We often get excited when a celebrity comes to faith in Christ because they can use their platform for the gospel.

But what happens when pastors and Christian leaders become celebrities in their own churches and communities.

Isn't there also a dark side to Christian celebrity?

Is the term Christian celebrity an oxymoron?

Or should it be?

We'll answer these questions more with our guest,

Caitlin Beatty in her new book

Celebrities for Jesus. I'm your host Scott Ray. And I'm your co-host Sean

Macau. And this is Think Biblically from Talbot School of theology here

at Biola University. Caitlin, we know there's often a backstory

to the books that we feature.

I'm really curious about what the backstory is to this one.

What motivated you to write about Christian celebrity?

Yeah, that's a great question, Scott.

So for about 10 years I worked at Christianity Today,

magazine based in the Chicago suburbs, founded by the evangelist Billy Graham and it's a journalistic

publication so you know CT's responsibility in part is to report on the good

the bad and the ugly happening in the American church.

And over the years that I was there, we, our staff just received so many tips about

famous leaders, pastors, people who were household names in the evangelical movement.

And of course, most news is bad news.

When things are going well and when pastors are loving and serving in a Christ-like manner we tend not to hear about it.

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