"The Ethos of Mark Driscoll: A Summary of an Undergraduate Thesis"
Benjamin SherickBenjamin Sherick graduated from the University of Calgary in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts - Honours First Class in Communication Studies and a minor in Religious Studies. His academic interests include rhetoric, pop culture, music, and religion. He currently resides in Alberta with his wife.
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The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill ChurchMars Hill Church (MHC) was co-founded by Mark Driscoll in 1996. According to the church’s website, “The church began as a Bible study group in the home of Pastor Mark and his wife Grace” (Mars Hill Church, 2015, para. 3). Over the next 18 years, the church would grow in size, prominence and influence under Driscoll’s leadership. MHC began as a local Seattle church and eventually grew into a multi-site network of churches. The church first dabbled in a multi-campus structure in 2006 with the addition of a second campus in Shoreline, Washington. Additional campuses were opened later that same year (Mars Hill Church, 2015, para. 23). MHC continued to open campuses throughout Washington, and expanded to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2009. Prior to its dissolution, MHC had active campuses in five states: Washington, New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Arizona. MHC transcended the common conception of “church” by size alone. In 2011, MHC hosted “the largest church service ever in the Pacific Northwest” (Mars Hill Church, 2015, para. 29) at the Qwest Field sports stadium for Easter Sunday. Attendees from all MHC campuses were asked to attend the service, and the church reported attendance of 17,500 people. Similarly, the church reported that “on April 20, 2014, over 25,000 people gathered at Mars Hill Church locations or watched [the church’s] Easter service online” in celebration of Easter Sunday (Mars Hill Church, 2015, para 34). Toward the end of 2013 and throughout 2014, Mark Driscoll found himself constantly embroiled in controversy. On March 5, 2014, World Online magazine posted an article titled “Unreal Sales for Driscoll’s Real Marriage.” The article claimed that MHC had paid an external marketing company a sum of at least $210,000 to guarantee Real Marriage, a book co-authored by Driscoll and his wife Grace, would make it onto the New York Times best-sellers list (Smith, 2014, para. 1). Although not technically illegal (Smith, 2014, para. 11), the act had an air of deceitfulness that seemed incongruent with expectations of a pastor’s character. The turmoil continued when, on July 27, 2014, Matthew Paul Turner published a selection of highly offensive posts made by Driscoll on a MHC web forum in 2000. In the blog post, Turner provided a link to a pdf of the full forum thread (Turner, 2014). The comments, made under the pseudonym William Wallace II, were highly crass, misogynistic, and homophobic. Driscoll had previously alluded to making the posts in his 2006 book Confessions of a Reformission Rev. Driscoll’s initial post began, “We live in a completely pussified nation” (William Wallace II, 2000, para. 1). The first post was a long diatribe on the state of Christian men, who Driscoll believed had been emasculated by a strong female influence in the church. Pointing to the book of Genesis, Driscoll berated Adam as “the first of the pussified nation, who kept his mouth shut and watched everything fall headlong down the slippery slide of hell/feminism when he shut his mouth and listened to his wife” (William Wallace 11, 2000, para. 2). Driscoll expressed dismay as men became passive and effeminate at the hands of their mothers, wives, and women in general. “The culture and families and churches sprint to hell because the men aren’t doing their job and the feminists continue their rant that it’s all our fault and we should just let them be pastors and heads of homes and run the show” (William Wallace 11, 2000, para. 6). Concurrent with the release of the offensive blog posts, Driscoll communicated with his church via video released on the MHC website. In the video, Driscoll addressed the emerging controversy and his silence on the issue. During the course of the video, Driscoll claimed that some of the difficulty the church had experienced stemmed from the anonymity of its accusers: As well, one of the things that has been complex is the fact that a lot of the people that we are dealing with in this season remain anonymous. And so we don’t know how to reconcile, or how to work things out with, with people because we’re not entirely sure who they are. (Mars Hill Church, 2014a, 6:16) This comment infuriated former members of the church, who had openly criticized the church, identifying themselves in the process. Frustrated critics took to the streets, organizing a peaceful protest of the church on Sunday, August 3, 2014 (as reported by Throckmorton, 2014a). For many, the revelation of the offensive comments, combined with the tone-deaf response of the church, was the last in a long line of offenses, and the church’s situation began to spiral out of control. Days after the comments were made public, members of the church’s Board of Advisors and Accountability resigned (Throckmorton, 2014b; 2014c). Acts 29 Church Planting Network, an organization co-founded by Driscoll, removed Driscoll and MHC from membership for what they considered “ungodly and disqualifying behavior” (Throckmorton, 2014d, para. 3), and recommended Driscoll “step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help” (para. 5). Lifeway Christian Stores pulled Driscoll’s books from their shelves (Throckmorton, 2014e). 21 former MHC pastors brought formal charges against Driscoll regarding his style of leadership (Throckmorton, 2014f). Additionally, nine then-current pastors expressed concern with the governance of the church (Throckmorton, 2014g). At the end of the tumultuous summer of 2014, Driscoll returned from vacation to issue a response. On August 24th, Driscoll announced that he would take an extended break from ministry. The video and transcript of this announcement were subsequently posted to the church’s website (Mars Hill Church, 2014b). A visibly emotional Driscoll expressed remorse for the controversy he had caused (4:14). While discrediting and diminishing some of the criticism levied against him (6:25), Driscoll did acknowledge his confusing silence on the issues (6:53), the wrongness of the web forum comments (7:15), and the criticisms of his personality (8:44). He also revealed the steps he planned to take in addressing the growing controversies (11:44), including a break of at least six weeks while the charges against him were investigated. This meant no preaching and no work. Only a few months later, on October 14, Driscoll submitted his resignation to the church. By the end of October, MHC elected to dissolve as an organization. The dissolution took place at the end of December 2014, with the remaining MHC campuses becoming eleven autonomous churches. |