Last week, American Evangelicalism shed a tear on seeing one of our celebrity idols fall to moral failure. John Crist, comedian and poster boy for honest and insightful jokes about the church made a public statement after Charisma News published this article exposing sexual harassment, exploitation, inappropriate sexual relationships with married women, exchanging tickets for sexual favors, and even more. Unfortunately, the list goes on. 

I have cringed over the last several days as I’ve watched every news outlet release the hounds and sharpen their blades. Blood is in the water. Mostly, I’m sad because behavior like this only seems to confirm the worst beliefs of a culture already suspicious of Christians. 

However, this isn’t an article decrying the evil of Crist’s lifestyle over the last several years. Probably like you, I was heartbroken, but not surprised. Meaning, any Christian with an ounce of self-awareness knows we have the potential to do the very worst things given the right (or wrong, as it were) opportunity. Grace does give us “power to say no to ungodliness” (Titus 2:12), but when we walk alone, in isolation, and drink in the praise of others, we quickly drift from the very grace that saved us and sustains us. This was Crist’s downfall. 

FAME IS NEVER GOOD

Before you take me as arcane and overly serious—I really love Crist’s comedy. He is funny! I have shared many of his sketches on my social media and spent an embarrassing amount of time watching him give insightful, laughable commentary on the church’s blind spots. But his downfall isn’t about his comedy, it’s about his character in the light of his fame. 

Fame is never good for a person’s soul. Never. While fame gives a person a platform to do good, it rarely gives him the courage to be good. Fame is a drug that leads every good intentioned soul to a pit of selfishness, people pleasing, and aggrandizement. Even Jesus, at the height of his public ministry, was regularly walking away from large crowds. His intent was never to build a platform, but a people. When fame comes close to me or to those I love, I worry. We are not strong enough to wield the sword of fame and not let it cut us and those we love most.

OUR EXPECTATIONS ARE BONKERS

Equally painful as the detriment of fame are the god-complexes we allow, and frankly, generously dole out to those who lead us. Crist fell because he was allowed to. On one hand, I’m not proposing a heavy-handed view of discipleship in which we police the people of God. Historically, that has never worked in building a depth and beauty of Jesus into people’s hearts. But on the other hand, should we be all that surprised by a moral failing of our heroes when they live just like so many others in the church—Isolated, away from community, apart from gospel authority, and engrossed in patterns of sin that no one seems to call to account. When those in our churches fall to the same destructive patterns of sin, it is often for the very same reasons that Crist fell—he was allowed to. This isn’t to say that people who are in deep gospel community can’t shipwreck their lives on the rocks of money, sex, and power. They can, of course. But it is monumentally more difficult to do so when we are walking in deep, Jesus-centric relationships designed to spur us on to love and faithfulness. 

I am sad for John Crist. I’m sad because his future is on rocky ground. I’m sad for the loss of his Netflix special and recent book deal. I’m sad that the church is cruel to those we elevate. So many reasons that I’m sad for him.

Mostly, I’m sad that it took a fall from the pedestal that we all built to wake him up from his moral stupor.