When Christian Leaders Fall, What Happens to My Faith? with Joshua Stone

It seems like every few weeks, another Christian leader falls—and many believers are left confused, discouraged, or even mocked for their faith.

In this episode of Behind the Mike Podcast, Mike & Joshua Stone slow the conversation down and ask a deeper question: Why does this keep happening—and what does it reveal about where our faith is anchored?

This is not a reaction video.
This is not about piling on fallen leaders.
And this is not about abandoning Christianity.

Instead, we talk honestly about:
• Why gifting is not the same as godliness
• Why public platforms often hide private struggles
• Why Christian celebrity culture is leaving people spiritually disoriented
• And how to build a faith that survives disappointment, hypocrisy, and failure

If recent stories have left you wondering whether Christianity itself can be trusted—or if your faith feels shaken by the failures of others—this conversation is for you.

Christianity was never built on impressive people.
It was built on an unchanging Savior.

Chapters:
00:00 – Why So Many Christian Leaders Are Falling
The exhaustion, grief, and questions believers are feeling right now
00:26 – Is It Okay to Feel Shaken in Your Faith?
Why doubt after scandal doesn’t mean weak faith
00:50 – The Real Problem Behind Church Scandals
What we build our faith on before leaders fall
01:17 – A College Student’s Perspective on Church Hypocrisy
Why this generation sees things differently
01:55 – When Christian Failures Go Public
Why repeated scandals damage trust and fuel mockery
02:49 – The Stage Is Not the Soul
Public ministry vs. private faithfulness
03:38 – When a Pastor Falls, People Lose Their Faith
Why many believers were never taught where faith belongs
04:48 – Mentors vs. Messiahs in Christianity
Why following people too closely can wreck faith
06:04 – Why God’s Word Will Never Fail You
Scripture vs. celebrity Christianity
07:16 – A Bible College Story That Changed Everything
When powerful preaching didn’t match real-life character
08:43 – How Christian Hypocrisy Hurts the Church’s Witness
What unbelievers actually see when Christians fail
09:32 – Spiritual Talk vs. Spiritual Maturity
Why holiness shows up under pressure, not on stage
10:28 – What Young Christians Are Really Seeing Today
Faith, stress, and everyday behavior outside church
11:47 – Why Putting Faith in People Always Fails
Even well-meaning leaders will let you down
12:55 – How Leaders Drift Before Moral Failure
Isolation, secrecy, and success without accountability
13:39 – Why Accountability Matters in the Christian Life
Faith was never meant to be lived alone
14:53 – How Christians Should Respond When Leaders Fall
Truth, humility, and refusing to panic
15:48 – Christianity Doesn’t Collapse When Leaders Fail
Why Jesus—not pastors—is the foundation
16:18 – Where Your Faith Must Be Anchored
Why C

