In an age of Trump and Stormy Daniels, evangelical leaders face sex scandals of their own
“A lot of people are going to think it’s laced with hypocrisy,” he said. “They say one thing and do another. And that the faith is not transformative, faith is just a proxy for political tribalism. It doesn’t transform lives in the way it should.”
.. Andy Crouch wrote about the danger of evangelicals’ attraction to celebrity power.
.. “Megachurch pastors have the temptation of being a celebrity of sorts and have an aura around them,” Thumma said.
.. When the Catholic sex-abuse scandals emerged in the United States, part of the larger outcry was how the church hierarchy was involved in covering up cases. In evangelical circles, where churches are often nondenominational or loosely connected to each other, the lack of hierarchy can cause a different set of problems, said Heath Carter, a professor of history at Valparaiso University.
“In the evangelical world, the independence of evangelical leaders and … lack of authority structure mean they can go on for a while and then explode when they come to light,” Carter said.