Cultish: Mark Driscoll & The Cult Of Personality

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Well, Mars Hill's like one big, crazy road trip with Jesus as the driver, and I thought it would be fun to take folks around and let them see where we've met in the past, where we're at in the present, where we're going in the future.

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I get the great joy of seeing most of what Jesus is doing. Most people only get to see their community group, their church, their service, and they don't really get to share in all the enthusiasm and joy of everything that God and his people are doing.

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So I'm really excited to be able to take folks around and let them see what I see.

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Last thing I ever thought I would be was a pastor, because growing up Catholic, the pastor is a guy who lives at the church, is flat broke, is committed to never having sex, and walks around in a dress.

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So pretty much that was last career choice of all possible career choices.

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All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I'm one of the co -hosts here.

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I'm particularly super excited for this episode. What you just heard there was a promotional clip for a sermon series that was done by Mars Hill Church back when they were around, for those of you who knew about that time.

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And this is an episode where we are going to be really doing a critique of a very popular podcast called

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The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. It was produced by Christianity Today. Myself, Andrew, and our guest,

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Tim, we have all listened to the episode. We all have some, we all have our thoughts that we're going to be unraveling in this conversation.

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As always, I am here with Andrew, the super sleuth of the show. Sleuth in the back, well, sleuth in your own little office.

01:51

I'm still jealous of your setup, man, over in right outside Salt Lake City, Utah. What's the city that you're in again?

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What's the name of it? Harriman. You can remember it as Harryman. Jerry is a Harryman. Harryman, Harryman, Utah.

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Yeah, so as again, I mentioned, I'm really excited to kind of unpack and unravel. I think this is a really important conversation that I think a lot of people are going to identify with.

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And just real quickly. So we are here with Tim Zion. How are you doing, man?

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Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, and so you are currently, you currently live in Seattle, right? I do,

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I do. I am a Pacific Northwest kid all my life. Been in Seattle since 97.

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So yeah, I have been here. You know, I'll obviously get into the Marseille connections and all those things.

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But yeah, I'm a Pacific Northwest. Give me a warm cup of coffee, an overcast drizzle any day.

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It's like a nice hug. That's my jam. Yeah, yeah,

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I can definitely tell. I mean, every time I hung out with you, as soon as you start brewing that coffee, you definitely have that like Seattle vibe, that like love for coffee.

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You can just, yeah, you definitely have that. So yeah, so just tell them, just kind of jump in.

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So your background, the reason why we have you on here is that obviously we're going to be talking about this podcast,

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The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. I think it's on a lot of people's minds that we can unpack that. I believe currently the last several weeks since the podcast has been out, it's ranked in the top.

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It's been in the top 100, probably in the top 50, like all of them. They're just kind of, they're all ranked on the top of the different episodes.

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So we'll be unraveling them. So maybe just from a personal level, can you just talk to us? You know, you shared just a little bit about yourself and you said you're married and you've got how many kids?

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Six kids. Six kids, awesome. Praise God. Yeah, that's awesome, man. And so just jumping into it, how did you get connected to Mars Hill?

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Because you were on staff for 10 years, but I'm just kind of curious too, because you grew up in Seattle.

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So you really know about the Seattle, the culture of Seattle. What was it that kind of led you to getting involved with Mars Hill at that time?

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Yeah, so a couple of corrections. Yeah, I mean, first of all, we were at Mars Hill for over a decade.

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I was on staff. I oversaw small groups when we went to multi -site, all kinds of stuff.

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So I was always involved in community groups as they were called at Mars Hill. I was on staff for actually only about five years, four or five years there towards the end, right before we left.

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But yeah, so we started going to Mars Hill. The timeline's kind of like,

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I was coming out of college, about ready to get married, probably 98, 99. I mean,

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I remember, if those that are familiar with the

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Mars Hill story, Jamie Monson was a deacon, and I remember when the

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Petrie family came to a barbecue. So I was there early on, no kids, with my wife, and even before I was married.

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And so 99 -esque, there was a five o 'clock service, First Pres in Seattle, even sort of before the paradox was starting to launch services, or was just starting to launch services.

