Who else was here for this?? I had a front-row seat for it, watching from a distance and dealing with repercussions. It affected me all the way in Florida. Things have never been the same and I'm not just saying that.

I had a close brother in Jesus who was often heard to say, “That didn’t knock Jesus off His throne!” Miss you brother.

I’ve really enjoyed this series. I didn’t know a lot about Mars Hill or Mark Driscoll. Extremely informative. Can’t imagine how many hours was spent putting this podcast together. Thank you! I really really really appreciate it!

Your programmes in this series were a very hard listen. Long story short, I was a member of a large charismatic church in North London through the 1990s. I worked behind the scenery. We had the likes of T.L. Osborne, Norvel Hayes, Bob Tilton, Ray MacCauley and Roberts Liardon passing through. Sure enough it eventually went belly up in a cloud of scandal. I am still kicking myself. I became deeply cynical. My knuckles still bear teeth marks. My takeaway is that if something so large, influential and addictive can fall apart so quickly, it speaks to the build quality. It is NOT the church Jesus is building. Prayers much appreciated. God bless you and may The Lord have mercy on us all.

I have been listening to his sermons in the “Real Men” podcast from trinity church but was talking to my pastor the other day and he told me to be cautious and to listen to this and see what my thoughts are afterwards

Excellent job with this podcast. Someone in the closing comments said it - Mark Driscoll is not a shepherd, he's a wolf. A man of God who truly cared for his flock could not have done what he did; leaving thousands of people spiritually wounded and shipwrecked. When the pressure was on, and he was asked to make himself accountable he played the victim and fled. Sadly, there are hundreds out there like him across all denominations.

Forgiveness does not absolve you of responsibility or accountability. Churches need to stop circling the wagons around bad behavior.

As a Christian who suffers with depression and anxiety it's so upsetting to see mental health issues treated like sin. The idea that if a Christian has any sort of struggle or trouble it's because of some secret sin or some sinful habit that they just need to get rid of and it will just all go away is so damaging. And cost so many lives.

You did a great weight of glory to our hearts.this will be the day i dont take my faith. For granted..love you jesus

Such a beautiful podcast. The character of Jesus is such a mystery to the world and us. The way he works is a mystery and finding the balance between faith vs flesh is hard. It’s especially hard seeing father figures who use God as authority over you when they themselves utterly lack who He truly is. It’s still something that’s scarred me to this day, but this podcast has been really healing for me. Through it all, God is still good. Thanks CT for what you guys do.

You will soon be doing this podcast for Morris!

Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill church is the perfect example of the "Moses Model" of leadership embraced universally in the church today. Mars Hill could have been an example of the best form of governance as the church had some competent elders that worked despite Mark's anger and spirit of Diotrephes (3 John "I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.") wanted absolute control. That 'spirit of Diotrephes' is rampant in the church.

Such an awesome contribution this series was. We have to really, I mean REALLY wake up about narcissistic 'leaders'. They hold an iron grip on power, and if they go down they take as much and as many as possible with them. They are charming, talk a good talk - at first. They sniff out one's weaknesses and hurts and play on them like on an instrument. If we think we hear the crackling of a fire, the house is probably already ablaze. There is plenty of warning agains this brand of deceivers in the Bible.

I am in Texas and was never a part of the Mars Hill community, but after completing 12 episodes over the course of a week, I'm left with lessons learned and some amount of righteous anger. Having myself been seminary trained for ministry, I know Christians are not perfect people, but a people saved by amazing grace serving a sovereign and perfect savior (and no, you don't have to be seminary trained to know that). I also believe deeply that there is a high bar set for church leadership and true Biblical eldership, and this certainly appears to be where Driscoll stepped around that bar rather than passing over it. His quitting and walking away rather than submitting to the process of restoration laid out by MH Elders is clear evidence of this. Add to that he followed up by going to Arizona and creating a new "kingdom" for himself just adds to this perception. The form of branding engaged by Driscoll seems to be counter to what should be going on in a local assembly of the Body of Christ.

