on the possibility that Joshua Harris, who owns and runs a marketing company, Clear & Loud, has led folks through what amounts to a viral marketing campaign with help from Christian punditry

Here at Wenatchee The Hatchet I've written from time to time about pastors, sometimes ex-pastors, and while Joshua Harris was never much on my radar I couldn't not hear of him thanks to courtship talk among evangelicals over the last twenty years.  Another reason I sometimes heard of him had to do with Sovereign Grace Ministries and C. J. Mahaney and controversy associated with SGM.

Lately, there has been some speculation as to whether or not Harris, who had a photo or two, apparently, of himself at a Pride parade, might have a coming out moment.  It does not seem useful to speculate about that.  I had gay friends at Mars Hill, although I didn't necessarily always find out they were gay until after they left Mars Hill.

So it's certainly possible, even relatively well-known, that gays can be in evangelical communities.

What strikes me is that Harris has made both his hugely popular book and his preaching and teaching career integral to his newer venture.

https://joshharris.com/

There’s nothing more frustrating than lacking the words or plan to effectively share your message. I help businesses and non-profit organizations find their voice and communicate their message.

In high school, I fell in love with words while publishing a magazine for teenagers. My first book was published when I was twenty-one and became a best-seller (for more about that journey, read this statement about my book). Later as a preacher I practiced translating ancient, often complex concepts into language people would understand and remember.

Then I shook up my life in a big way: I stepped away from leading a large church and moved to Vancouver, B.C., to attend graduate school. I studied a mind-expanding mixture of art, religion, history, culture, documentary film-making, and content marketing. Now I run my own marketing and brand strategy company, Clear & Loud, and use the power of story to help businesses connect with customers.

If you’re a business owner or leader struggling to get your message across, let’s talk. 

https://clearandloud.com/

At the risk of being a bit cynical ... he's still selling stuff and the stuff to sell is that he knows how to sell stuff.  He's in Vancouver, B.C. now and has a marketing company.  Whether he comes out or not is not particularly relevant in the long run.  My take is that for all of us who took him seriously enough to talk about him at all in the last month or so, we just got played for a viral marketing campaign that keeps him in the public eye long enough that maybe, just maybe, he'll drum up some clients for his new business.  

So he's not opting to quietly phase out of the public sphere and he's actually leveraging his preacher training to show that he knows how to sell stuff.  Whatever he's repented of he isn't repenting of being a public figure helping people market stuff.  Maybe that's all he knows for sure how to do.  

I documented a few publicity stunt moments that Mark Driscoll did during his Mars Hill years.  What Harris has done in sharing that he's divorced, no longer identifies as a Christian, and regrets his past views on LGBTQ communities (and this evangelical can't remember that he ever even once said anything of any consequence about that topic, now that I'm stopping and thinking about it).  

I've chronicled the life and times of the former Mars Hill Church and some leaders that I have come to consider opportunistic marketers and ... so far ... Harris seems like he's less likely repenting of being someone front and center and selling you stuff because he's a capable visionary than he's just doing a new version of that, marketing.  Even if I grant that maybe that's what he's best at ... this year's social media from Harris is vague enough that people who want mysteries cleared up may be so eager to have the mysteries cleared up they may not step back to consider that mystery is part of the marketing, because a marketing company is literally what the man now has on the internet for you to call.  He can help you sell stuff by making sure you have a clear message.  I would have thought that whatever he was repenting of would be repenting not merely of the "what" but the "how" and his new company lays to rest any misconception I might have had through ignorance as to what Harris was turning from.  He's not turning from selling people on stuff like he did in I Kissed Dating Goodbye, he's selling his ability to sell.

It's not exactly that I think Harris is exactly insincere ... but in my experience the most dangerous sorts of megachurch demagogues are completely sincere.  That's what makes them dangerous, at least that was my sense chronicling Mars Hill.  People can believe their own hype.  But then, Harris is pretty obviously not from the leadership roster of the former Mars Hill.  Even among the leaders of Mars Hill there were people who, even now, I trust and respect.

Harris is still in the public eye and he's doing what he knows how to do. When you're a second or third generation in a line of preachers and contemporary preaching is so tethered to marketing ... it's not too surprising that a marketing company is what a former preacher has started.  At the moment it still seems like that's making the best of a hand that was played when he was probably too young to fully grasp what he was getting himself into.

So with Harris in the news cycle and it turning out that he's got a marketing company ... I'm just jaded enough by years of chronicling celebrity preachers to still find it a bit ... opportunistic.  But then that's probably just how I feel about people who are in marketing and, who knows, maybe I need to repent of that.  If there's anything easy to do for someone who has documented the peak and demise of a megachurch and its leadership it's get jaded about motives.  I can't say I know what Harris' motives are.  I have questions about the wisdom of how clear he's really been in his social media use, to be sure, but his motives are opaque to me. 

His simply no longer being a celebrity preacher, though, is still probably a step in a better direction compared to some other celebrity preachers whose careers I've chronicled over the years.