The Wolf Yoh Laughed With: Entertainment vs. Exposition

🐺 Sheepfold Under Siege: Wolves the Church Applauds

Article 1 — The Wolf You Laughed With: Entertainment vs. Exposition

> “For the time will come when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”

— 2 Timothy 4:3 (ESV)

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🕯 The Age of Applause

Not every wolf growls. Some smile.

Not every heresy comes wrapped in smoke and heresy—it often comes wrapped in humor, charisma, and relatability.

The modern pulpit, particularly in America, has become a stage.

Screens flash, lights pulse, and sound systems roar with cinematic precision. Sermons are rehearsed performances delivered with rhythm, emotional arcs, and punchlines timed like late-night comedy.

In such an atmosphere, crowds grow easily. But sheep aren’t always fed by what draws a crowd.

We live in an era when emotional resonance is mistaken for anointing, and production excellence for spiritual power. The danger is subtle, yet devastating: the Church no longer recognizes its wolves because it applauds their talent.

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🎭 The Appeal: A Generation Entertained, Not Edified

1. The Rise of the Branded Pastor

When Christianity Today profiled Elevation Church in 2017, it described a “carefully engineered culture of excellence” and a “revival machine” designed to produce perpetual momentum rather than reflection (Christianity Today, Inside Elevation Church’s Revival Machine, Mar 2017).

At the center of that machine stands Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church, whose influence reaches millions through slick marketing, viral sermon clips, and worship anthems.

Furtick’s sermons are emotional, rhythmic, and often framed around personal empowerment. Yet troubling statements have repeatedly surfaced. In a 2015 message titled “It Works in Reverse,” Furtick proclaimed, “I am God Almighty!”—a line interpreted by many as a claim of divine identity. (Source: Protestia.com, Oct 26 2015; also reported by The Christian Post, Oct 27 2015).

Whether or not the statement was rhetorical hyperbole, the pattern is clear: the focus shifts from Christ exalted to self-realized.

Furtick has also described the Trinity in confusingly modalistic language, saying, “God broke the law for love,” implying that divine justice and divine mercy stand in conflict—a statement contrary to orthodox theology (Elevation Church, sermon “Grace Like a Flood,” 2014).

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2. The Illustration Over the Text: Michael Todd

In January 2022, The Roys Report and multiple mainstream outlets documented a sermon from Michael Todd, pastor of Transformation Church (Tulsa, OK), in which he spat into his hand and rubbed it on a volunteer’s face while preaching on Jesus healing the blind man (John 9). Todd later apologized, admitting it “was disgusting” and that he “crossed a line.” (The Roys Report, Jan 18 2022).

This “shock illustration” typifies a generation of pastors who mistake viral visibility for effective exposition. Todd’s earlier series “Crazy Faith” (2019) often re-casts faith as the power of imaginative will rather than humble submission to God’s Word.

As Relevant Magazine observed, Todd’s approach “mirrors motivational coaching more than biblical preaching” (Relevant, Aug 2020).

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3. Unhitching the Faith: Andy Stanley

In 2018, Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, told his congregation they should “unhitch the Christian faith from the Old Testament” (Christian Post, Apr 2018).

He clarified later that he didn’t mean to discard the Hebrew Scriptures, but his framing left the impression that modern Christians could safely detach their faith from the canon Christ Himself affirmed (Matt 5:17–18).

More recently, Stanley’s 2023 “Unconditional” conference featured multiple affirming LGBTQ leaders, leading The Roys Report to headline, “Andy Stanley’s Conference Features Pastors Who Affirm LGBTQ” (Sept 18 2023). When challenged, Stanley defended his inclusion, arguing for “authentic dialogue.” (Religion News Service, Oct 6 2023).

Yet Jude 3 commands not dialogue but defense: “Contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”

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📉 The Drift: When Preachers Become Performers

Each of these men exemplifies a theological migration that has become mainstream:

From proclamation → to presentation

From revelation → to relatability

From discipleship → to audience retention

Furtick’s “Audacious Faith” and Todd’s “Crazy Faith” both trade in the language of possibility, not penitence. Stanley’s “Irresistible” (2018, HarperCollins) reframes the gospel as moral persuasion rather than divine rescue.

