Katelyn Beaty on Celebrity Culture, AI, and the Risks of Disembodied Faith

Are Megachurches, Christian Influencers, and Artificial Intelligence Breaking the Church?

This week on the Good Faith podcast, Katelyn Beaty joins host Curtis Chang to confront the church’s growing addiction to celebrity culture, asking how celebrity pastors, megachurch platforms, and AI are changing the way Christians are formed. Curtis even asks Katelyn to evaluate whether his public persona and the Good Faith platform risk becoming part of the very problem they’re critiquing. If faith is becoming more online, more branded, and less embodied, this conversation asks the hard question: what happens to authentic Christian community, spiritual growth, and discipleship when personality starts to outrun the way of Jesus?

02:06 – Defining Persona vs. Fame

04:14 – Embodied Relationships vs. Platform

05:17 – Curtis’s Personal Experience with Platform

09:56 – Dangers of Platform Culture for the Church

14:27 – Curtis’s Dilemma: Content vs. Persona

17:58 – Navigating Platform Tensions as a Christian Leader

20:09 – Case Studies: Celebrity Gone Wrong and Right

25:34 – Community and Spiritual Formation Beyond Megachurches 

30:10 – Technology, Evangelicals, and the Attention Economy

33:00 – AI and the Future of Persona and Platform 

36:12 – Final Hope: Embodied, Material Christian Life

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Mentioned in This Episode:

• More about Katelyn Beaty
• Katelyn Beaty’s Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church
• TIME: The True Story Behind the FX Documentary Series The Secrets of Hillsong
• Christianity Today’s podcast: The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill
• New York Times: How the Willow Creek Church Scandal Has Stunned the Evangelical World
• More about Eugene Peterson
• Curtis Chang’s The Anxiety Opportunity

More From Katelyn Beaty:

• Katelyn Beaty’s Substack The Beaty Beat
• Katelyn Beaty’s podcast Saved by the City
• Katelyn Beaty’s A Woman’s Place Participant Guide: A Bible Study Exploring Every Woman’s Call to Work

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The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.