The Fall of 4 Powerful Christians

The Collapse of Public Christian Leaders and the Need for Discernment

I have requested a break for processing, healing, and growth for a minimum of six weeks, while the leadership assigned by our bylaws conduct a thorough examination of accusations against me. I believe their review can best be performed without me being in the pulpit or the office, and they have agreed to this arrangement.

Hello, my name is Sarah Davis. I'm the CEO of RZIM and the oldest daughter of the late Ravi Zacharias. When I was first presented with the evidence that the allegations were true, it quaked my very being.

Willow Creek Pastor Bill Hybels resigned last year amid multiple allegations. Tonight, an independent investigation determined those accusations were credible.

Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, Ravi Zacharias of Ravi Zacharias Ministries International, Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church, Douglas Phillips of Vision Forum. Why do popular, powerful Christian leaders like this fall, and how should we as Christians respond?

Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill, and the Dangers of Crudeness and Unbiblical Methods

Mark Driscoll was the pastor of Mars Hill, a multi-site megachurch based in Seattle, Washington. Mars Hill had 15 locations in four states and an average weekly attendance of over 12 ,000 people. In an article titled, Grunge Christianity, John MacArthur describes Driscoll as a very effective communicator.

A bright, witty, clever, funny, insightful, crude, profane, deliberately shocking, in-your-face kind of guy. Pastors John Piper and John MacArthur were at odds concerning how to respond to Driscoll's ministry.

Piper decided to support Driscoll's ministry and even invited Driscoll to speak at a Desiring God conference.

And I'm listening to Mark Driscoll preach, and it's a topical message on the authority and inspiration of the Bible. And I got home and I wrote him and I said, that's the best thing I've ever heard on this.

Maybe I didn't say that. I just said it was very, very good. That was how I felt about Mark Driscoll. I didn't like everything about Mars Hill. You know, I don't like everything about your church. What?

We should just stop this right now. I can't believe it. There is no church that I like everything about, including my own. So all that to say, I wasn't blown away by Mark Driscoll. But I appreciated very much.

What I was hearing. In contrast, although MacArthur generally agreed with Driscoll's theology, he had deeper concerns about Driscoll's style and crudeness. MacArthur writes,. His soteriology is exactly right, but that only makes his infatuation with the vulgar aspects of contemporary society more disturbing.

I don't know what Driscoll's language is like in private conversation, but I listened to several of his sermons. To be fair, he didn't use the sort of four-letter expletives that most people think of as cuss words, nothing that might get bleeped on broadcast television these days.

Still, it would certainly be accurate to describe both his vocabulary and his subject matter at times as tasteless, indecent, crude, and utterly inappropriate for a minister of Christ. In every message I listened to, at least once he veered into territory that ought to be clearly marked off-limits for the pulpit.

Nearly 15 years ago,.

I wrote some things on a Mars Hill discussion board on our website using a pseudonym. I quickly realized what I wrote and how I did. It was wrong. We removed the entire section of the website a few months later, and I addressed it publicly in a book I wrote six years later, calling it what it was,.

Wrong. In 2011 and 2012, Mars Hill paid a marketing company called Result Source Incorporated, or RSI, $210 ,000 to get Driscoll's new book, Real Marriage, to the bestseller list. The contract with RSI involved providing RSI with a minimum of 6 ,000 names and addresses for the individual orders, and at least 90 names and addresses for the remaining 5 ,000 bulk orders.

Please note that it is important that the makeup of the 6 ,000 individual orders include at least 1 ,000 different addresses with no more than 350 per state. While this is not illegal, it's certainly inappropriate for a Christian to try to gain the bestseller system in this way.

In 2014, Driscoll was accused of consolidating power at Mars Hill and of abusive behavior, which resulted in the board of Axe 29 Network removing Driscoll from its membership and calling on him to step down from ministry.

That same year, Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill, and soon afterward, Mars Hill Church was dissolved. Driscoll's story shows that using worldly, unbiblical methods, even to teach biblical truth, is an enormous red flag, because it demonstrates a lack of trust in the sufficiency of scripture.

And the sovereignty of God. Hey, this is Michael. Yeah, the real Michael. If you like these videos, would you consider subscribing? It helps YouTube spread this message to more people. I'm giving away a beautiful handcrafted leather Bible every week, and I'm trying to pass Kenneth Copeland in subscribers to show that truth wins over false teaching.

Thank you so much for your eyeballs and.

Support. Ravi Zacharias was the founder of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, an extremely popular Christian apologist with over 40 years of experience, and the author of more than 30 books. Zacharias also hosted two radio programs, Let My People Think and Just Thinking.

After his death in 2020, Zacharias was accused of serious sexual misconduct, which have essentially.

Been confirmed to be true. And so, to the women who are victims of my father's abuse, I think of you every single day. I am utterly devastated. I am sorry that I did not see you. I am sorry that you were made powerless and rendered voiceless.

When you did speak up, I didn't believe you, and I am deeply sorry for this. I want you to have a voice. Thank you for having the courage to speak up and to bring this into the light. Since then, RZIM issued an apology,.

Changed its name, and removed all materials related to Zacharias, and Christian publishers stopped selling all of his books. MacArthur spoke out concerning how Christians should respond to.

Zacharias' moral failings. Is Ravi in hell? And that's a very fair question, and your answer is right. If you confronted that while he was alive, you would say to him, the Bible is explicit that that kind of life is characteristic of someone who's not going to be in the kingdom of God.

Something notable about Zacharias was that he was not known to be accountable to a local church and local elders, which meant his rise in popularity and power lacked men who could speak into his life, raise concerns, or rebuke him.

Bill Hybels, Willow Creek, and the Problem of Seeker-Sensitive Pragmatism

Bill Hybels is the founder and former senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, one of the largest megachurches in the United States, with an average weekly attendance of 24 ,000 people.

Willow Creek is known for being a pioneer in the seeker-sensitive church movement. There are a number of framing ideas and kind of.

Guideposts for the gathering. One is we never want a speaker to lecture more than 10 or 12 minutes,.

And this is really important to us. Hybels resigned in April of 2018 after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him. Hybels denied the accusations, but an independent review determined that the allegations against him were credible.

Douglas Phillips and the Danger of Unaccountable Power

Douglas Phillips was the president of Vision Forum Ministries, which was pretty prominent within the reformed homeschooling community. However, due to an inappropriate extramarital relationship and allegations of sexual abuse, Phillips resigned and Vision Forum Ministries was shut down.

The lesson we learn from these powerful Christians who fell is that we should never place all of our trust in any human leader, and we should exercise lots of discernment regarding which Christian teachers whom we choose to listen to and learn from.

We also learn that too much power and too little accountability from other Christians is a recipe for disaster.