What all share is an unspoken assumption: the Word of God is not enough.

But as the Apostle Paul wrote:

> “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” — 1 Cor. 2:4

The demonstration of the Spirit is not theatrical effect but spiritual transformation.

When churches substitute applause for conviction, they do not win converts—they manufacture consumers.

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🍎 The Fruit: Crowds, Cameras, and Confusion

A Marketed Church

Barna Group’s 2022 Worldview Inventory reported that only 37 % of self-identified evangelicals in America hold a biblical worldview; the majority deny absolute moral truth and affirm religious pluralism (Barna, 2022).

This should startle us. The more the Church imitates the world’s marketing, the more it inherits the world’s relativism.

Celebrity as Sacrament

Sociologist Katelyn Beaty, in Celebrities for Jesus (Brazos, 2022), warns:

> “We have confused platform with providence, assuming the large following validates divine calling.”

The result is a Christianity that measures faithfulness by influence, not obedience.

The Fallout

Every few years, the headlines repeat: moral scandal, financial exploitation, doctrinal collapse. The fall of Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church (2014) was documented by Christianity Today’s investigative podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (2021)—a chilling study in charisma without accountability.

What begins as energy ends as exhaustion.

What starts as movement ends as monument.

When preaching becomes performance, the sheep come for the show and leave unchanged.

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📜 The Reformed Witness: The Ordinary Means of Grace

The Reformers faced a similar problem—priests who turned the pulpit into theater, relics into superstition, and grace into spectacle. Their answer was Word and Sacrament.

Calvin wrote:

> “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.1.9).

Luther thundered that “the Word did everything,” confessing that his sermons, not his strength, overturned the idols of Rome.

Our age needs the same confidence.

Not better production—but better preaching.

Not louder voices—but deeper roots.

Not brighter lights—but the burning lamp of Scripture opened line by line.

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🩸 The Call: Return to the Shepherd’s Voice

How then shall the faithful respond?

1. Recover Biblical Preaching – Exposition, not entertainment. The preacher’s task is to explain, not perform the text.

2. Prioritize the Local Church – Fellowship cannot be livestreamed. Sheep need shepherds, not influencers.

3. Test Every Spirit – If a sermon draws attention to the preacher’s power rather than Christ’s person, flee.

4. Love the Truth More Than Trends – Truth is rarely fashionable; it is always fruitful.

5. Pray for the Flock – Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spirit of deception that trades repentance for relevance.

Discernment, far from being cynicism, is love. It is the act of guarding Christ’s bride from counterfeit grooms.

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📚 References

Christianity Today, “Inside Elevation Church’s Revival Machine,” Mar 2017.

Protestia.com, “Steven Furtick Claims He Is God Almighty,” Oct 26 2015.

Christian Post, “Andy Stanley Says Christians Must Unhitch Faith from Old Testament,” Apr 2018.

The Roys Report, “Pastor Michael Todd Apologizes for Spitting on Man’s Face During Sermon,” Jan 18 2022.

Religion News Service, “Andy Stanley Defends His Church’s Approach to LGBTQ Members,” Oct 6 2023.

Barna Group, “American Worldview Inventory 2022,” Research Release #3, 2022.

Katelyn Beaty, Celebrities for Jesus: How Personality Culture Took Over the Church, Brazos Press, 2022.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Christianity Today Podcast, 2021.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.1.9.

Martin Luther, Preface to the Collected Works, 1545.

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🔚 Closing Reflection

The Church of the 21st century has not lacked energy—only purity. We have confused volume for verity, production for power, emotion for edification.

> “The question isn’t whether the modern church can fill a room—

It’s whether she can still recognize her Shepherd’s voice amidst the applause.”

✒️ The Pilgrim’s Post