Evangelicalism’s Crisis of Personality and the Loss of Intellectual Depth
I didn’t arrive at this conclusion overnight. Like many, I was raised in the church—first learning to pray at the dinner table, then to read the Scriptures as a teenager hungry for truth. When I embraced Baptist life in my youth, it was because I wanted more Bible. I wanted theology, I wanted to know God. But what I found along the way was a strange undercurrent in evangelical culture—one that quietly told me that spiritual maturity looked a lot like following the latest charismatic figure.
These weren’t just good teachers. They were celebrities. People didn’t just learn from them; they began to talk like them, dress like them, organize their church lives around them. And over time, something shifted. The church began to feel less like a body and more like a stage. The language changed. The posture changed. And though no one said it aloud, you could feel it: to be in the “in crowd” of evangelicalism often meant aligning yourself with the right personalities.
Now, looking back on years of ministry, scholarship, and experience in both institutional and church life, I can’t help but ask: how did we get here? What did this fascination with personalities cost us? And is there a way forward that doesn’t collapse under the weight of the latest trend or influencer?
The Anatomy of a Personality Cult
“Cult of personality” is a strong phrase. We usually associate it with dictators, oppressive governments, or grand political spectacles. But I use it here carefully, not to accuse, but to describe a real pattern I’ve watched unfold in many corners of evangelicalism.
At its root, a personality cult arises when a leader—however talented or insightful—begins to take up disproportionate space in the hearts and minds of their followers. The leader becomes not just respected, but idealized. Not just a voice among many, but the voice.
This usually happens through an ecosystem of media. Books, blogs, conferences, podcasts, and now the ever-expanding reach of social media platforms all combine to project a version of the leader that is polished and persuasive. Followers are shaped, not just by their ideas, but by their delivery, their style, even their tone.
And loyalty soon follows. Often it’s unspoken, but if you’ve spent time in these circles, you know what I mean: critique the wrong figure and you risk being viewed as divisive. Ask a hard question and you may get quiet side-glances rather than thoughtful responses. The leader becomes a symbol, and questioning the symbol can feel like questioning the faith.
What’s most striking is how easily this kind of loyalty can replace deeper formation. It’s more intuitive, more emotionally charged, and far more marketable. But it carries a cost.
Biblical Warnings Against Factionalism
This isn’t a new problem. Paul saw it clearly in the early church. In 1 Corinthians, he addresses the division directly: “Some say, ‘I follow Paul,’ others, ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘Cephas,’ or even ‘Christ.’ Is Christ divided?”
You can feel Paul’s frustration. He knew what was at stake. If the church began to split into camps aligned with different teachers, then the cross of Christ would be emptied of its power. Faith would become tribal. The gospel would become just another slogan for a faction.
Paul’s solution wasn’t to elevate himself further. In fact, he does the opposite: he downplays his own role and draws attention back to Christ. This, I believe, is the test of a true teacher—one who constantly redirects our gaze away from themselves and toward the Savior.
Today, the factions are different, but the temptation is the same. We align ourselves with our favorite podcast hosts, theologians, or conference speakers. And before we know it, we’ve started to measure faithfulness not by our nearness to Christ, but by our resemblance to a celebrity preacher.
The Allure of Neo-Calvinist Celebrities
Let me be clear: I have learned much from the leaders in the neo-Calvinist movement. When I was in college, it was John Piper who introduced me to a weighty, God-centered vision of life. His “Christian Hedonism” may have been a light version of Jonathan Edwards, but it was compelling. It gave language to something my heart already knew: that delight in God was central.
Then came others. Tim Keller brought nuance and cultural engagement. Mark Dever emphasized ecclesiology. James White engaged in apologetics, albeit in a rough, controversial style. And let’s not forget the rise of Mark Driscoll—a fascinating blend of boldness, cultural edge, and masculinity.