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So yeah, so I was there all the way up till Mark started preaching at Bellevue, which was my campus.

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I'm on the east side of Seattle. And so, I mean, in the early days,

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I got Christmas cards from Mark. I know, everyone who's on the podcast, yeah,

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I personally spoke with, no, it's gonna be an interesting, everyone telling their kind of side, so I'm sure

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I'll get some phone calls and some text messages after this comes out. So yeah, it's interesting.

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Yeah, definitely, man. I think what was interesting too, in the podcast, which I appreciated is that, there were a couple of moments where it kind of took you into the journey of someone who attended for the first time and how they kind of perceived what was going on.

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Or even like their perceptions of Mark and how he taught. And I remember just listening to him, back when

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I first, I had some people at church and I was listening in, I think it was back when he was doing the Rebel's Guide to like joy and anxiety or joy.

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You know what series I'm talking about, right? Yeah, I know the series. Yeah, I mean, like we can just jump in in all kinds of different ways.

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So, even as we talk about the journey of Mars Hill, one of the things, and obviously like, I wanna be as gracious as possible with the podcast and those that were on the podcast.

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You can't cover an entire thing. I hope what we'll be able to discuss is where I really feel like they didn't understand both

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Seattle culture, what was going on and the relevance there. And then also,

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I think they try and hang a bit, somehow do a little bait and switch and I will count out of the bag.

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I mean, I really feel like they try and hang it on, reformed theology and Calvinism and all these toxic things.

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And I don't know if that's where you hang on kind of the errors and the things that happened in Mars Hill.

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And I don't know if it would be helpful, but I would really, I mean, I would love to couch at least start talking about, we're talking about a time and they do a good job of talking about, especially when they have

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Jesse on, talking about the internet or Brian Zuck, who was early on and had the

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Zucks talking about, I mean, he was at Real Networks and like doing a bunch of stuff with, he was the first one to put an

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MP3 on the Mars Hill website. And you can time hop the old Mars Hill website too, which is always an interesting, super slithish type of thing.

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But I guess, and I don't wanna take over the conversation, but I do wanna couch it in Pacific Northwest.

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The thing that people have to understand about Pacific Northwest at that time, is it's super liberal. We're in a postmodern time where everyone kind of my age coming up through college had postmodern parents, had parents who everything was relative and just this kind of like, there is no truth other than obviously that truth, that there is no truth.

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And so you had all these kids who are just looking for some type of concrete thing to hold on to.

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And then the Pacific Northwest in general, it's got a deep individualism.

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There's not thick diverse relationships at all in the Pacific Northwest. A lot of people call that the

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Seattle chill. And honestly, as someone from around here, I didn't even recognize that was a thing.

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And so, I mean, there's a, I guess, I just wanna kind of say that, there's a lot where we try and look at Mars Hill and go, oh, how do we stop this?

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And I think that they're, I don't think they hit how you stop this from happening.

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I think they diagnosed a particular time in a particular place and misdiagnosed in a lot of places.

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Wow. So go ahead Andrew. Yeah, what you're saying is it sounds like that this was a time of war, right?

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We're almost always at war in a sense in Christianity with the world, the flesh and the devil. And it seems like maybe the podcast was a little bit ignorant to the fact that Christians are at war with the world, right?

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And there's something going on in that time where there was a leader that was needed to do something maybe, or sound more intense than the typical person.

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Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, I think that, yes, but then I also think the podcast vilifies war and the talk of war.

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So Mark did, what I would say, he has a ton of errors.

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Like I had personal one -on -one conversations with Mark. And let me tell you, awkward. Mark in general is just as an individual who's socially awkward as a one -on -one.

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And that's not to say all the things that, I mean, I think the podcast did say some nice things about him and had people who had good relationships.

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I do think they take this warfare language that Mark used and they talk about fight club and all kinds of stuff, which we were apart.

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Like I remember, I mean, I remember the paradox meeting with all the men, those types of things.

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However, I think what you just talked about is exactly right. Apparently we aren't gonna cover the fact that the

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Bible talks about us as believers in a war, but we're not in a war of flesh and blood.