Church spats can be complex and sometimes the blame is not one party or one faction but all factions/parties involved have a responsibility of the explosion or implosion that happened. I do not know what happened at Mars but the warning signs were there and I would hope that people no matter how they veiw the situation learn, not be bitter and can process their experiences to be better stewards for the future. Those who left Mars Hills and discontinued in the fellowship of Christ and His people, find a good Gospel church and seek Him. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Rebuild, read The Word and put your hands to the plough. Jesus is The Lord and one day He will come for His people. Maranatha.

Unfortunately, bad things happen in this sinful world. People are still being deceived and left hurting asking why?? Only Jesus can give peace and restoration, but I understand it still hurts living through it and not holding bitterness. God help us to forgive those who spitefully use us ❤

Heartbreaking story.

Just a couple of thoughts. "The greatest of you shall be a servant." Pastors need to take criticism from their congregation. "Real Men" are tough in that they are not deterred in pursuit of their values such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison; as well as serving their families. When "the works of the flesh" are valued over "the fruit of the Spirit" bad things happen. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." For those who cannot go to church, any church, God is still there, though perhaps by another name.

Incredible series about a depraved freak show. This is the epitome of American Christianity in the 21st century: The depraved leading the desperate.

Driscoll really didn't preach the word

WHY do leaders who do horrible things to ppl still receive $650,000 in SEVERANCE?? Seriously?? That’s an additional sin. Do all of the traumatized ppl get their counseling sessions and hospital bills paid for??

It's rare that I hear people calling out what I've termed "post-salvation works-righteousness." It's so sinister because it uses Christ to legitimize self-righteousness and it sounds so sincere and so obedient to God all while remaining cynical about the power of his grace and critical toward those who refuse to be chained as well. It's basically the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, but if we saw him lecturing his younger sibling...he's a son with the inheritance and access to a fattened calf, but he'd rather slave away for his father and scold his brother than recognize and reflect the grace that he's been given. Christians who cling to this false teaching wrongly view grace as a license to sin and seem unable to comprehend that grace is actually the only means of freedom from sin-because the law/Christian duty/good works can only awaken and make us conscious of our sin and failure. This belief is so insidious because it argues for its own goodness while spitting in God's face regarding the power of the gospel.

I used to go here when I was little it’s crazy now to here about all the stuff that was going on.

This is all so crazy

You know restoration requires repentance and humbling oneself to the congregation. To take full responsibility for your sins and failures. There needs to be a time of proving yourself changed. The leadership that brought the charges have a responsibility to be overseers' and to protect the sheep. Too much covering up going on in churches today. If you desire to be a teacher or a pastor you have the greater accountability before God. There are qualifications in the Bible for Leaders and pastors.

Some of these laments are hard to take seriously. Guys who supported and enabled a spiritual abuser bemoaning the consequences of their lack of discernment really comes across as the Nuremberg defense: "But... we were just following orders!"

I met Levi the Poet. Nice, genuine guy.

That's so true the trauma of the guys who gaslighting the pastors everyday. The yelling , pushing the using the guitar of sin our brain can't take it no more

Narcissists are brilliant at manipulating the narrative and making people view them as the victim……it’s evil…..I’ve experienced it personally and everything about Mark Driscoll gives me every indication of a narcissist without doubt.

Something that has confused me in this episode is the idea that love is greater than the covenant. The host says “the idea that love is constrained by covenance isn’t found in scripture or in any church tradition”. In the context of a marriage relationship, the marriage is constrained by the covenant between the man and the wife. And in that covenant, as many wedding vows say: “I promise to love my significant other…until death do us part.” In that sense love is constrained by the covenant. As far as I’m aware the church believes that love in a marriage sense is only allowed within that marriage covenant. Therefore love is constrained by the marriage covenant. Can anyone help me understand what the host is saying here?

