COMMENTARY: The high cost of being a Christian celebrity

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of Religion News Service) UNDATED _ It’s lonely at the top, or so they say. It’s also lonely at the front. Just ask any member of the clergy who has stood before a congregation to encourage their spiritual development. And for that group of people […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of Religion News Service)

UNDATED _ It’s lonely at the top, or so they say.


It’s also lonely at the front. Just ask any member of the clergy who has stood before a congregation to encourage their spiritual development.

And for that group of people known as”inspirational speakers”the podium syndrome can also be destructively lonely.

A predominantly evangelical American phenomenon, Christian celebrities have dominated the religious scene for the past two decades. Speaking in churches, rallies and appearing in the Christian media, they have developed a subcultural following of millions, often without showing up on the secular media radar.

One factor driving the Christian celebrity movement is the Christian retail industry, a surprisingly large force propelled by book publishers, record companies, gift product manufacturers and Christian media, all of which have a voracious need to spot the next personality who can help drive product through Christian bookstores.

Christian marketers have never been able to improve on personality-driven sales. A”hot”author can sell book after book through little more than word of mouth and the regular speaking tours that criss cross the country.

This is especially important for women authors, since female preachers are still virtually unknown in the evangelical world. Women who are gifted speakers develop a following through Christian radio or speaking tours, all of which then drive sales of their books, albums, calendars and giftware lines.

The success can be dizzying. Books sold through Christian bookstores often post quantities double or triple the amount needed to show up on the New York Times bestseller list (where such titles are excluded because of their methods of distribution.)

One of the biggest Christian celebrities of all times is a woman named Ann Kiemel (now Anderson) who rode the wave of Christian stardom in the late seventies and eighties just as the Christian media and retailing machine really began to crank up.

A pretty young woman with a little girl’s voice and a simple message, she spoke with a vulnerability that had never been heard in Christian circles.


She professed to be an ordinary woman with a great God and she inspired thousands who heard her to believe in a very personal heavenly father.

But she was far from ordinary.”Her approach was dramatically different,”said Victor Oliver, who was the publisher for her early books and is now publisher of Oliver-Nelson.”She was disarming and nonjudgemental. She spoke week after week about a God of grace.” Her efforts paid off in book sales that topped hundreds of thousands and crowds that treated her like a rock star.

But all was not well with Ann, despite her celebrity and growing wealth.

Her message, which she sincerely saw as a ministry, began to be hyped more and more. She was on the covers of magazines, highlighted as the keynote speaker at conventions. With five of the top 10 books on the Christian bestseller list at one point, her success also propelled the entire Christian market forward.

And so when she struggled, or if she ever started to feel it was all too much for her, there was simply no where to go with her doubts. The pedestal she was on had been elevated, gilded and sanctified.

Then she married and suffered with infertility and health problems. She and her husband adopted four boys but business failures and personality conflicts threatened their marriage. Within 10 years she went from being a celebrity to barely surviving on every level.

In her latest book,”Seduced by Success”(Nelson), she tells the whole sad tale of her desire to always be better, smarter, prettier, more successful. She tells it mostly in the context of her own emotional fragility, never blaming the forces that pushed her onward and upward.


But I couldn’t read her book without sharing a sense of guilt myself.

As an editor who placed her on the cover of my Christian woman’s magazine twice, I knew that Ann’s face would sell the publication. She was a Christian celebrity and I didn’t really want to know if she was struggling as a person.

And so I, along with others who have fueled this particular market, must also bear some of the blame for its victims.

Ann is one person who has taken an honest look at all that was happening to her above and below the surface during her”glory days.”Anyone who has ever wished for success _ especially in a religious context _ should read her chilling account.

And anyone who still participates in a ministry that is also a market must learn to ask the tough questions. For what does it mean that some of us have pushed personalities to gain the world without taking the time to nurture their souls?

DEA END BURKE

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