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And that there is this warfare that we are, even the historical taking dominion, the dominion mandate is somehow again in the podcast.

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I don't know if it's intentional. I don't know. They don't outright say it, but there is this vilification of taking dominion.

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And so I think all of those are issues, but I would say in the Pacific Northwest, yeah, there's a reason they have

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Ed Setzer a bunch in the podcast. And Ed's, I don't know. I have varying theological opinions about all these people, but I think they're the majority, at least those that still confess

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Christ are brothers and sisters. And I don't have any ill thoughts towards them, but I do think that even

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Ed used to talk about how the Pacific Northwest was the nun zone, and that's one of those things that Mark would talk about, that it's this place where the missionary movements never met.

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And so you literally have, there's no Christian culture in the Pacific Northwest. And I don't think that everyone who would wanna critique and throw rocks don't understand the

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Pacific Northwest. And so, yeah, I would say there's a clash of ideas, but really you have kind of the

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West Coast liberal and then the hardcore individualistic Pacific Northwest, where I remember,

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I can't remember if it's Wendy or, I know it was Jen, Jen Schmidt, who

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I know both of those people, knew both of those people at that time. And I remember Jen talking about how it was a culture of Mars Hill that was some, was this individualism, like we had to have our own music, we had to have our own like everything.

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And I would say all of those things are true, but I think it's a misdiagnosis. That's called the Pacific Northwest.

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Nothing's cool unless it comes from Seattle. And that's how every single person who's from Seattle thinks, including myself.

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So it would be very hard, for example, if someone from the outside came to come, tried to plant a church right now or in Seattle, or even back then, if they came completely from the outside, had their own ideas and cultures, and they weren't really attuned to the

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Seattle culture, it would be a lot more difficult even back then, or even now, for example.

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Yeah, I mean, I think that, just it sort of depends, I think for the demographic that Mars Hill reached, that punk rock,

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I mean, Joel Brown talks about it in the podcast really well. And I know Joel, I mean, that's what's difficult listening to all these.

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I mean, some of them I'm like, I don't know if I agree, but almost 100 % of them, my heart aches and I love these people because they represent a time in my life and aspects of preaching the gospel to a broken

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Seattle. And so, yeah, I would say that, I think that you, at that time, for sure, to reach the group of people that you were reaching, which was,

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I mean, Mark makes a joke about it, was like, I don't know, like punk rock, dudes with no jobs and like, whatever.

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And that is the reality, that was, I mean, my wife hated it at first, and she wasn't my wife at the time, but when we went to church, she grew up A .G.

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You know, she hated Marcel because it was the goth church. Mark had no neck, was wearing all black.

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There was, it was lit by candlelight. I want you to think about this. And when you walked in, you got like a two page,

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I mean, Mark literally used to preach and all his sermon was written out. You had two pages of,

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I mean, I remember going in, we're here in Exodus and Mark's sermon was written out in like the tiniest font and you do the whole thing and all his notes, everything was handed to you at the door.

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And so he didn't, you know, he wasn't the, he had, and he was a, he wasn't a horrible preacher, but he definitely wasn't as good as he was later.

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But it was the first time, at least for me, that I had heard anyone actually take the Bible seriously and not care about my feelings.

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And I don't mean that in like a, Mark went extreme on that, but you know, in the early days, it was very much like, hey, here's what the gospel says.

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I believe it and I'm gonna not apologize for it. And so, you know, that was attractive, especially for a postmodern kid who everything's relative.

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Yeah, that's really good. And I'm just curious about this too, because when I think of Seattle and I've only gone there, but when

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I've, for work, you know, we worked together. And when I've been there, I go to the Seattle airport by way through Pullman, by flying to Pullman.

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And then it's just interesting being there. I mean, when I think of Seattle, I think of just dystopian, liberal, overcast a lot.

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And, but too, I think of just the musical culture. It's got a very distinct musical culture. You think of the bands that came out of there, even the late nineties when you joined and when

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Driscoll began to just start to become sort of a name in both in the city and also in other areas as well too.

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And we can unpack that, especially kind of getting into the podcasting era and when that all started. But you think about Nirvana is what came out of the, it came out of Seattle.

