Breaking Free from the Cult of Personality
Living Colour and Paul
Warning: This Post Contains Rock Music
“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not being merely human?”
(1 Corinthians 3:1–4, ESV)
As I’ve been preparing my sermon on 1 Corinthians 3, I was struck by how Paul addresses the fleshly nature of the Corinthians. They had formed a cult of personality around their favorite leaders—Paul, Apollos, and Cephas (Peter). Instead of lifting up Christ, they were dividing themselves by attaching ultimate allegiance to men.
The phrase cult of personality has an interesting history. In 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech titled “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,” criticizing the blind devotion many had given to Stalin. Decades later, in 1988, the rock band Living Colour released their song Cult of Personality, inspired in part by that very speech. Guitarist Vernon Reid explained in 2018 that the band wanted to explore how figures—both good and bad—command such devotion. What unites them?
In their own way, the band had stumbled upon an ancient truth: as John Calvin once wrote, the human heart is an idol factory. We are always tempted to exalt people, ideas, and movements above their proper place. Paul reminds us that this is the way of the natural man—to lift up men rather than God, which inevitably leads to strife and division.
This temptation hasn’t gone away. The cult of personality is alive and well today—in the world and in the church. In local congregations, factions can form around beloved pastors, teachers, or deacons. In our nation, we see people willing to fight, argue, and even sacrifice relationships out of loyalty to political leaders, regardless of their words or actions.
The solution Paul points us toward is not to ignore leadership but to see it rightly. The answer is biblical humility: placing both ourselves and our leaders in their proper context. Leaders are servants. We are fellow workers in God’s field. All of us bow together before the feet of Christ.