As I near the end of my life… after having a very heartbreaking church experience in my 30’s. I Have aged enough to realize some things. Churches are like large corporations, whether we want to believe this or not is irrelevant. You can set your bar for believers as high as you’d like. But in a group of people heading a general direction there’s bound to be trouble. Some people are smart enough, strong enough, to realize this person is a bad actor, or this person is manipulative, or God help ys all, this person is both. The main lesson I would take away from tjis is don’t cling to your churches. Your pastors. Your worship leaders. Don’t make people your idols in your service of God. You will get burned every time, because if you are serving with your heart… God won’t have it. People are people in the church and outside the church. A wise person once told me if someone is an ahole before the church…. They are the same in the church until God deals with them. Dressing up in a “costume” and attending Trinity was bad juju. Thinking of a person as “short” spiritually doesn’t help. Honesty and openness is the calling of God. An NDA wasn’t the answer then because everyone had already picked what side they were on. Ambushing a pastor after a service in a getup of “rage and anger” is not kosher. And for all the flowery talk of “wounding” and “healing” there was neither. The post modern psychology completely sidestepped the issue. You can have as many so called “ghosts” and “squirrels” as you want. Push comes to shove if you are going to fly a bazillion miles to try and “make it good for your parents”… you are already off the rails. The One you need to call on is God. And He is mysteriously absent out of the whole anti-Driscoll movement. People were worshiping a system of men. And when it collapsed, and they always do, people were “destroyed “. “Devastated “ “broken”. From one who has been there, the size of your “emotional upheaval” is in direct proportion to how much stock you have put in MEN. That way you can carry it around and cry about it 10 years later… which ultimately makes it about YOU… and God. This was so mishandled. Terrorizing both sides. But ultimately Mark picked up the pieces and started building. Most of the men have. Those who are still blaming, and emotionalizing really need to put their hand to the plow, remember Lot’s wife. And pray Jeremiah 29:11-13 until it’s burned into their brains. It’s dangerous to hold believers to a higher standard than other humans. God will always knock them off the pedestal.

How come that spiritual fatherhood is accepted and advanced as if it is Biblical; this while the concept is contrary to instruction in NT Scripture? 🧐

The idea that wives alone should be submissive to their husbands, is extremely destructive to marriage relationships; hampering spiritual growth of husbands especially. Scripturally sound are concepts like mutual submission (submitting to one another) - in reverance to Christ, and servant leadership - as modeled by Him.

Interesting that Mars is the ancient Roman god of war.

I'm very active in my church, but not an evangelical. I've been aware of Mars Hill and Driscoll for more than a decade, and even from a distance it was clear who this man is. What has been a mystery was why he succeeded so long as he did. This series goes some distance towards explaining that. In this series, I also heard some statements with which I strongly concur. What I didn't hear until the last episode was some examination of how the dogma (dogma, not theology - because it has nothing to do with the nature of God) of the white evangelical movement in America enables behavior like that of Driscoll. Dogma like the hierarchy of men over women, elders over men, pastor over pastors, and one pastor who cannot be questioned. Include in this hierarchy, the whole notion of complementarianism that creates as system of greaters and lessers among God's children is tailormade to create the sort of abuse rampant at Mars Hill. To a Christ-follower, the persistence of this dogma is at best an odd curiosity. Yes, I'm being kind.

I wonder the depth of Jesse Bryan's faith prior to Mars Hill...whether it was just his parents faith and then Mark's faith and then after...was there no faith?...also...any pastor that has walked with a family through crisis and death will have a huge degree of loyalty given to them...you can't chalk it all up to Narcissism.

✅

The NT espouses many christian duties and expectations. That doesn't equate to "going back to law" Mark taught a corrupted version of expectations but that doesn't mean chrsitian duty and expectation are not part of the gospel message.

He sounded like Dr. Phil with a Bible , and $650k a year for a Pastor seems obscene 😮

There has been both good and bad with this series but the fact CT had to revisit all the misogyny and abuse to women on the last episode titled "aftermath" shows CT true motive for all of this. Alot of lessons for everyone to take from this dumpsterfire both layman and clergy alike. It wasn't always easy but I made it through!

