Why are Christians drawn to abusive celebrity pastors?

And why do appeals to love and serve often gain less traction than condemnation and harshness?

Welcome to the Roy's Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church.

I'm Julie Roy's. And today I'm going

to explore these questions with Dr. Raymond Chu, a business professor at Redeemer University in

Ontario, Canada. Along with two colleagues, Dr. Chu has done extensive research on why we like

our leaders to be rough and tyrannical. What they found is that the appeal of

tyrants is not an aberration, but it's a phenomenon tied to how our minds work. Because these

leaders, like megachurch pastors, are distant, we don't really know them. And in the absence of any

real knowledge of who they are, we look for certain defining characteristics

that we associate with leadership. But what's scary is that those characteristics or defining

features are extremely toxic. They're features like domineering, pushy, manipulative, conceited,

and loud. In this podcast, Dr. Chu will unpack why we do this

and how we can combat this destructive tendency. He also addresses how this dynamic plays out

in church context and what we can do about it. I'm so excited to delve into this fascinating topic

with Dr. Chu, but first, I'd like to thank the sponsors of this podcast,

Accord Analytics, and Mark Ward of Barrington. In your ministry or business, your reputation is your

most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite

of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing,

you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can

scour emails, call logs, and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your

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