I was saddened to hear that pastor Mike Guglielmucci had lied to many people about having cancer. This incident will certainly do damage to the credibility of the Assemblies of God denomination (now called Australian Christian Churches) and to the church as a whole. I have to say that I feel a little duped, I certainly believed the story and, although I didn’t donate money, I feel a bit ripped off.

Some will write this off as just one bad apple and others will take this as an example of how all churches are bad. I, however, think that the Christian subculture that has been established by pentecostal churches has had a role to play in this tragedy and that now is a good time for the church to have a good long look at how things are going.

Firstly I want to address the cult of celebrity that goes on to a greater or lesser extent. What the bible commands in terms of respect for those in authority has become something more, something worldly and something unhealthy. In our worldly society we are constantly looking for those hero figures to believe in never realizing that what we are really looking for is Jesus. In doing this we expect more from our heroes than they can possibly deliver and we are outraged when they don’t deliver. The pentecostal church has absorbed not a little of this into its attitude towards leadership. It is never stated, quite the contrary, and yet there is a cultural belief that those in leadership are somehow better and this exerts a subtle yet insistent pressure to hide anything wrong. Mike Guglielmucci had that adulation which blinded the church from seeing the warning signs and doing something about it before it was too late. From his perspective I’m sure he felt trapped in his sin by the image that he was supposedly projecting. I’ve felt that pressure as a small group leader and I can only imagine what it must be like as a well known pastor. There are those in the pentecostal movement who make a point of being open and vulnerable, like Alan Meyer, but they are in the minority.

Secondly there is an emphasis in pentecostal churches for the spectacular, for the amazing. This is, after all, what sets those churches apart from the rest of the body of Christ. Now I know that we serve a spectacular God, just look at His creation and how he loves us. The pentecostal church, however, has placed such a value on the spectacular that it gets in the way of focusing on the one who is spectacular. Spectacular healings carry with them their own celebrity, often leading to speaking engagements in front of large numbers of people. For some this can be a source of validation and attention. I have known people who have faked illnesses for this reason.

When these two factors work together on a situation that is not ideal to begin with, such as a hidden sin, the results can be catastrophic both to the individual and to the name of Jesus. This is what we are seeing now. Yes the inidividual involved has to take responsibility for his actions but the pentecostal church needs to take ownership of these issues and use this crisis as an opportunity for cultural change.