Evangelical Celebrity Revealed Once Again as Devoid of Substance

https://www.christianpost.com/news/chip-and-joanna-gaines-tell-oprah-how-god-communicates-with-them.html

I must say that I have a special loathing of all the 'Home and Garden'-type television programmes. I don't have regular television but I've seen them on occasion and I've seen clips via YouTube and the like. As one who has connections to the world of home remodeling I can say the effect of these shows has been disastrous. It has been very beneficial for the Big Box outlets and the industry which sponsor the shows but in terms of society and ethics – they have been destructive.

I only learned a few years ago that Chip and Joanna Gaines (names I had heard but didn't know much about) are esteemed within the Evangelical community and profess to be Christians themselves. I was dismayed to learn that their Texas property has become some kind of pilgrimage site as apparently their wealth and promotion of a certain type of (let's just call it what it is) materialist lifestyle has caught on in Evangelical circles. It's an ethos I also sense whenever I have entered a Hobby Lobby store – something I don't do very often, and certainly never to buy anything.

In general I found the whole notion of some kind of home makeover gurus being Evangelical in their outlook to be something both laughable and obscene – but not unexpected.

But then to take in this interview – it's rather revealing. It's a good snapshot of just where Evangelical Christianity is at. It has little if anything to do with the Scriptures. Apparently they don't even attend church regularly. While that would not be officially condoned within those circles it's a practical reality resulting from the individualist ultra-low ecclesiology of the movement and its growing focus on 'para-church' ministries and celebrity culture. This is why it's not uncommon to find people showing up irregularly at church and large numbers of the 'member' roll being missing in action or AWOL.

One thing is very clear. Evangelicals have become just like their Catholic allies. They are ignorant of the Scriptures. They do not read them and when they do, they do so superficially. And thus they have in this case fallen for various cultural lies and idolatries in which happiness or personal identification is found in building a space, personalising it, and using it to express one's self and the like. It's mostly psycho-babble, therapeutic nonsense and self-worship – sometimes dressed up in Christian-like language. The cross-bearing pilgrim ethic with its call to mortification and Kingdom-mindedness has not just been set aside, it has been abandoned and rejected. Or in other perverse instances the Kingdom theology of the present hour merely affirms this sanctification of the temporal and profane and all barriers are lowered in terms of New Testament warnings about riches and the other things the Gentiles (or the lost) seek.

Evangelicals are so desperate to have their bevy of celebrities that the moment they get a television, movie or music star to join their camp, they are catapulted into a position of leadership and authority even if they are mere babes in Christ – or in some cases even this claim is doubtful.

What is clear is that Gaines' should not be praised but rebuked. They should not be looked up to or emulated but called to repentance. Their 'success' (defined by the world) is not a result of blessing or fidelity but of fatal compromise. The fact that they are celebrities within the Evangelical sphere is little more than judgment on the whole movement and testimony to its growing apostasy. You cannot serve God and mammon. The simple truth is rejected by the money-grubbing Evangelical sphere and its celebrity gurus.