Why are some "Christian" leaders such a..holes?

While praying the other day, the name for the title of this post came to me as I was listening to an exposé of a well-known pastor. The man was/is a complete jerk and has been for decades of public ministry. Spiritually abusing people and totally controlling and manipulating the ministry environments he has overseen. He shows a level of arrogance that is hard to imagine for someone who bears the name “Christian”, much less one who is a Christian “leader!” And yet, he continues to be platformed and given a pass by many. Gifted, zealous, dynamic, and yet lacking almost everything else regarding the character of Christ!

And tragically, there are Christian leaders just like him all over America.

I’m not going to name this pastor, nor am I going to name a single Christian leader by name in this blog post. There are plenty of names being named and receipts being produced in this hour by what are being called “Exposure Ministries.” Their “works of darkness” are being exposed (Ephesians 5:11) as the Apostle Paul commanded Christ’s church to do. 

What I am going to do in this post is to try to partially answer the question WHY so many well-known Christian leaders are such complete jerks. And part of what I am going to do is autobiographical; in other words, I will be talking about myself as a Christian leader (minus the well-known part that is!).

Like these Christian leaders/pastors, I have been and still can be a complete a..hole. And I am going to try and shed some light on what causes this to be so common in Christian leadership.

Where does this all begin? Many of the current “Christian jerks” weren’t always that way. There was a time when they were down to earth, kind, correctable. They actually BECAME the monsters that they are today. And that is where we should begin our examination.

Many Christian leaders came to Christ in their teens or twenties. I came to Christ at 17 after a drug overdose. Jesus radically came into my life, and I was genuinely converted to Christ. And when a zealous new convert walks into a Church youth group that is full of less-than-on-fire Christian young people (if we are being completely honest), an all-too-common thing happens. The new convert is thrust into the limelight, put quickly into leadership, and begins to have influence almost immediately. The Youth leaders undoubtedly mean well, but they often end up giving birth to the type of Christian who becomes the a..hole down the road.

Rather than enrolling the new convert into the School of Humility, they are puffed up and told all sorts of things that are not helpful for brand new believer who is still extremely unsanctified and full of themselves. 

I only sometime later entered into charismatic circles, but the problem there is undoubtedly compounded even more. In Charismatic youth groups, they will start to call the new convert things like an “Apostolic Revivalist,” or a “Prophet to their generation.” The new Charismatic believers will start to receive “prophetic words” about them changing history, or becoming world-famous evangelists, etc. You get the picture. 

None of this helps the spiritual formation of a baby Christian. It actually serves to deform them. It breeds the very narcissism that characterizes the types of leaders this post is addressing.

Many (if not most) of the “Jerk Leaders” whom I am referring to in this post started their Christian lives precisely like what I have just described. I know some of their personal histories, and this is how many of them got their start in ministry: radical conversions in their teens or early 20s and put on platforms of influence overnight. They were told they were unique, one of a kind, and/or unprecedented in their generation. And the ones who actually believed such empty flattery are the ones who eventually become the aforementioned a..holes. 

Rather than discipleship, what happens is DISASTERship! Rather than becoming disciples, we become arrogant disasters. 

I don’t remember all the things I was told in my spiritual infancy, but a lot of what I have just described is how I was treated, and consequently affected what I began to believe about myself. 

New Testament discipleship, in sharp contrast, is all about dying to self. This WAS Christianity 101 in the Apostolic era. How do we know that? 

First of all, we can look at numerous New Testament passages instructing believers to learn and to walk in humility, to become servants, to prefer the needs of others, and to crucify the self-life. Jesus modeled it. The Apostles modeled and taught it. And gratefully, the best leaders in Church history have modeled humble servant leadership as well. 

But the second reason we know that death to self was a non-negotiable in the Apostolic church was the story of how they dealt with Saul of Tarsus after his conversion. Unexpectedly, the Church had a “celebrity convert.” The man who had been killing Christians was now one of them. He knew the Scriptures better than any of the Apostles. His commitment level was second to none. And what did the Church do with him? Did they seek to immediately capitalize on their infamous new Christian convert? I’m sure they were tempted. Just think about how influential they imagined such a convert as Paul could begin to be immediately “for the Gospel!” 

But that isn’t what they did. Rather than platform Saul the Pharisee and thrust him into Christian leadership, they sent him away into obscurity FOR YEARS until he would start his public ministry. They weren’t short-sighted. They weren’t interested in him being the latest Christian flash-in-the-pan poster boy convert. The early Church knew that, given the proper foundation, Saul could be a useful tool in the hands of God if the life of Christ was formed in him. And what a useful tool he was! God used him to plant countless churches and to give us the majority of our New Testament. Paul’s life bore lasting fruit of eternal significance.

