Obsessed with reality, but bored by truth?

If you’re like me, you’ll have a favourite TV drama or reality programme. I’m a sucker for anything with Nicole Kidman. On the reality front, I don’t care much for the Kardashians, but I could easily waste a rainy Scottish Saturday streaming Judge Judy. 

Lured in by juicy details

Recently, I’ve been taken in by a particularly juicy series. It stars a charismatic spiritual leader, formally head of a world-famous religious group. Handsome, engaging, you can’t help but be captivated. He has it all; he leads a beautiful family, all while lifting the hearts of many thousands weekly with hope-filled encouragement. By the second episode, he’s influencing the rich and powerful, on magazine covers and television. Suddenly, the plot twist…he’s not only embroiled in adulterous infidelity, he’s accused by those under him of mental and spiritual abuse, being driven by greed and lust, handling money poorly and behaving in a demanding, ostentatious manner. The corporate bigwigs do an internal investigation and he confesses, not only to one affair, but another years-long sexual relationship with his children’s nanny! 

Earthly spectacles are nothing when compared to heaven’s deep mysteries

The lid blows off by episode four, when his wife tells investigators that she physically assaulted the nanny when she discovered them in the act. She knew the whole story, but agreed to a cover-up, at the behest of her husband. The Svengali confesses to engaging in manipulation and, maybe most stingingly for a man of the cloth, being a very good liar. From the audience’s view, it’s clear: he’s an attention-addicted narcissist. Of course, it ends in a cliffhanger. The persistent protagonist ends up on staff at another popular church, this time with a lower profile. In the preview for season two, he’s podcasting, he and his wife are preparing their new iteration in the ‘marriage and family self-help’ arena, with a ten-step book to help couples fix broken marriages. They’re even interviewed about the intimate details of their lives by their teenagers. 

When the story is real

By now you may have caught on, but, if you haven’t, this story isn’t exactly fictional. It’s the alleged real-life happenings of the most famous pastor from arguably the Western world’s most well-known church. The internal investigation was documented by The Christian Post in 2022. Truth really is stranger than fiction. There’s currently disagreement within the wider Church as to whether some Christians are wrong for not wanting Carl Lentz of Hillsong NYC re-platformed, but this issue seeps deeper than just one minister.

I’ve seen different comments like: “Isn’t Christianity all about showing grace and being forgiving?”, “He’s not pastoring anymore, what’s the big deal if he’s trying to sell a book and make a living?” and “This is why people see Christians as unkind, hateful and nothing at all like Jesus.” 

It’s tempting to believe that the truth is boring compared to the high-stakes, high-drama existence we’ve grown accustomed to through our dopamine-addicted, reality TV-obsessed society. But, in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul warns the Church not even to associate with believers who indulge in moral failings like sexual sin, greed and drunkenness. When he writes about the requirements for the honourable position of church leadership in 1 Timothy 3:2-5, he stipulates a leader must be above reproach, faithful to his wife, self-controlled, wise and of good reputation, not a lover of money or quarrelsome, and a good manager of his household. These requirements aren’t highly valued by our wider society. Has this irreverent mentality seeped successfully into God’s spotless, wrinkle-free Church? 

Recent examples reflect reality TV has much higher stakes than our favourite streaming dramas. At the end of Nine Perfect Strangers, Nicole Kidman dusted herself off and started preparing her script for The Perfect Couple, no harm, no foul. In the first episode of Netflix’s Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, however, viewers learn the heartbreaking repercussions that followed contestant Shandi Sullivan after she was sexually assaulted on camera in 2004 during the show’s second cycle. Sullivan, still visibly broken decades after the ordeal she faced, without support or care at the time, is a real woman, not an actress. Real Housewives Of New York cast member, Leah McSweeney, has won the right to have her case heard in court, as she’s filed a suit against Andy Cohen, Bravo and Warner Bros with a disability discrimination claim that the show’s producers purposefully took advantage of her alcohol addiction, enticing her to break her sobriety so she would get drunk for ratings. Real-life sin entails real-life ramifications; when it comes to eternal life, consequences are soberingly eternal.

The impact on faith

After listening to a Roys Report podcast on the Hillsong debacle, nothing stood out to me more than the first five minutes. Guest Janis Lagata, part of the church’s original launch team under Lentz, described herself as an ex-vangelical; no longer a Hillsong-goer, churchgoer or even a Christian. In recent months I’ve witnessed my own best friend, a beautiful, Spirit-filled believer, wrestling through the soul-crushing effects of spiritual abuse from leadership at the church her family relocated to join eight years ago. She spoke out and quit the ministry job she adored. The ramifications of broken trust and deep spiritual upheaval she’s experienced have marked her as they continue to seek a new home church. Just ‘bouncing back’ after pain inflicted in the name of Jesus isn’t ever a reasonable expectation.

The Bible warns us to steer clear of sin-embroiled leaders – in love, that Jesus’ bride may stay unstained and protected. Carl and Laura Lentz’s story seems more fit for TV drama than ministry. Their life’s circus will draw attraction as they ricochet back to the spotlight – with those optics, whose wouldn’t? But earthly spectacles are nothing when compared to heaven’s deep mysteries. There’s nothing boring about the lives of undeserving sinners miraculously transformed by God’s love, nothing blasé about the supernatural power to overcome sin, or God’s grace equipping us to love righteousness. Paul asks in Romans 6:1-2 (NLT): “Should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not!” God’s nature is not to give us unreachable standards but to empower us, through grace, to live impossibly. Putting off distractions that so cleverly trip us up, we need to depend fully on God’s truth.