Stephen Crosby comments

Why are we to blame for the failures of our big-men heroes?

Because if we did not support these philosophies with our presence, time, energy, and money, they would collapse overnight. We feed the beast. We buy the books. We go to the seminars and conferences. We give the offerings. We are the ones who do not study the Scriptures diligently for ourselves. We are the kingmakers. We are the ones who are too insecure to confront a big-man leader when what he or she teaches is off the mark. We are the ones addicted to charismatic stimulus. We are the ones whose ego and drive for significance is so strong that we will "play along with the system," ignoring our hearts and consciences, because we know the only way to get promoted within the system is to be silently passive in the presence of iniquity in leaders. We know that we will lose our friends if we speak up and confront iniquity in its infant stages. We are unwilling to bear the social and psychological reproach of being rejected, ostracized, and labeled as "Jezebelian" or "unsubmissive" by corrupt authority figures. We are the ones who submit to a deceiving culture of hierarchal honor and submission. We are the cowardly ones who do not have the courage to face the discomfort that will come by confronting high-profile leaders.

There's an evil which most of us condone and are guilty of that is far worse than the behavior of the Eddie Longs or Ted Haggards or Todd Bentley's of the world: we remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done to other people by leaders, and by the wrongdoings of leaders themselves. Indifference to wrong is more insidious than the wrong itself. It's more universal, more contagious, and more dangerous. A silent justification makes iniquity that erupts as an exception to become the rule, and in turn allows it to be widely accepted. Indifference and silence in the presence of injustice and iniquity is the normalization of evil.

Our silence and our participation in the beast make us as guilty as anyone whose failures reach public consciousness levels.

Nothing much has changed since the day when Jeremiah (v) said:

The prophets prophesy lies
The leaders (priests and princes, modern terms: pastors/leaders) are complicit with them.
And my people love to have it so
How are we going to pick up the pieces?

If there is revolution or reform going on in this hour, I believe that purging hero worship and success thinking and theology is part of the divine agenda. Let's return to the simplicity of the message of Christ and Him crucified and "love one another as I have loved you." We don't need heroes and superstars to succeed there. We need heroes and superstars to sustain the beast and keep the cash flowing. Let's kill the beast. God's redemptive thread for the Body of Christ in all these personal tragedies is to try to wean us from the corrupt value systems that we adhere to that make the whole scenario possible in the first place.

i 1Samuel 8:4-22.
ii Using faith to get my needs, wants and desires met through the unwavering confession of the Word.
iii John 5:39-42; Luke 24:27.
iv Reported in Vision 2 Advance Newsletter, July 29, 2007.
v Jeremiah 5:31 - my own translation.