Book Reviews: Celebrities for Jesus; Super Sick

Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church by Katelyn Beaty (Brazos Press, 2022)

Like me, Katelyn Beaty has spent much of her life working for Christian organizations. And like me, she has Seen Some Things.

In Katelyn’s case, much of what she saw was a function of her job at Christianity Today, where she worked just before I did (and about which she gave me valuable advice and counsel). In her position as managing editor there, she was often privy to tips about bad behavior from Christian leaders and artists, tips that she and other staffers would have to follow up on—and that too often turned out to be “horrendously true.”

“Many of the fallen Christian leaders we reported on over the years had not started out as celebrities,” Katelyn writes. “They had started out in ministry by gaining a following for their accomplishments, creativity, or virtue. … They had wanted to serve their community or make a dramatic impact. …. But over time, it seemed, the fallen leaders managed to accrue immense social power without true proximity. They cultivated an image of spiritual importance while distancing themselves from embodied, in-person means of knowing and being known.” And over and over again, that situation sowed the seeds for disaster.

Most of the stories Katelyn recounts here—Ravi Zacharias, Mark Driscoll, Bill Hybels, and so forth—are well-known. She brings to these stories a wealth of insight, demonstrating just how dangerous it can be when fame isolates a prominent Christian, and then starts to go to his or her head.

A particular strength of the book is that it recognizes there is plenty of blame to go around, and holds the church as a whole accountable for the problems we’ve been seeing. Even if you and I don’t actually idolize a particular pastor or writer or musician, we can still succumb to the temptation to put these people on pedestals, deceive ourselves about them, and hold them to different standards than others, thus helping to enable egotism and worse. You may find yourself cringing now and then with recognition and shame as you read; I certainly did.

But that’s what makes reading this book such a healthy and valuable experience. It avoids despair and cynicism, traps that are all too easy to fall into, by showing all of us the part we play in this toxic situation, and thus making the case that all of us can contribute to making things better. As I was grateful for Katelyn’s counsel back in my CT days, I’m grateful for her book now.

Super Sick: Making Peace with Chronic Illness by Allison Alexander (Phoenix Quill Press, 2021 edition)

Super Sick makes for an interesting follow-up to To Be Made Well, which I reviewed here two weeks ago. Amy Julia Becker’s book focuses mostly on healing; Allison Alexander instead concentrates on what happens when healing doesn’t come. Allison has dealt with severe Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other ailments for most of her life. She’s used to debilitating nausea hitting her in the grocery store aisle, waiting hours for help in the hospital, having to cancel plans again and again, and pain that just will not go away.

In this book, Allison (whom I met via Christ and Pop Culture) uses her passion for science fiction and fantasy to explore some of the hardest truths about chronic illness. “All stories speak deeply about what it means to be human,” she writes. “I just wish more stories resonated with my particular life experience. As someone who wrestles with illness and exhaustion almost every day, I struggle to identify with these characters whom I love. I want to be like them. I want to be a hero.”

The stories she loves can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes they make the hurtful assumption that illness is just something temporary, a plot device that’s here one moment and gone the next. Sometimes they never deal with illness at all (“Superheroes aren’t sick—have you noticed? Wonder Woman doesn’t give up on the planet because she’s got a migraine.”)

But other times, stories take the time to show us what illness can really be like. And still other times they go back and forth (e.g., Dr. House sneering at patients in pain and assuming they’re lying, but also knowing something about chronic pain from his own difficult experience). Allison takes us on a tour of some of the films, comics, shows, and video games that have meant the most to her, introducing us to characters who have known suffering like hers, and in the process leading us to greater understanding of and empathy for real-life people dealing with chronic illness. With a blend of fierceness and compassion, she offers the kind of perspective that is too seldom heard, and urgently needs to be listened to.

(Cover images copyright Brazos Press and Phoenix Quill Press, respectively. Thanks to Allison Alexander for the review copy of Super Sick.)

Book Links:

Celebrities for Jesus on Amazon
Celebrities for Jesus on Bookshop

Super Sick on Amazon
Super Sick on Bookshop (large-print edition only)