But somewhere along the way, this turned into more than appreciation. It became mimicry. Churches started sounding alike, looking alike, and preaching alike. Followers of these figures didn’t just adopt their theology. They adopted their posture, their preferences, even their tone.
This is where the danger creeps in. These men, for all their gifts, are still men. And when the movement begins to center on them, rather than on the One they point to, we risk exchanging the richness of Christian tradition for a stylized echo chamber.
And sadly, this echo doesn’t sustain over time. The more we shape the church around personalities, the more brittle it becomes.
The Cost of Stardom: Intellectual and Institutional Decline
The long-term effects of this shift are sobering. We are witnessing the slow (well, it seems quick at the moment) unraveling of evangelical institutions that once trained generations of pastors and scholars. Seminaries are closing, endowments are shrinking (many of which did not have endowments), and Christian colleges are increasingly losing their distinctiveness or simply vanishing altogether.
Why? There are many factors, but part of it, I believe, stems from the fact that we no longer value deep formation. We want quick answers, branded voices, pre-packaged theological convictions. Why spend years reading Augustine or Aquinas when you can just re-share a Piper quote on Instagram?
The irony is that the very figures (at least some of them) we admire were formed by institutions and mentors who valued long, slow, thoughtful study. But we often consume their conclusions without inhabiting their process. And that process matters. It’s what protects us from error, what deepens our wisdom, what roots us in something that can last.
Contrasting Traditions: The Stability of Liturgical Churches
This is one of the reasons many are turning to liturgical traditions. There, the center of gravity isn’t the preacher but the Table. The homily matters, yes. But if it’s a bit flat on a given Sunday, the liturgy still holds. The priest doesn’t have to be a celebrity because the service isn’t about him.
In these spaces, you’ll often find ancient prayers, responsive readings, and practices shaped by centuries of Christian worship. You find continuity with the past and a rhythm that doesn’t need to reinvent itself every year with the latest trending speaker.
This isn’t to say those churches are immune to challenges—far from it. But their center is more durable. And for many disillusioned evangelicals, that durability is deeply attractive.
Practical Steps Toward Reform
So, where do we go from here? Here are a few modest but essential steps:
- Elevate the Ordinary: Start by paying attention to your local pastor. Pray for him. Encourage him. His work, however unseen, is often more formational than any best-selling author.
- Support Institutions: Invest in schools, journals, and ministries that form Christian minds. They’re not flashy, but they matter.
- Practice Discernment: Ask hard questions about who you’re listening to and why. What draws you to that voice? Is it their insight or their style?
- Recover the Classics: Read old books. Teach the creeds. Make room in your church life for the voices of Augustine, Athanasius, Calvin, and Edwards.
- Slow Down: Refuse to be shaped by the algorithm. Good theology takes time, and so does spiritual maturity. Embrace the slow process of education itself.
- Re-center on Worship: Let Word and Sacrament be your anchor. The table and the font have more to say about your identity than any influencer ever could.
- Centralize the Priest: You might ask: “But didn’t you just say to not make the personality central?” Fitting with the liturgical and sacramental continuity of many churches where the priest’s operations are central, it is not the individual or personality on display, instead, everything they are doing is pointing beyond themselves to something higher, transcendent (and this is precisely what the vestments are intended to do).
Beyond the Cult of the Platform
I say all of this not as an outsider, but as one who has lived and walked within these circles for years. I’ve been shaped by them. And in many ways, I am grateful. But gratitude doesn’t mean silence. It means we owe it to the next generation to offer a more stable path.
Evangelicalism is at a crossroads. We can keep chasing personalities, or we can return to the Person of Christ. We can keep scrolling through spiritual soundbites, or we can recover the long, beautiful, sometimes difficult tradition of Christian formation.
There’s a deeper story to tell. One that doesn’t depend on who’s trending, but on the One who rose.
Let’s build toward that. Let’s become a people who think again, pray again, and worship not at the altar of charisma, but at the foot of the cross anticipating heaven whilst being formed around a table.
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