{"id":37483,"date":"2021-04-30T12:40:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T12:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/emptiness-of-instagrams-quasi-spiritual-influencers\/"},"modified":"2021-04-30T12:40:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T12:40:00","slug":"emptiness-of-instagrams-quasi-spiritual-influencers","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/emptiness-of-instagrams-quasi-spiritual-influencers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Emptiness of Instagram\u2019s \u2018Quasi-Spiritual Influencers\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wellness preachers are wildly popular on Instagram. The <em>New York Times<\/em> calls them &ldquo;quasi-spiritual influencers&rdquo; and &ldquo;Instavangelists&rdquo; who have replaced the televangelist. They have online followers anywhere from 900,000 to 7.5 million (Gwyneth Paltrow). They are the &ldquo;neo-religious leaders of our era.&rdquo; Their online followers are composed largely of Millennials, and according to the Pew Research Center, 22% are not affiliated with any specific religion. The new belief system is &ldquo;a blend of left-wing political orthodoxy, intersectional feminism, self-optimization, therapy, wellness, astrology and Dolly Parton.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>The article&rsquo;s author, Leigh Stein, notes what is fundamentally missing:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Left-wing secular millennials may follow politics devoutly. But the women we&rsquo;ve chosen as our moral leaders aren&rsquo;t challenging us to ask the fundamental questions that leaders of faith have been wrestling with for thousands of years: Why are we here? Why do we suffer? What should we believe in beyond the limits of our puny selfhood?<\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Stein longs for<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&hellip; role models my age who are not only righteous crusaders, but also humble and merciful, and that I&rsquo;m not finding them where I live (online). &#8230; There is a chasm between the vast scope of our needs and what influencers can provide. We&rsquo;re looking for guidance in the wrong places. Maybe we actually need to go to something like church? &#8230; I have hardly prayed to God since I was a teenager, but the pandemic has cracked open inside me a profound yearning for reverence, humility and awe. I have an overdraft on my outrage account. I want moral authority from someone who isn&rsquo;t shilling a memoir or calling out her enemies on social media for clout.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3552,3948,3953,3954,3956,3987,4186,4442,4467,4536,4667,4798,4799,4909,5012,5013],"tax_ctp_topics":[384,396,400],"class_list":["post-37483","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-celebrities","tax_ctp_tags-false-beliefs","tax_ctp_tags-false-religion","tax_ctp_tags-false-teachers","tax_ctp_tags-false-worship","tax_ctp_tags-feminism","tax_ctp_tags-humanism","tax_ctp_tags-meaning-of-life","tax_ctp_tags-millennials","tax_ctp_tags-new-age","tax_ctp_tags-postmodernism","tax_ctp_tags-religion","tax_ctp_tags-religion-non-christian","tax_ctp_tags-self-centeredness","tax_ctp_tags-social-media","tax_ctp_tags-social-trends"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Emptiness of Instagram\u2019s \u2018Quasi-Spiritual Influencers\u2019 - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/emptiness-of-instagrams-quasi-spiritual-influencers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Emptiness of Instagram\u2019s \u2018Quasi-Spiritual Influencers\u2019 - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wellness preachers are wildly popular on Instagram. The New York Times calls them &ldquo;quasi-spiritual influencers&rdquo; and &ldquo;Instavangelists&rdquo; who have replaced the televangelist. They have online followers anywhere from 900,000 to 7.5 million (Gwyneth Paltrow). 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