Aren’t we glad they took the slow, measured approach with the Apostle Paul’s discipleship that they did?

Oh, how different it is today when somebody famous makes a profession of faith! Or someone from a false religion converts to Christ. Or in my case, a zealous young person turns from a worldly lifestyle to Christ.

Christians immediately put celebrity converts on stages to speak, interview them on podcasts/radio/television, and/or have them immediately writing articles and books. Long before they know/understand the Christian faith, before they have developed Christian character, they are given influence. Their unsanctified opinions and immature theological ideas get broadcast to the Body of Christ. Their self-made social media platforms are flooding with views, clicks, likes, and followers. And to the man/woman, they mistakenly conclude that the size of their platform must mean God-given authority and heaven’s endorsement. 

I look back on how quickly I was being asked to share my testimony and even to teach. I was quickly put into leadership positions. I know my leaders meant well at the time, but such opportunities to influence so soon after my conversion didn’t help me to die to myself and grow in humility. 

I happened to be in a type of Christian church/culture that talked humbly, more than walked humbly. Many of today’s monsters don’t even pretend to be humble. They neither walk nor talk with humility. Just look at what they post on social media, exalting their accomplishments!

We shouldn’t really be that surprised that so many of our Christian leaders have this kind of poor character. It was never required of them. The “develop the character of Christ” part got skipped over in the process of their Disaster-ship. Utilitarianism ruled the day. Their usefulness trumped all other concerns. 

For far too many, their passionate love affair with themselves, which characterizes our fallen human condition before Christ, never ended. The flattery and praise only fanned the flame of that self-life. One of our greatest spiritual enemies, self-love, remains firmly in control.

And the a..holes of today are all about themselves; they become absolute experts at their own self-promotion, being done in the name of Christ promotion. When one thinks about it, it is truly disgusting. Instead of following John the Baptist’s Biblical model, “He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30), these men and women are all about the increase of their own visibility and influence. 

The popular term calls it narcissism. The Biblical term is arrogance or pride.

They speak authoritatively about topics they know nothing about. It reminds me of the Hollywood celebrities who pontificate in total ignorance about political issues! 

Let us not forget that their opinions on all matters were solicited from the beginning of their Christian lives. I watched this past week as one well-known Christian leader who knows next to nothing about the UFO phenomenon boldly stated his uninformed opinion for his followers on Social Media. I may have said something in a comment below his post, alerting him to this fact.

Here are some of the other tell-tale signs of these “Christian” self-exalters:

They are unaccountable. The ministries/churches they lead don’t have boards that hold them accountable, and that is because their boards are filled with yes men (or women). Anybody who ever challenges them is removed. Those who follow them must be uncritically loyal. Even watching the response/reaction of their followers as some of them are being currently being exposed for faking prophecies, lying, misusing ministry money, being sexually immoral and/or covering for their “friends” who have done/are doing these things. We are witnessing blind loyalty that is actually cult-like in nature. 

They use people. Spiritual abuse is rampant in the environments they create. One well-known ministry leader today has mistreated and exploited so many who have worked in his ministries that his victims created a website to document the numerous cases of how he took advantage of his staff and volunteers, along with other areas of unethical behavior. He flippantly dismisses it all.

They are deceived. They think that the influence they have, the size of their platforms, equates to God’s blessing of all they do. But God actually isn’t blessing them in their pride and arrogance. How do I know that? Because God’s Word says that He “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:5). They think God is endorsing their ministries and using them, but in fact, He stands in opposition to them. God Himself is AGAINST them! This is deep deception indeed.

They are disqualified to lead in God’s Kingdom. Don’t get me wrong. Many of them will continue. As long as they have followers, as long as donations keep coming in, as long as they have their “self-made” platforms to influence, they will keep going. But Biblically, they have been disqualified from being Christian leaders. They don’t meet the character qualifications that the New Testament requires of such leadership. 

And why haven’t I named a single name? Because I don’t really need to. If you have been around enough Christian leaders, you have already seen many of the things I have described. Some of you probably know the exact examples I have been referencing. 

Their lives don’t look like the life of Jesus. They don’t possess the fruit of the Spirit. And while they may be leaders (i.e., because people do, in fact, follow them), they should never have been CHRISTIAN leaders. Let me say it differently; they are NOT CHRISTIAN leaders because one thing real Christian leaders will never be are a..holes!

While not perfect, genuine Christian leaders are servants. They treat all people with respect and are kind. They make the people around them feel special and valued. They are not proud. They aren’t obsessed with self because their discipleship emphasized death to self, as all Christian discipleship should. Their desire is that God gets the glory and not them. They refuse to take credit for things, because they actually believe the words of the One whom they are following, who said, “Apart from me, you can do NOTHING” (John 15:5). They are keenly aware that God doesn’t need them because God doesn’t need anybody.