This was really helpful and beautifully told. I wonder when you'll be able to tell a similar story about the rise and fall of the Trump cult.

Mark Driscoll is a piece of work, an awful pastor but CT is a woke publication and it's progressive leaning comes out in this expose'. Therefore I take everything I've listened to with a grain of salt.

Aside from a progressive theology that favors egalitarian principles, this wonderfully produced prodcast really misses an opportunity to dissect the goings-on at Mars Hill. As for Driscoll, there are really two buckets to consider: teaching/preaching and everything else. But, the series conflates the two and continually drifts back and forth between them. This gets confusing at times and, at other times, limits the impact of certain stories. In the "everything else" bucket are things like the plagiarism scandal, the growth vision (get on/run over by the bus), branch campus philosophy, bylaw changes, hiring/firing practices, and so on. Administration and general leadership/vision for the church fit here. When Paul Petri gets wrongfully terminated/removed, we don't learn much. We learned that they had disagreements about the new bylaws and then were oustered. But the charges levied against them weren't "you disagreed with Mark." I don't doubt they got bulldozed unfairly, but I still don't know why or how. I feel like I missed an opportunity to really feel their pain because I never really was told the spurious accusations and mischaracterizations that were levied against them. And much of it is like this ... people were hurt and it was Driscoll's fault ... because they said so. There's a lot here to disqualify Driscoll (lying, stealing [intellectually], etc.), but there is also a lot of supposition that just because a person feels wronged then they must have, in fact, been wronged. In the preaching/teaching bucket, we have two main categories: content and style. For style, swearing from the pulpit and using sexually explicit phrasing is objectively wrong. As with the "everything else" bucket, there are some things here that by themselves may be enough to remove Driscoll from leadership. But, it's the content bucket that CT really gets wrong and its feminist leanings show through. For the men, little is said negatively about the content to challenge men to lead Biblically defined masculine roles and to fill those roles carved out in the Bible as leader, provider, protector, someone who loves (Biblically) their wives as Christ loved the church, and so on. The content is fine, but the style trended into abusive territory. For the women, this was turned on its head. Here, the focus was much more on the content. As much as the difficult message to men to deny self and to lead more Biblically-defined masculine lives was OK, the call to women to lead more Biblically-defined feminine lives was definitely not OK. This is really where the series comes apart. And this is where the old cliches come into play: just because you are offended doesn't mean I was offensive; just because you are hurt doesn't mean I was hurtful; just because you feel disrespected doesn't mean I was disrespectful. This ultimately culminates into two discussions near the end of this final entry into the main podcast. The first is a mention that one of the branch campuses that spun into a plant would be meeting, but with a more liberal, progressive, egalitarian congregation. Translation: women pastors, flying the rainbow flag outside. Nothing is spoken about lamenting this falling away from the truth of scriptures and, instead, coalescing with the culture. The other is a more of a one-off statement from a guy who might have walked away from the faith and in thinking about the overall nature of what happened at Mars Hill in the context of Christianity as a whole says something to the effect of: "I don't know how you can read the Bible literally and not end up here." That spoke less about the "everything else bucket" and more about the teaching/preaching/content part about people constantly feeling beaten up about repentance, turning from sin, and following Jesus. And fleshing out that one statment and wrestling with the truth (or untruth) of that in context of Biblical teaching, the process of sanctification, and the content preached/taught at Mars Hill would have been a wonderful deep dive ... a deep dive that never happened.

Wasn’t Luther inspirational to Hitler?

Ugh, that Bonoesque singing.

The fact people left MH for more progressive churches is a terrible part of the aftermath not properly highlighted here. Progressive Christianity isn’t Christianity. It’s New Age trash. That’s why they’re egalitarian, to point out one unBiblical issue. This podcast is dangerously sympathetic towards New Age progressive “Christianity” and overly cynical about some of Mark’s teaching. I’m convinced plenty of MH members were just so disgusted by Mark that they couldn’t handle conviction and the full Gospel anymore, so they went to watered-down feel-good progressive churches.