Transcript

0:00

Let me start by saying this out loud, because I think that a lot of Christians are feeling it, even if they're not saying it. And that is every it seems like every few weeks another story drops in the news, another Christian leader, another artist, another respected voice. And it's not just sad. It becomes exhausting. You grieve, you shake your head and you start wondering what is going on. Can anyone be trusted and why? Does it feel like Christianity itself is being mocked right now? Well, if that's where you are, I want you to hear this clearly. You're not weak. You're not naive. And you're not wrong for feeling unsettled. But today I don't want to react and I don't want to pile on. And I don't want to pretend this stuff doesn't matter. I want to talk honestly, biblically about what's really being exposed in moments like this. Because the issue isn't just that people fall. It's what we build our faith on before they do it. So stick around. Let's dive in. Deep. Welcome back to Behind the Mike Podcast. I'm Mike Stone. This is my guest, also my son Joshua. Joshua is, he's about ready to go back to college last semester. Try not to fail out of the last semester here. Don't mess up now. One. Yeah. One more semester and you're on your own. Yeah. So, anyway, wanted to just have him join us today. And before he goes back and talk about this issue from his perspective, is his college age and what he's seeing on campus, maybe. And but here's why. This season right now feels different. It's not just one person. It's the stacking effect. We have musicians and pastors and authors, people whose words shaped prayers, people whose messages helped others come back to faith. And now the watching world sees it, too. Some people are curious, some are genuinely hurt, and some are openly mocking Christianity. You've seen it in the comments and conversations. Where's your God now? So much for Christian morals. They preach one thing and they live another, right? I'm sure you've heard it on campus as well. Well, here's the part we have to admit. Those comments sting not because they're clever, but because they feel close enough to hurt. If Christians don't talk about this. Honestly, the narrative gets written for us, and it usually goes one of two ways. Either Christianity is fake or Christians are in denial. Neither is true, but silence doesn't help either. Now there's a phrase I want to come back to again and again in this video. And that is, the stage is not the sole. So public gifting is not the same thing as private faithfulness. Being used by God is not the same thing as being close to God. The Bible never promises that gifted people are also spiritually healthy. In fact, Jesus warned us about this. He said there would be people who would preach his name, do powerful things, and have visible impact. And yet he would say, I never knew you. That's sobering because it means someone can say all the right things, sing all the right songs. Preach all the right sermons, and still be deeply broken inside. Not because the truth failed, but because the person never let the truth transform them privately. Here's where I want to slow down, though, and be pastoral for a moment. Look, when leaders fall, people don't just lose respect. What we're seeing is they're losing orientation, especially if that voice helped them through a dark season, or if their message brought them back to the church, or if the book or the song that they that they wrote or sung helped them to believe again. So when a person collapses, then the question underneath becomes, if they weren't real, what does that say about my faith? Here's the hard truth a lot of believers were never taught the difference between appreciating the gift and anchoring their faith. So when the gift falls, their faith goes with it. That's not stupidity, that's just poor discipleship. Christianity was never meant to be built on impressive people. Well, yeah, I think it's important to keep your faith separate from theirs. I think it's great to have, you know, strong, Christian mentors. Mentors? Yeah. Mentors. I couldn't figure out that word. Yes, I think it's important, but it's it's really important to to have your own faith and not rely on theirs because, I mean, they're they're very much in the limelight. Everything they do is, is visible, especially with social media. They're going to fall at some point, no matter how big or small they're going to fall. And, it's important that your faith isn't completely in, you have your own faith in God, and you follow them as a mentor. And, I think that's great. But also having your own faith and, Yeah. Well, yeah. And I think I think that, you know, when you, when you say they're going to fall, I mean, that's because we all fall. Yeah. And you said whether small or big and I think, I think what you're saying is right on with what we're what we're talking about is that when we put our faith in another person, rather than just being them, being a mentor, there are so many people I listen to podcasts that have really good things to say. There are theologians and apologists out there who teach me things that I would have never known otherwise. But we can't hang our faith on those things. My faith has to remain in this because this is not going to fail me. It's not. It's it's God's word which will never fail. People will fail us all the time, and and so. Yeah, that's a good point. Mentorship or, you know, taking bits and pieces from people just to, like I said, tuck them away. Don't use them as faith builders, but use them as Lord. That would be cool. I hope that that is true. I hope that the Shroud of Turin is real and that we're seeing literally, however it happened, the face of you as you were resurrected or whatever that may be. How cool is that? But they can they can say that that was, you know, 100 years old and it's not going to shake my faith. Disappoint me a little. It's not going to shake my faith. So I want to share. I don't know if you even know this, but I want to share something personal here, not to shame anyone, but because of how it shaped my thinking about all of this. I was in Bible college. I worked full time at an airport for an airline. While I was going to school full time, part of my college requirements included me attending chapel services every day. So most of the time, on days that I had to work, you know, early, I would put my airline gear on and I would go through my classes and then go to chapel, and then I would leave and go directly to work after that. There's one thing I started noticing. Often highly respected chapel guest speakers, or even people around the country would fly in to speak and then fly out on the airline that I worked for. And sometimes I would be the one checking them in. So I had just heard them preach this passionate, fiery message about holiness, about loving others, about representing Christ well in our world. And then literally minutes later, within the hour, they'd be standing right in front of me and I would be checking them in and unfortunately, far too often they