookey for rational minds to grasp, let alone preach on, so passed over). 

On the other hand it is argued that topical preaching puts the subject choice too much in the hands of the preacher. That is true. But a wise preacher would want to preach topics which cover the whole counsel of God.

On balance, a mixture of both methods seems wise, and expositional preaching perhaps has the protective edge.

Stand Alone Sermons

But my concern here is how expositional preaching is done today.

In the "olden days" when folk came to church faithfully week after week with few breaks, the preacher could run from one section of a book to the next seamlessly, assuming that everyone who was there last week will be there next week. "As we were saying last week..." he might begin.  

This is not the case any longer and folks might miss a few weeks and never listen to the sermons they missed. 

One way to respond to these circumstances is to make every sermon a stand-alone Word for that day. That may mean rearranging the material and seeking the main theme.

This approach is also just generally wise because in moving from written communication to verbal communication it is often essential to re-organise the teaching of the text. 

The test for expositional-stand-alone preaching - indeed all expository preaching is  this: when someone reads the Scripture preached on in the afternoon let's say, they can say "The preacher explained everything in those verses." 

AI Image: man in jeans with Bible preaching to small congregation in a school hall

How to Climb the Ecclesiastical Ladder (and why you shouldn't bother)

A Blog someone must write

Readers of this blog will know that some of the pieces I write would be deemed "controversial." I don't want to write them, but just as Jeremiah discovered a fire within his bones to speak out, so do I. 

At root of my sorrow and complaints is a worldliness in the church. We are called to be in the world but not of it, not like it. But today, in so many ways, the church has aped the world, to her great loss and witness, and to the dishonour of her Head. 

No, not in doctrine, of course not, that's far too obvious. We're as orthodox as a prophet from heaven when it comes to doctrine.

But in church practise, we're worldly, by which I mean we do things in the church just as the world does them. We have absorbed the practices and priorities of our surrounding culture.

And one of the ways we've aped the world is to be found in the desire of pastors to climb the ecclesiastical ladder. 

Just as in the work place someone might expect to be promoted as time passes by, so pastors expect to climb an ecclesiological ladder as the years roll by.

Let me explain some of the rungs on this (mythical) ladder and explain why we should do everything in our power to avoid getting near it, let alone climbing it - especially if we are just starting out in ministry. 

The bottom line is that you need to get your name known, you need to become famous. All the steps below will help you out....

Just as in the world, you will receive an automatic leg up the first few rungs if you have letters after your name. If you've studied at prestigious universities, you'll also get automatic promotion. (Neither of these scholastic criteria fits a man for gospel ministry, but it's the way the world works and hence, inevitably these days, the way the evangelical church also functions.)

Next, hob-nob with some of the big wigs in your evangelical circle. Big smiles when you see them at conferences, perhaps try a little flattery here or there?

If you can, get a selfie with them. (But just remember, that in a decade's time when that big shot has fallen - and there's a pretty good chance many of them will fall, since only One Man can handle power and fame - you'll have a lot of photo-editing to do).

Next, try to get on the board of some evangelical parachurch outfit. This is a good feather in your hat and prepares you for the blurb you may need for your next step...

...which is to write a book. This will get your name even further known and when big-shots pat you on the back via their book recommendations, it's all go, go, go.

If you're low on the formal qualifications front, at this point, and it's hindering your opportunities, a MSc here or PhD there might help you out. (Failing that, try writing a "paper" or an article for some religious publication.) The sacrifices you'll have to make in shepherding God's flock by these distractions are well worth the honour coming your way. 

All the while increase your social media profile in any way you can find.

Next, try and get yourself as a conference speaker; now we're talking. However, unless you've pressed the flesh for a decade before this, you'll get nowhere, so make sure you pay attention to all the previous steps.

Finally, you will arrive at the top of the ecclesiological ladder, feted, dined and wined by all your fans. 

Only one day to discover, perhaps not until the Last Day, that tragically...

...the Ecclesiological Ladder was a Mirage

There is no ecclesiological ladder in heaven's view! The only view that counts. The Emperor has no clothes! There is only one Judgement seat that matters, only one Judge whose opinion is of any consequence.  The opinion of any branch of evangelicalism, the opinion of any denomination or grouping mean nothing. 

Only in the world to come when The Books are opened and the secrets of men's hearts are revealed will anyone know the value of any earthly ministry.

