(The Dissenter) In 2019, I wrote that the greased and lubed celebrity machinery of modern Christian music wasn’t just distracting—it was hijacking the very glory of God. I pointed out how artists chase chart ranks, fame, social media clout—and lose the weightier matters: God’s truth, Christ’s exclusivity, the cross. I had mentioned Lauren Daigle and Lecrae as case studies, frontrunners who traded gospel clarity for applause, becoming idols unto themselves and complicit in a gospel-lite, idol‑driven pop culture.
Fast-forward to today—and an insider at the top of the heap is spilling the same tea.
Bethel Church’s Cory Asbury, once a chart-topping artist in that celebrity machine, recently posted a TikTok that reads like a confession—and a condemnation. In his own words:
“Marketing yourself is antithetical to the way of Jesus… every Christian artist has a camera on themselves… it’s all a publicity stunt nowadays.”
“I see artists whore themselves out to every single worship movement alive… just grinding for the success.”
“People writing worship songs knowing that they’re going to get a big fat CCLI check… it becomes formulaic… inauthentic garbage… not from God but from man and the desire for mammon.
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Bethel Redding is a shark tank – woe to Bethel! by Marsha West
CRN has compiled a list of false teachers and several other professing Christians we’ve warned you about over the years. The list also contains those we must keep an eye on plus movements, organizations and “frauds, phonies and money-grubbing religious quacks” to mark and avoid as per Romans 16:17-18