Mark Driscoll: New Church Same Old Ugly Personality

[Antipatriarch]

Critical theory is about seeing society and history through the lens of power dynamics. Like any theory, it's one way to model and view reality. I think it has a lot of value, especially in revealing how racism and sexism are not just about 1-on-1 personal interactions, but they are systemic. We aren't going to make meaningful progress on those fronts until most people really get that.

Hardly any evangelicals completely embrace critical theory; they see it as opposed to their theology. There are a few who take a more nuanced "what can we learn from this? what parts of this can we take that are useful?" kind of approach.

But for the average pew-sitter, it's become a reflexive negative reaction. They don't even really understand what it is, they just know their team is supposed to be opposed to it. It's being used as a catch-all, just the way Driscoll does in that video clip: "This is why things are so bad today; O that we could return to the good ol' 1950s before critical theory." Same with BLM, or the way evangelicals use the word "woke" as a pejorative, etc. They're not willing to do the work of engaging with the issue, they see the labels and they defensively throw up their hands.

[Howl]

On 8/8/2021 at 3:31 PM, CrazyCatLady said:

I was very turned off by mark. I always thought it was weird that so many of my friends and family attended the church given mark's obvious misogyny.

All those guys...Kenneth Copeland, Jim Bakker, Driscoll, Joel Osteen, John Piper, Wilson and on and on...insanely red-flag creepy in various ways.  Their essence just radiates "I am a problematic human!" and yet people fall all over themselves with adulation and offers of money. 

I just DO NOT get the appeal.  

[smittykins]

I keep misreading “critical theory” as “critical thinking.”  Well, many evangelicals don’t completely embrace that, either.

[clueliss]

Well, guess who found his way to tiktok?  
 

not linking to him.  In the spoiler in a clip/link to That Abby Smith, Exvangelical pastor.
 

Spoiler

 

 

[Howl]

14 hours ago, clueliss said:

... a clip/link to That Abby Smith, Exvangelical pastor.

Oh my gosh she's brilliant!  This absolutely made my day:  "You reptilian sociopathic serial abuser.  I hope Gen Z finds your videos.  I want to watch them make you cry!" 

 

[clueliss]

Abby, Rachel Spears and April Ajoy have a monthly video/podcast called the HERetics.  (The fourth is Lindsey who had to step back).  I think April is part of the Evangelicalish podcast.  Rachel has her own podcast, The Recovering Evangelical.  Abby is queer and pastors an affirming church in northern Kentucky.

[Antipatriarch]

Anyone else still slogging through the CT podcast? The latest drop (second-to-last episode) is a long one, about the leadership breakdown and the issues that ultimately torpedoed Mars Hill. It's person after person after person, each sharing their exit stories (usually after one issue that became the "straw that broke the camel's back").

I wonder if Driscoll is listening to these.

[hoipolloi]

4 hours ago, Antipatriarch said:

Anyone else still slogging through the CT podcast?

I am. Finished that marathon episode during my daily walks of 3 days. I doubt that Driscoll is listening. Why should he? He got off scot free and is fleecing a new bunch of suckers in AZ. 

What still disturbs me is how clueless all of these ex-members (say they) were. I can't believe they didn't notice the abuse. It seems like as long as THEY were doing OK they didn't give a shit about anything Driscoll said or did. And Mike Cosper is playing the subliminal "Mars Hill just did it wrong" card as are many of the people he interviews.

None of them admit (or perhaps understand) that Driscoll and Mars Hill were the logical outcomes of the abusive church structure at MH and in so many other American evangelical churches.

[hoipolloi]

FINALLY finished the two remaining podcast episodes.

Bonus episode on the founding of Acts 29: This one provides the backstory on Acts 29 in which we learn that the main person behind its founding was the late David Nicholas, a noted church planter, who co-founded Acts 29 with Driscoll. They had a falling out, and Nicholas left the Acts 29 board & organization. Driscoll's abusive behavior was a primary reason. How & why someone as allegedly wonderful and astute as Nicholas did not see Driscoll for the fucking asshole he was & is -- something my grandkids would notice within seconds of entering the same room as MD -- is a mystery to me. Then again, none of these godly patriarchs seem to have even the discernment God gave a cockroach. 

