Christian Hero Worship and Kanye West
The latest headlines in the Christian news arena have revolved around one person: Kanye West. His profession of faith in Jesus has been well-documented and rehashing it is therefore pointless. First, I want to say a couple of things on that: I give glory to God for anyone, no matter who they are, giving their lives over to Christ. I rejoice. But I also can’t help but be a bit suspicious about this one (something I hope I’m completely wrong about). I’ve caught a lot of grief over that but I also believe that, at least, in this case, his conversion ought to be taken with a large grain of salt. While I get that his faith is young, the fruit of it thus far has been very questionable in my mind. Further, our treatment of Kanye and other famous people who have claimed faith in Christ is also somewhat disturbing. So, at the risk of seeming judgmental based on someone’s past, I want us to slow our roll and take a good look at this situation.
One of the reasons I have had my suspicions raised about Kanye is due to his history. I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone with any sort of mental health issue but he does display narcissistic tendencies. Everything Kanye says and does has historically been all about himself. One example that comes to mind is when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 VMAs. He just happened to have an album coming out. Fast forward to more recent history when Kanye makes a public profession of faith. He just happened to drop an album right after that. I can’t help but be wary of the timing of his profession due to the record coming out.
The fact that Kanye is seemingly professing prosperity theology as the basis of his faith is also eye raising. Recently he was part of a segment of Carpool Karaoke with James Corden where he said his receiving a large tax refund was “God showing off.” Yesterday, Lakewood Church, the arena where Joel Osteen preaches, announced that Kanye would be making an appearance on Sunday. Here’s my issue there: Prosperity theology is false doctrine. The theology professed in prosperity churches is all about power, privilege, and wealth, a doctrine that looks nothing like the teachings of a homeless Jewish rabbi. Prosperity theology has caused real harm to people. You can read more of my thoughts on prosperity theology here. While anyone proclaiming Christ is a good thing, we also must be concerned with what version of Christ – be it the real Jesus or their own version of him – they are professing.
Concerns about Kanye himself aside, I have another big reason for raising my eyebrows here: Christian hero worship. Christians seem to go ape when any famous person professes Jesus. Other famous people such as Tim Tebow, Kirk Cameron, Selina Gomez, and Justin Bieber have also professed faith and the same thing happened as has happened with Kanye: Tributes, articles, and “look at this” statements aplenty. My question is this: Why do we celebrate these people and, if at all, hardly acknowledge people in our own lives and within the churches we are part of finding Jesus? Why do we assign hero status to famous people just because they’re famous? Such is dangerously close to idolatry and I’ve seen and heard statements that cross that line. As Christians, we cannot and should not assign special status to celebrities simply because they are famous. We should celebrate a homeless person coming to Christ as much as we do a famous musician. If we don’t then what is it we are actually celebrating?
We must be careful with what we celebrate. We further should question the motives of people when their words and their actions don’t seem to line up with what we know is true. Is someone professing Christ in a public way doing so for God’s glory or their own? Only time will tell but their fruit will speak loud and clear. Until then, we should encourage them and pray for them but also not believe they are on the same plane as Jesus himself.