And then we shall most likely discover that those the evangelical world most feted today don't even get a mention, ("Dr XYZ? Never heard of him" whisper the angels to one another) while the unknown sister or brother serving incognito in an unknown congregation will take top prize.

(BTW: if there is an ecclesiastical ladder in this world it's invisible because heaven's ladder works upside down (right way up). The greater the Christian, the more unknown, despised and rejected they are. Down is the Jesus way Up.)

The alternative to Ecclesiastical Ambition

The alternative to ministerial ambition is quiet disciplined anonymity. Don't worry a hoot what others think about you. Don't seek fame.  Keep your head down, forget numbers, avoid the itch for publicity, serve the sheep God has given you faithfully, laying down your life for them if necessary.

Remember that the only court that matters is in the future and in heaven: so labour to receive the Great Shepherd's well-done. 

Painting: AI, "draw a male church minister climbing a ladder to heaven" (I am not impressed by the  religious garb AI has dressed the guy in)

Learning to Discern Podcasts

Podcasts of the Christian variety

There is little doubt that many believers listen to podcasts during the week - and there are many good Christian podcasts out there.

Discernment is essential however, especially since the listener does not know the podcasters personally. In the New Testament Christians were instructed by in-house teachers (with the exception of the Apostles, capital A, of which there are none today. And even the Apostles combined life and lip, "You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life" 2 Timothy 3:10). 

The life of the church teacher was always open to inspection, and since life and lip go together, one could trust the teaching because one could observe the life of the teacher.

The only way to know if a teacher is reliable is to observe his life. The notion that pure orthodoxy or pats on the back by big shots or little shots around them are all we need to trust a teacher is error and disproved multiple times in recent years by one big-shot evangelical expose after another.

The main place to get our teaching is from local pastors whose lives are open to inspection, who invite people into their homes (hospitality), whose lives are open books.

(This of course, is yet one more argument for small churches, where the pastor loves and lives among the sheep, as opposed to big churches where the pastor is basically a high and mighty CEO who must, of necesity, delegate the real work of pastoring to minions beneath him.)

The Rest is History

But this blog is not about Christian podcasts its about non-Christian, secular podcasts, and one popular one "The Rest is History." This is an enormously enjoyable series of podcasts on all sorts of historical subjects, such as a few about the Titanic, which were interesting (and entertaining).

I decided to listen to the series on Martin Luther. It's enormously helpful to have sympathetic but non-evangelical podcasters talk about evangelical superstars like Luther. Many evangelical writers would gloss over the foibles and folly of Luther and so end up writing hagiography rather than biography.

But you need to be discerning, because just at the point where Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook are describing the central truth of the reformation, they get it completely wrong, here's the transcript:

 But, as I say, it also comes from reading Paul, and particularly one line. So there's a line in the letter that Paul writes to the Christians in the church, the letter to the Romans. The righteous shall live through faith. And Luther understands this to mean the faith specifically, that God loves you, and that it doesn't matter if you're lost to sin. Everyone is lost to sin. Humanity is so sinful that they can't, through their own agency, obtain the forgiveness of God. But it doesn't matter, because if God loves you, then you exist in a state of grace. And the state of grace is the feeling that you have that Christ is present in you in your secret most heart. And the certainty of that grace, in turn, gives you what Luther calls the peace of conscience, that all your anxiety about whether you're going to be redeemed or not is gone. And so you can have a kind of deep, profound spiritual joy and sense of certitude that essentially cuts the gordian knot of all the purgatory stuff, all the confession stuff, all the. Am I going to go to heaven or not? And it's an incredible.

"The just shall live by faith" does not mean "God loves you and that it doesn't matter if you are lost to sin." It means that God has provided a new way for us to be righteous in the eyes of God, a way that does not come about by human effort but by the righteousness he provides through his Son. 

Yes God loves you, but our sin does matter; so much that God sent his Son to atone for it.

Simple lesson, listen to Christian podcasts with discernment, listen to secular podcasts with even more discernment. 

The Bible is a Goldilocks Size

Just The Right Size

Listening to Classic FM the other day I asked "Alexa what's the name of this tune," to which "she" replied "Bluebird" by Alexis Ffrench. I had never heard of this contemporary musician, who has over 3 million monthly Spotify listeners and is one of the most streamed classical artists globally. 