FINAL episode on the aftermath: Mike Cosper begins to approach the structural toxicity of MH and similar churches in this episode. He even spends time interviewing women who were dealing with DV at home but got no help from MH "counseling." Still, there's a whole air of "MH did it wrong" that pervades this episode as well. Hardly a penetrating or even reflective analysis overall. There are a number of interesting interviews though, including one with Benjamin Petry, the son of Paul Petry, who was one of the first MH elders to be kicked out in the mid-2000s over trying to bring MD to accountability. Benjamin actually went to the AZ cult, attended services, and then met MD afterwards, asking him if he would reach out to his father. No answer & no phone call, of course. You can read about it at the link.

[Howl]

On 11/17/2021 at 1:39 PM, hoipolloi said:

None of them admit (or perhaps understand) that Driscoll and Mars Hill were the logical outcomes of the abusive church structure at MH and in so many other American evangelical churches.

Not just the structure but the inherently abusive patriarchal beliefs/submission of women that saturated their entire theology. 

Paul Petry was cast as such a genuinely nice guy who ran afoul of Mark Driscoll and was totally screwed over.  But Driscoll was preaching his ugly theology the entire time Petry was there and Petry (and his wife) had to have bought into it completely. 

[hoipolloi]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

Petry was there and Petry (and his wife) had to have bought into it completely. 

Yep, and they were fine with it until it got turned against them.

 

[starfish]

On 11/17/2021 at 1:39 PM, hoipolloi said:

I am. Finished that marathon episode during my daily walks of 3 days. I doubt that Driscoll is listening. Why should he? He got off scot free and is fleecing a new bunch of suckers in AZ. 

What still disturbs me is how clueless all of these ex-members (say they) were. I can't believe they didn't notice the abuse. It seems like as long as THEY were doing OK they didn't give a shit about anything Driscoll said or did. And Mike Cosper is playing the subliminal "Mars Hill just did it wrong" card as are many of the people he interviews.

None of them admit (or perhaps understand) that Driscoll and Mars Hill were the logical outcomes of the abusive church structure at MH and in so many other American evangelical churches.

I'm just now getting to this podcast. It makes me so angry. I can't believe the lady who worked for him until he accused her of "heresy"--and then he fired her. She kept going to church there until he called her out--from the pulpit--for being a traitor. What was the matter with those people? Good grief.

And listening to his own words and some of the comments, Mark Driscoll strikes me as being a frustrated, closeted homosexual. All that anger and venom towards women. All that yearning to be with other men. It's Natty Darnell x100. 

 

[starfish]

Still trudging through the podcast, but I have to stop because I get so angry at MD and his lemmings.

But if Doug Phillips is a tool, can Mark Driscoll be something too? Like a raggedy, microscopic tool? My anger is suppressing my creativity so that's all I can come up with for now. 

[Howl]

9 hours ago, starfish said:

But if Doug Phillips is a tool, can Mark Driscoll be something too?...My anger is suppressing my creativity so that's all I can come up with for now. 

The name "Driscoll" has so much baggage at this point that he may not need a special moniker, other than a**hole. 

It's sad that he's set up a new church, successfully brought in new congregants and is doing the only thing he (as a narcissist)  knows how to do: set up a patriarchal regime that is authoritarian and cruel and accrues wealth to himself and family. 

Note that keeping family members/offspring in the power structure (a la Trump) is classic authoritarianism. 

[Aprilchat]

They got me at Driscoll has been described as "an evangelical bad boy." Also, no one who has a mega church has proven to be a good person, why would this guy be any different?

[clueliss]

12 hours ago, starfish said:

Still trudging through the podcast, but I have to stop because I get so angry at MD and his lemmings.

