Like a lot of other people in Christian circles, I’ve been listening to the current podcast called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
I listen with great interest because while I didn’t go to Mars Hill, I am a church person, and I knew about Mars Hill while it still existed.
Anyway. Several times in the podcast so far, people who were close to Mark said something about how they realized that Mars Hill eventually became focused on one individual, and it was not God, it was Mark Driscoll.
When I heard that, I remembered reading an interview where one of Rachel Hollis’s staffers said something very similar; that the organization had ended up being all about one person, and that person was Rachel.
(Rachel Hollis did not run a Christian organization, but she was very famous, and she and her husband were dispensing marriage advice and running expensive marriage conferences right up until their sudden divorce last year. As you may imagine, their followers were rather disillusioned. And displeased.)
Anyway.
This similarity has had me pondering a question: do people become very self-centered as a result of becoming so famous? Did they start out humble, but then did all the attention go to their heads, and did they then honestly start to see themselves as being rather super-human?
(In which case we should all hope we are never cursed with a large following!)
Or is it more that people with already-narcissistic leanings tend to be the type of people to amass huge followings?
I think I lean slightly toward thinking that it’s the latter, not the former, because I can think of a fair number of people with large followings who do still seem to be focused on others and not just on themselves.
I have nowhere near the type of influence that Mark Driscoll or Rachel Hollis does, but still, as I was pondering this question, I felt a little scared.
Like, what if my relatively small amount of influence eventually causes me to have an inflated view of my own importance?
Is it dangerous for any of us to have an online following?
I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that people’s hearts have a whole lot to do with how well they handle this. People who have a heart to serve and help others are probably going to handle a following differently than people who are looking to fill a hole in their own hearts.
(Which is what most narcissism is, at its core.)
I also felt a little bit comforted when I realized that most narcissistic influencers probably are not stopping to ask these types of questions.
It’s like how they say if you worry about whether or not you are a good parent, you probably ARE a good parent. The ones who are really stinking it up on the parenting front often aren’t worried about it at all!
Anyway. That’s something I’ve been thinking about.
My 11-year-old son. The focus of many conversations between me and my husband as he starts navigating the world more on his own. As you well know, it’s nerve-wracking for parents, and we’re trying very hard to help without getting in his way.
Thanks for posting. I have been struggling with this thought lately. Our Bible study was discussing total obedience to God even while society is normalizing multiple behaviors that is specifically warned against in the Bible. It’s a struggle! Case in point, two of my favorite Christian authors/podcasters have recently been telling their readers to stop with the “hate the sin, love the sinner” diatribes. In my humble opinion, that is the perfect response to sin (and biblical). Acknowledge the wrongness of the sin so you won’t go down that path and pray for the sinner so they can reconcile with God. How is that mean or wrong? It sounds like love to me. Too many people get caught up in the “woo” power of these people with power that they are not holding up what they are hearing to the gold standard. Which is, “Is it good, is it true, is it pure?” All of which points back to the only thing that is good, true, pure…God and His word. It’s a tough world out there. Be kind, love God, pray for everyone, try to live like Jesus: that’s my motto. This is not our home.
I often wonder along the same lines. . . I usually conclude that it is power over others that corrupts. Then again, as a Christian, I believe sin is when you turn into yourself and turn away from God. That turning inward and that focus on self certainly is often caused by fame; if the camera, microphone, the attention of everybody in the room is focused on you always, it must be very difficult for you to focus on other things. It takes a special sort to be able to resist that sort of influence.
I truly feel sorry for (most) famous people– especially child stars. People sometimes say things like, “Maybe she’ll be famous for that someday,” and I sometimes counter, “I hope not.”
No surprisingly, my thoughts have been about caregiving. It’s a tough, tricky path to tread. How much control do I exert, when a person who used to be a major decision maker can no longer make the best decisions for him or herself? How much conflict do I avoid, without just giving in and enabling a person who is not really trying to take good care of his or her health? How do I encourage someone who has started to give up on ever having a decent, much less good, life anymore, when I also can’t see that any improvement in circumstances is actually going to happen for that person? How much frustration and anger do I absorb ( a patient’s anger is almost always directed at the family member doing the majority of the care), and at what point is it considered verbally/emotionally abusive? How do I control my own frustration and anger? How do I protect my own health and emotional well-being? I have prayed mightily over this, I have others praying for me and people trying to help, but I still struggle with this daily. I know this is the struggle other caregivers have had or still have, and it’s a really tough one. More than anything else, lately, this has been on my mind.