Episode 79: Too Big to Fall (Part II): the Celebrity Christian Halo Principle & the love of kings
We've been through this before. So many times. Is there anything left to learn, or are we just unwilling to learn it? Perhaps a recent study holds the answers.
Mike Pilavachi is the latest 'celebrity Christian' whose ministry has been tainted by scandal. In Part 2 of Beer Christianity's look at our icons with cracked halos, we ask why, with all the information we have gained over decades of scandal, we never seem to be able to prevent good ministries from hiding bad behaviours or protecting bad people.
One possible answer is out desire to shirk moral responsibility in favour of loyalty and obedience to a strong leader. Another is a little more complex and we examine it in a little detail in this episode.
The NGO Halo Effect tracks how moral superiority, moral justification and moral naivity in the third sector can lead to good organisations doing bad things. If we apply it loosely to churches, religious movements and para-church organisations from charities to events, we start to recognise a lot of ways in which the Mike Pilavachi, Ravi Zacharias and other Christian celebrity falls from grace may have gone on for so long.
As a lens for understandign the larger issue, we hear again from Matty Fearon of Mission Catalyst magazine, who shares his recommendations for avoiding future cover-ups, and we hear from Bible Society's Mark Woods on why we're unlikely to learn a damn thing. Spoilers: we kinda love kings. For some stupid reason.
But we maintain it's worth the Church and the ecosystem around it tryng to get better. It would be good for our witness and good for the world. Most importantly, it could prevent further harm being done in and by our communities.
Here's a link to the fascinating study, How Moral Goodness Drives Unethical Behavior: Empirical Evidence for the NGO Halo Effect that we quote at length. Jonty thinks recognising its findings and applying them to our cherished institutions could be a game changer in catching and stopping toxicity sooner.
Beer Christianity discusses The Christian Celebrity Halo Effect and whether there is anything new to learn from the latest sad situation, in episode 79.
You can listen to Episode 79 anywhere: on the Jabra cans the ICT dept at your perfect charity supplied to help you do God’s work, in your car on the way to your soulless, earth-destroying corporate sell-out job or around the house as you wish, like me, you had some paid work to do. You can find it on all major podcast platforms and, of course, right here:
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