Recently, on a bulletin board I frequent, a Christian posted a message that was, essentially, pure proselytizing. It was the standard stuff: Jesus loves you, only by accepting him will you be saved, etc… Blah, blah, blah.
One of the responses to her post held an accusation. The responder said that the poster was basically trying to set herself up to be "followed," similar to Jesus himself. To no one's surprise, the original poster denied this entirely. She was just the messenger, after all, not the one originating the message.
I confess I'd never really looked at it this way before, but once I did, I saw some bit of truth in the responder's allegations. I readily admit that the poster probably didn't see it, let alone agree with it, but it's there, nonetheless.
Look at the popular evangelists. Do you think that folks like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell don't consider their congregations to be following them? Of course they do. These people have set themselves up as little tin messiahs, and they expect their followers to heed their words, which aren't always the words of God. They perhaps do not expect themselves to be worshiped (though some might), but it's still a type of idolatry.
Some (like the Jews) feel that this is exactly what happened with Jesus. He might have begun only by spreading the word of God, but ultimately people began worshiping him instead of or in addition to God. If one of today's evangelists had been born 2000 years ago, would we now have millions of people worshiping Jerry Christ? Would we have Falwellianity?
Or do we actually have it today?
In a way, anyone who takes on the role of helping to "save" someone else is setting themselves up (to one degree or another) to be "followed." It's a case of "listen to me-I can guide you to the Truth." And if that isn't the seed for self-worship, I don't know what is.