were rude. They were dismissive. They were demanding. They wanted the exit row, or they wanted this or that, and talking down to other employees had zero control over the policies. Now, I remember standing there thinking, this is the same person that just told us in chapel how we should live holy lives. Well, let me continue. Then there was another situation that stuck with me. Even more so there was a missionary who lived in our city and she was flying home from a trip overseas, and her luggage got delayed. Over the next couple days, several of our employees had to deal with her on the phone, and they were telling me about this. She would yell. She was belittling the employees. She was blaming everyone for losing her luggage for people that had that not even touched her luggage. And I remember hanging up the phone thinking, man, if this is what Christianity looks like when someone's inconvenienced, what message are we actually sending to people? Now again, hear me clearly. I'm not sharing this to condemn anyone. I'm not saying those people weren't sincere believers, and I'm definitely not pretending that I've always represented Christ perfectly either. I've not. I'm sharing this because it taught me a really important lesson spiritual language and spiritual maturity are not the same thing. The stage is not the soul. And moments like that didn't destroy my faith. It forced me to mature. I will say it challenged me because these people that I worked with, I was also trying to be Christ to them. And what was happening at the counter and on the phone was kind of undoing everything that I did. So it was very frustrating. But that allowed me to see two perspectives very clearly from the same situation. Anyway, on it. I feel like even as Christians, I think, kind of, as you said in more in everyday life now and seeing people who very proudly proclaim they're a Christian and even in times that are stressful or I mean, they just very much put themselves ahead of others and, rude, dismissive, just you see those more and more often, it feels like. And as a Christian, I think that's something that you kind of take a mental note of, just kind of not not really seeing Christ's love through somebody who proclaims that, they're sharing that it's tough to keep your faith, even as a Christian, kind of when you see people like that. Just it doesn't it doesn't sit right. And it's that's tough to kind of battle. Well, and it's it's hard really on two fronts because when I see something happening like that, like I'm saying here, you really can't condemn people because I'm just as bad. I'm not perfect either. But I think what you're referring to is just the intentional, like the lifestyle. Yeah. Like, you know, you just don't seem to even care. Well, we're all going to fail. And I think that's the point of this whole thing, is that we can't rely on people. People will always fail you. I'm your dad, and your mom and I both have failed you and your sister many times over the years, even as spiritual examples. But, but it's also hard because a lot of times when you see that happening, you're seeing what they're not clearly seeing, and that is that they're talk or their actions are making a mockery of the Christ that we're supposed to be representing. So it's a it's a really sticky situation. And here's another thing that's important, especially when emotions are high. Most people don't wake up one day and say, I'm just going to ruin it. Everything. I'm going to ruin it all. It usually starts quietly with isolation, with compromises that nobody sees. Stuff that's happening in secret, with success that moves faster than accountability. Eventually, you're living two separate lives, one for the platform and one in private. And here's the tragedy. That platform keeps rewarding you when the soul keeps deteriorating. And that doesn't exclude sin, but it explains why it happens. Scripture warns us about this over and over again, and it says, lest anyone thinks he stands, take heed lest he falls. Not because God is harsh, but because pride and secrecy are so dangerous. So what do we do when Christianity gets mocked because Christians fail? God, I thought. Well, I get a jump in on on the last point. I think it's important to to have peers with, with your same belief, friends that you can talk to and, people that you can count on to keep you accountable for your actions. And, you know, when somebody like that falls, I think it's also important to support them, and kind of separate the sin from, from the more of the person hate the sin is saying that you're in quite a bit these days, but, I, I think it's really important to have people in your life who you're not afraid to have that conversation with. And who you aren't afraid to go to them, and vice versa, if they see something in your lifestyle that, they just don't agree with and they don't think it's the right thing for you, I think it's important to to have those people in your life to, to keep you kind of on that, straight, narrow path. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I mean, accountability is so important in all of this. Our Christian walk, and especially what we're talking about today is, you know, I know that some of the stories I've heard of, of people who have fallen, whether it's pastors or whether it's authors or Christian artists, I mean, I've seen so many. But, you know, it goes back to what you just said. A lot of them that may not have started, but it continued because they didn't have the accountability that they should have had. And that's so important. So so what do we do when Christianity gets mocked because others fail? We don't panic, we can't deflect, and we can't pretend that it doesn't matter. We have to tell the truth. So we say things like, yes, this is sin. Yes, this hurts real people. And yes, this damages trust. But we also say something else and it's something the world often misses. And that's Christianity never claimed that its messengers were flawless. It claimed its savior was. The message doesn't collapse when the messenger does. If anything, the Bible's honesty about human failure is one of its strongest arguments. People will fail you. God won't. So let me bring this home. If another leader falls this month. And honestly, it wouldn't surprise any of us, right? What happens to your faith? Well, if your faith is built on charisma or talent or personality or public morality, it's going to keep breaking. But if your faith is built on Jesus's finished work, his unchanging character, his grace, and his truth, it will hold. People didn't die for you. Jesus did. People didn't save you. Jesus did. And he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Even when people fall off the stage. So here's what we hope that you hear today. Grieve when leaders fall. Hold people accountable. Protect the vulnerable. Tell the truth, but don't lose your footing because your faith was never supposed to stand on them. In the first place. It was always meant to stand on Christ. He's still on the throne no matter who steps off the stage. He.