When A Christian Celebrity Falls
Josh Harris became a well known author at the age of 21, through his successful book entitled, "Kiss Dating Goodbye." His book launched the "Purity Movement" which rejected dating because of the hyper-sexualization of it by today's culture. Instead he emphasized a courtship model that centered around the family and doing supervised activities within its confines.
Harris pastored The Covenant Life Church, a mega church, in Gaithersburg, MD from 2004-2014. He resigned his pastorship and moved west to Vancouver, Canada in 2015. Four years later he jointly announced a divorce with his wife on Social Media and then subsequently renounced the teachings of his book and his faith in Christ. In an interview he gave with Sojourners Magazine, prior to renouncing his faith, he not only rejected his book but also the biblical ethical view of marriage and sex. He advocated the inclusion of the LGBT lifestyle into his worldview and stated he found it easier to reject all of Christianity rather than trying to find a synthesis between the two. At least he was right with that statement. Homosexual life styles are totally incompatible with Christianity and never could they be reconciled.
What is the take away for us from this situation? Faith and trust in a celebrity is misplaced for the Christian, our faith and trust should be in Christ alone. 1 John 2:19 says, "They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us." We will have apostates in the church. Romans 8:38-39 says that the same God who saved you is the same God who will keep you. What is in Josh Harris's heart? Only God knows. What we do know is this is a tragedy on many levels.
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