But then again, with some 12 million artists stream on Spotify, Why should I have heard of Ffrench? If I was to listen to just one track of each artist for 8 hours a day, it would take me 50 years to hear them all. 

A number exercise like this gives us an insight into our terrible smallness and finitude when faced with the magnitude of All Knowledge. In one human lifetime you and I have very little time. 

People say that the Bible is a big book, but I want to argue that it's a Goldilocks Size for our short journey through this life.

The "infinity" of knowledge 

Let's consider the vast banks of knowledge that are available to any one of us today.

In the world of science, one estimate puts the total number of scientific papers ever published at 100 million. It would take 8000 lifetimes to read them all, making our way through one paper a day five days a week for fifty years.

The Common Crawl Dataset, an internet snapshot used by Large Language AI models contains about 600 billion words - that would take 600 lifetimes for an average person to read.

We could engage in this kind of numerical exercise not only with history and science but with art, literature and back to music. 

Each time we'd end up with information sizes vastly beyond the scope of any human being to read let alone comprehend.

The Bible is Small

By comparison, the Bible is small, containing about 800,000 words. A little larger than War and Peace (580,000 words) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (455,000) but smaller than The Works of William Shakespeare which runs at 880,000 words. 

The Bible can be read in a mere 80 hours, by contrast to hundreds or thousands of years. 

It's small enough to be grasped by a human being in a lifetime. The Bible can be read in a year by spending just 15 -20 minutes a day. 

Our smallness explains in part - surely - why God works out his purposes through just one nation, so that the largest part of the Bible (the Old Testament) contains the story of just that one nation (Israel). 

We could not handle a "history of the world." This divine filtering allows transient tiny creatures like you and I to grasp something of God's great plans, which in the end are for the whole world. 

The Bible is Big 

And yet, one should quickly add, the Bible is a big book, spanning poetry to Gospel to apocalyptic to prophecy to letter, and from one nation to the whole wide world.

Sufficiently small to be manageable, but big enough to be both interesting all the days of our lives and comprehensive enough to cover all the most important things we need to know. 

Truth be told, the Bible is big enough to make it's contents inexhaustible over a single human life time. My father read the Bible through every year of his adult life. Many other believers make it their habit to read it often as they can. I remember my father telling me what every reader will acknowledge - that the Bible never grew old or dim.

The Bible is Divine

The Bible's purpose is to show us how to get right with the Creator God who we all know exists. The Bible makes us wise unto salvation. Its words bring light to the unbeliever and provide spiritual food for the souls of those who believe. 

The reason the Bible speaks today, the reason it is alive and active is that it was inspired by God. The authors were in some amazing way - in a way that did not overrule their personalities or their location in history - moved along by the Spirit of God, so that while they wrote - indeed what they decided to write - turned out to be, nevertheless, the very words God wanted them to write.

In the Bible we have in our hands the very words of God to mankind. 

Read it!

Some people who say "the Bible is too big" or "boring" have never read it. If you have never read the Bible before, I suggest you start with a good modern translation like the NIV (New International Version) or the ESV (English Standard Version). 

If you are not yet a believer start with one of the Gospels (stories of the life of Jesus, named Matthew, Mark, Luke or John). Mark, the shortest, is a good place to start. Read one small section a day, asking God beforehand to help you understand it. 

If you want to read the whole in one year try one of these reading plans:

Read the Bible in One Year

Bible Reading Plan

If you are a believer who has never read the whole Bible, or if you are a backslidden believer who has drifted away from God, again, these reading plans are a good resource.

"The entrance of your Word bring light"

(Psalm 119:130)

"Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path"

(Psalm 119:105)  

Christmas in Four Words

God

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”

The meaning of Christmas starts with the God who made this wonderful universe, from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy with its billions of stars.

God Almighty created the cosmos to reveal how powerful, wise and good he is, and he made this planet to be the beautiful home of mankind.

God created us too.

The English physicist Steven Hawking wrote:

“the human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate sized planet, orbiting round a very average star in the outer suburbs of one among a billion galaxies.”

You and I are not “chemical scum”, we were made in the image of the God who created us and we are all very precious to him. We were made to know him, love him, obey him and find our significance and meaning and highest joy in Him.

Sin

“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God”

Although you and I were made to know and love and obey God, all of us have walked out on Him. 

Me, you, everyone. 

