DiscussMormonism.com

I admit to being impressed by Frank Schaeffer's observations about how religious fame celebrity and money which accrues to religious leaders can be seriously corrupting. He was a celebrity for a while and found he did not like what was happening to him. He saw what he did not like in influential ev leaders he found hismself associating with.

Fame and money can be hard on all sorts of people. Is it possible it is more so for religious leaders? There is a factor of hypocrisy. I wonder if there are ideas that weaken moral strength.

I look at videos about how Christian Nationalism has grown and how political power has become more important than Christian values. I hear the course of related events but still wonder if there are related ideas.

I found this presentation by a young woman discussing what changed for her in leaving fundamentalist Christianity for nonbelief. She enumerates things she felt she was taught. They sound to me like principals that injure a persons ability to make moral judgement and independent thought leaving them vulnerable to authoritarians who lack principals or moral values.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvlWvwPNazI

Her observations are not new for exlds. it contains familiar ground. I will list her observations about what she realized upon leaving her faith:

1 she was able to leave black and white thinking behind discovering a richer awareness of people and the world.
2 She decided it is ok not to find god. She honestly tried.
3 she found it is ok to say I do not know.Its a learning experience.
4 love should not be built on threats. God demanding worship under threats is not love.
5 your own feeling matter. She felt she was taught to avoid her own feeling because she was suppose to live through Jesus.
6 Faith is not a virtue, people claim virtue by claiming belief and faith and then are not required to build or find real virtue.
7 introspection builds compassion.

I like number seven best but there are a number of things listed which might cultivate dependent blindness.

Great post, Huck.

To answer your question, I do not think it is the money or fame that religious leaders fall more for than other people. It's just another avenue to the self-absorption, alternatively to being a musician or actor, for example. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones said the adulation from crowds when the Stones perform is, for him, more addictive than heroin. Mick Jagger disbanded the Stones in the early 1980s because three of the other four members were unreliable due to heroin usage/addiction. By the end of the 80's, but for alcohol, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood and yes, Keith Richards had all gotten "clean" so they re-banded and been touring and making new music since 1989. It was in an interview of Keith in the 1990s that he said Mick's having thrown down the gauntlet in the early 80s--get clean or we won't play again made Keith realize he needed the audience adulation more than he needed the heroin. Keith jokes about the money, but never seriously pointed to it as the reason he cleaned-up. (By the way, Keith stopped drinking in 2006.) From this story is why I am convinced it is the fame that is so seductive, more so even than the money. But answering your question, religious leaders are just humans, and they find that preaching, particularly EV preaching, is an avenue to fame that is so intoxicating, just as Keith found it in playing the guitar for the Stones.

I find Christian Nationalism to be an oxymoron.

Like you, point #7 about introspection building compassion--BINGO!!