Professor and pastor David Fitch has some powerful words on the Driscoll plagiarism topic today, and more broadly on celebrity leadership in evangelical churches.

And so the question really is NOT did Driscoll plagiarize or not (he did). It is, why doesn’t Mark Driscoll simply repent? Why doesn’t he just go before his congregation, lie prostate [sic] on the ‘stage’ and confess his sins of plagiarism, greed, trying to do too much publishing too fast, and what he will do to rectify and make the situation whole. It’s what us Christians do? Of course this too could be used ideologically. But at least this would be the actual practice of the Christian faith (Matt 18:15-20, James 5:16) one step removed from managing the ideological factors (his public image, his sales etc.).

Instead Driscoll’s silence in this regard reveals that there is ideology at work. His clear avoidance of one of the most basic practices of the Christian life and the continuing charades surrounding him, the publishers and the lawyers to avoid dealing with the lies, illustrate how far the Driscoll’s book and leadership has been removed above the actual practice of on-the-ground Christian life in the form of a celebrity pastor, and has become a product to be sold, an image to be upheld. This is not Christianity, this is ideology, and (for all the reasons mentioned above) I believe cannot lead our churches anywhere.

Ouch.

Then Fitch expands the discussion to the broader evangelical church.

My observation is simple. Once Christianity/church devolves into an ideology it ceases being an authentic embodiment of God’s Triune work in the world. It becomes a product. It works off antagonism (or lack) as opposed to being the overflowing of abundance of God’s work into the world…

Celebrity leadership is the death knell of the evangelical church in America. It’s killing us. And so I believe it’s of utmost importance that everyone under the age of 35 reject celebrity leadership. Realize that once beliefs, products, preaching, leadership is extracted from the local life of the local concretely engaged church, it tends to quickly devolve into ideology. And we then are just a short period away from the death of that church in a swirl of inevitable contradictions, hypocrisy and moral failures that inevitably attend celebrity leadership.

Fitch nails it in that last paragraph. Keep things local and engaged. As I said last week: we are called to be faithful, not famous.