PORNOGRAPHIC SPIRITUALITY
There was a famous lady in Argentina who conducted lunches on TV to which different well known personalities were invited. The conversations most often edged on the ridiculous. The hostess was not a knowledgeable person, and she would often say things or ask questions that were just laughable. However the show rated good audiences because of the profile of the people involved. Politicians would go to great lengths to be invited to one of these TV lunches because of the exposure it gave them..
Whether you said the right thing or were ridiculous was not important; It did not actually matter. What counted was "visibility". What people watched for was the spectacular: the table settings, the silverware, the dresses, and the famous personalities; in fact what counted was the spectacular environment. For an hour and a half people would live vicariously as watching this program simply allowed them to "live" for some minutes a reality that was not theirs, so in the end everything was accepted or even permissible in the "ideal" environment of the lunch because it created a door to escape from their own reality.
"Well", some would say, "we don't do that in our country, that was in Argentina." I have news for you: We not only do that in every country of the world, we also do it in church!
We do it when we go to conferences about intimacy with God but we never develop our own relationship with God. When we attend seminaries on Prayer and Intercession but we seldom dedicate time to prayer or to really intercede for others we are actually doing it again. When we go to a prophetic gathering just to find someone who can tell us our future instead of learning how to hear from God we are doing it again. When we go around looking for the most "powerful" meeting, or the most "anointed" preacher, or the most "accurate" prophet, then we are again living vicariously which in very plain language means simply to live "pornographically". A person caught up in real pornography actually lives his or her sexuality through what they see others doing. As rough as this may sound this is exactly what we do when instead of developing a powerful intimate relationship with God we go see others tell about it.
The needs are real. The desire to see a move of God is real. The desires for revival are very real; however there is something eminently wrong when we expect someone else to do it for us. When we put our focus on what this minister, or this teacher, or this revivalist, or this prophet can give me instead of focusing in the source of it all, the Holy Spirit that is available to all who seek Him, then we end up creating "celebrities" of ministry.
When we focus on the spectacular rather than on the reality, or when we look for the "power" not realizing that the power is to be found in the person behind the power, that is the Holy Spirit, then we are putting pressure on the ministers we go to see to have more, to show more, to give more, to be more spectacular, and we end up creating ministry entities of whom we do not see their flaws or clay feet because we are concentrated only on the shiny surface, and as long as it shines accountability is not a requirement.
This leads us to be so dependant on others as the source for our spirituality that we risk having our spiritual lives entirely separated from our real lives, so much that our spirituality thrives when we are at a special meeting or conference, while at home where it really matters it only strives.
On the other side this putting the focus on the "celebrity" minister has a sad effect in that we seldom pray for them simply because in our eyes they are so perfect that we do not see the need to protect them in prayer. Also in this same line we do not consider it important that they be accountable to anybody; like the television hostess of my starting story we don't care much of what they actually say or do, as long as it is spectacular. Worse yet we might let things go unchecked in their lives because after all it is their private lives, isn't it? As long as we have the show, the make me feel good, the stamina emanating from them, we don't care much about their private lives.
The pressures we put on them arise not from our real needs but from our lust. We lust for the shiny, for the show, for the best worship, or even for the "magic" of it all, for the knight in shiny armour, not realizing that this leads to an ever increasing race towards the spectacular leaving three casualties in the way: character is one, and the real supernatural power of God is another.
The third one is the "celebrity" minister himself whom we have helped create with our lust, with the pressure we put on them; we push them into a race into the spectacular that takes them to an even more spectacular downfall.
It is really saddening to see a servant of God fall in sin and entering into a downwards slippery road. Character and accountability are at risk when the show becomes the central point of ministry. We cannot blame the people for the sins of ministers; every one is responsible before God for his or her own sins; however we must realize that there are two sides to the equation: while each one will have to give account for their own sins, we need to make sure that we do not help create "divas" in ministry to whom we forgive everything as long as they satisfy our lust for more of the spectacular, and to whom we point with our fingers when they fall in that slippery road that we have helped them get into.
Source: Conrad Lampan, Centre for Revival Studies Wales