But if Doug Phillips is a tool, can Mark Driscoll be something too? Like a raggedy, microscopic tool? My anger is suppressing my creativity so that's all I can come up with for now. 

Based on my memory of listening to his sermon podcast back in the day. It needs to be something related to hanging drywall. Because that’s what his daddy did and he always use that and sermons as an example.

[hoipolloi]

Sadly, I think this CT podcast series on MH is about the sum total of self-examination we're going to see from evangelical Protestants. Every one of the "critics" that Mike Cosper lined up, along with Cosper himself, clearly believe that Driscoll & MH just did it wrong. They are incapable of seeing the fundamentally flawed and toxic belief system they all continue to embrace. 

As an outsider and non-believer, as these people like to call me, all I can say in response is: "Burn it down. Burn it ALL down."

 

[Howl]

1 hour ago, hoipolloi said:

They are incapable of seeing the fundamentally flawed and toxic belief system they all continue to embrace. 

As an outsider and non-believer, as these people like to call me, all I can say in response is: "Burn it down. Burn it ALL down."

You are not alone in this belief. 

[theotherelise]

There is an independent podcast called Bodies Behind the Bus which brings on one person each episode who experienced spiritual abuse at an acts 29 church. It’s a much more honest look at the ways the very system of acts 29 is problematic, not that there are just assholes and sometimes they end up being pastors. I’ve got a friend who is likely going to be on it soon and she said the hosts have been really great to work with too. 

[Black Aliss]

My apologies if this has been posted before. I didn't see it anywhere. 

If Megachurches were honest:

Spoiler

 

 

[Howl]

Holy Nondenominational Happy Jesus House!   This is brilliantly funny.  And accurate.  I think the "natural disaster" reference was throwing shade on Joel Osteen for not opening his mega church during the hurricane in Houston, when tens of thousands of people were flooded out of their homes. 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Howl

[starfish]

As I continue to slog through CT's podcast....do you all recall when Doug Phillips, who is a tool,'s church BAC kicked Jen Epstein out? 

She kept writing all those letters to the church and begging to be let back in. Then she started that blog. Some of those Mars Hill folks remind me of her. They just want to be let back in.  It's truly pathetic. 

But I still feel like all of those members who were Outraged! at the way they were treated, had no problem seeing other people treated that way. They only got Outraged! when it happened to them. 

And the part about the domestic violence victims being counseled to stay with their abusers....the church should have been sued

and they are lucky they weren't.  I have other thoughts about that situation but I'll just leave it there for now. 

 

 

[hoipolloi]

3 hours ago, starfish said:

I still feel like all of those members who were Outraged! at the way they were treated, had no problem seeing other people treated that way. They only got Outraged! when it happened to them. 

 

💯 to all this. These people all thought things were just fine until their situations went bad. 

Re: Jen (Epstein) Fishburne. That's a very apt comparison.

[hoipolloi]

Wondering if Mike Cosper is now working on a podcast about the (unsurprising) revelations of sexual harassment and abuse at Christianity Today?

Quote

 

For more than a dozen years, Christianity Today failed to hold two ministry leaders accountable for sexual harassment at its Carol Stream, Illinois, office.

A number of women reported demeaning, inappropriate, and offensive behavior by former editor in chief Mark Galli and former advertising director Olatokunbo Olawoye. But their behavior was not checked and the men were not disciplined, according to an external assessment of the ministry’s culture released Tuesday.

The report identified a pair of problems at the flagship magazine of American evangelicalism: a poor process for “reporting, investigating, and resolving harassment allegations” and a culture of unconscious sexism that can be “inhospitable to women.” CT has made the assessment public.

 

I had missed it when it appeared last fall but this good commentary on Cosper's and CT's hypocrisy is spot on.

[neuroticcat]

Not sure the origin of this but saw it floating around Twitter today for a Driscoll initiated t shirt design contest. Driscoll gonna Driscoll. 🙄