When I raised the 'celebrity pastor' issue a few years ago, my
primary concern was the distasteful self-promotion and the cultivation
of cults of personality which it seemed to involve. The first time that
I caught serious flack for this was when I mentioned an incident where a
group of European churchmen was evicted from the VIP seating at a
conference to make way for some young folk. I well remember a
conversation with one of the organizers shortly thereafter when, having
declined an invitation to be part of the next gathering (and thus find
myself standing inside the tent, as President Johnson would have said), I
was told that I needed to understand that the only thing that would be
changed as a result of my article was the VIP nomenclature for the
seating. In retrospect, that reaction was pregnant with significance:
the critics were to be treated as the problem, but the band was to play
on. Continue at Carl Trueman
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