Sin is not acknowledging God's existence, not thanking him for the many good gifts that crown each day, sin is living as we please rather than seeking how to please him, sin is disobeying the voice of conscience God has placed in every human heart.

We have all sinned, and our sin, the Bible says, separates us from the God who made us and loves us. Sin breaks our relationship with him, and since God is the Just Judge of the Universe, he must punish all wrongdoing. 

This is the most serious consequence of sin - the righteous Judge of the Universe must punish it.

 Jesus

“...give him the name Jesus for he will save is people from their sins.”

An angelic being said to Joseph that the baby born to Mary would be called Jesus, “because he will save his people from their sins.” The name “Jesus” means "Saviour," someone who would save us from our sins.

How did Jesus “save us from our sins”? He took upon himself the punishment for all our wrongdoing that should have come to us, so that we could be completely forgiven and reconciled with God!

And how did he pay for all our wrongdoing? The Bible says that Jesus paid for our sin when he suffered on the cross.  “Christ died for our sins." Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the tree.” 

After three days, Jesus rose triumphantly from the dead to demonstrate that the punishment for our sin had been paid in full.

So Christmas and Easter go together: at Christmas we remember the Saviour coming into the world, at Easter we remember him taking away all our sins so that we can be reconciled to God and be friends once more.

Heaven

 “Then I saw a  new heaven and a new earth,

 for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away”

Recently Susan Everard gave testimony to a national inquiry about the loss of her daughter Sarah, murdered by a policeman. She said things like:

Grief is unpredictable – it sits there quietly only to rear up suddenly and pierce our hearts.

Sarah will always be missing and I will always long for her.

After four years, the shock of Sarah's death has diminished but we are left with an overwhelming sense of loss and of what might have been.

Perhaps the saddest sentence Susan wrote was this:

We find we still appreciate the lovely things of life, but, without Sarah, there is no unbridled joy.

This life is short and along with the happy times we will all experience sadness, sorrow and grief. Jesus came into the world to give us the hope of a brand new world filled with unbridled joy in the world to come.

Just as Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again, and just as he ascended to heaven where he now lives, so all who believe in Him will one day rise from the dead and live for all eternity in a new heaven and a new earth where there is no death, mourning, crying or pain.

This is the true and good news of Christmas in four words.

Who is the greatest in the Church of England?

 

A historic (or ahistoric) Milestone?

There are a number of reasons why the recent appointment of Sarah Mullally as the archbishop of the Church of England poses a real problem for anyone who takes the Bible seriously.

On the one hand you could say her appointment (or the appointment of anyone to that post) is an irrelevancy since there are no archbishops (or bishops for that matter) mentioned in the Bible. It's a man-made office with no authority whatsoever in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Bible believing Christians simply do not recognise any archbishop or bishop - whoever they may be.

But on the other hand the secular press was filled with praise for the first ever appointment of a female archbishop, hailing it as a joyous and historic milestone for women's rights.

A Deep - but Elementary Misunderstanding

If it was merely the press who were thus applauding, we'd understand: the world is in darkness. But sections of the "church" were saying exactly the same thing. At last a woman had reached the "top."

Hidden in plain sight, this view exposes a deep but elementary misunderstanding of greatness that has always been the gold-standard across the world, and evidently now the standard in the eyes of many so-called Christians.

Namely, that greatness is about power, authority, fame & position.

This is how the world goes round.

And it is exactly upside down.

Hear the words of Jesus in Matthew 20:

"whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

In the Kingdom of God you descend into greatness, not ascend. You become great by becoming the servant of all, not the ruler of all.

And says Jesus, that is how the Son of Man would become great. He came into this world not to rule over people but to serve them, even to the point of giving up his life. 

In the place of pallium (I had to look it up too), the garb of a servant

Instead of a bishop's palace, a manger bare

Instead of a Canterbury Crypt, a borrowed grave

Who is the Greatest?

The greatest saint in the Church of England today is some unknown man or woman living in some nameless parish, serving her brothers and sisters faithfully, quietly, unassumingly with the gifts God has given.

We can be sure, without and beyond the shadow of any doubt, that no archbishop is the greatest in the Church of England denomination. 

The idea that Susan Mullally's appointment signifies women - or anyone else - reaching "the top" is a tragic misunderstanding of everything the Bible teaches about greatness and sign of a much wider ignorance of the Bible. 

AI IMAGE: A drawing of the new archbishop of the church of England Sarah Mullaly