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You have bands like Pearl Jam, you have Soundgarden that was headed up by Chris Cornell.

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And so even in the Foo Fighters had an album that came out called Sonic Highways. And they also had a documentary, which they go into the aspects of the music culture of Seattle, just as very grunge, very counterculture.

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And so was there an aspect to, how did the culture of Seattle affect how

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Driscoll really started his ministry? Was he sort of, did he see himself too as almost being counterculture, sort of vicariously emulating the culture of Seattle, just trying to do his best as a

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Christian at that time? Well, I mean, I think that would be the most charitable way to present it.

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Yes, I mean, in so many ways, yes. But I think that kind of that individualistic, again, the podcast kind of glossed over and they were like, oh yeah,

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Mark came out of, I almost said the wrong Antioch, with Hutch and here on the east side, which is where I'm from.

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So, and I went to a university where the chapel was taken up by Antioch Bible Church, which is where Mark at least started to attend.

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And here's the part that I think is glossed over where I think gets to some of the roots of what are some of the root causes.

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And that is, Mark to an extent was barely, I mean, when, I don't know if Mark was actually a member at Antioch, even though it was implied that he was.

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I mean, Mark in many ways had said that he had never been a member of a church until planting Mars Hill.

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And that to me is a little bit more correct where, I mean, you have a young dude who his first interactions with Christianity in a real serious way is planting a church.

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You know, that's problematic on a lot of different levels. You know, and, but that also

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I would say is Pacific Northwest to an extent where, you know, the denominations, you know, other than those that came up, you know,

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Azusa, Strait Shore, we got the AG, but we also have, you know, a little bit of vineyard coming up from California.

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You have, you know, also a little bit of four square coming up, but those are our influences there in the

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Pacific Northwest, at least from a church culture. And so, you know, as you kind of see that and you look through that, it's no strong denominational ties.

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So in what Driscoll, I think rightly kind of culturally saw was those that, you know, are

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Presbyterian or have, you know, different issues or have different, you know, denominational ties, they move slow.

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They, you know, they're not preaching the gospel in the way that, you know, Mark would say is effective and they're not diagnosing the culture correctly.

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So, you know, so what comes out of that is a young dude who's on fire, but also won't take any, even in the youngest, he did have my gun and he had a leaf, but, you know, as later comes on and man,

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I don't care. I have no apologies of saying this, you know, in a public forum for the sake of his kids.

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But I mean, especially someone like Leif Moy had some huge character issues. I think that what

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Mark, what Mars Hill is marked with are a lot of people in leadership positions that biblically were unqualified.

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And I don't say that as like, I'm hardcore qualified. I was in the eldership process. I was a leader at Mars Hill and there's a lot, you know, that I want to take, you know, that I can take responsibility for and talk through.

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However, you know, if we just look at the biblical mandates and not being hasty and putting anyone in leadership, that was not

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Mars Hill. And so, you know, like it's funny when I'm listening to the podcast and I'm agreeing with so much, but then the diagnosis is just,

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I don't know, a random soapbox about Calvinism and, you know, chauvinistic males and reformed theology.

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I'm like, we're not following the Bible on what it is to be a leader and what it is to be a pastor and be under authority.

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Like you barely heard, Mark was not under authority. It was almost like, well, you know, he just became a chauvinist, you know?

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You're like, okay, I don't know, so. Yeah, that's definitely,

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I definitely appreciate you saying that. And just a thought and observation too is that, I mean, obviously

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I was just thinking too, you know, our show is called Cultish. So we typically deal with definitive cults, historical cults, and even theological cults.

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And we kind of look sometimes at somebody who's a charismatic leader and we kind of look at those traits.

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But I think many a times too, we're talking about, you know, and even Mark had this in his book,

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The Call to Resurgence, but he mentioned to Seattle being a postmodern culture and almost paying homage to Mark here, where he said, as Seattle goes, so goes the nation.

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Here we are now in 2021. And I think we've even become so much of a postmodern culture even now, when you look at all the different issues with LGBT and with gender and the they, them and pronouns and all that.

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So you definitely see this abandonment of truth or even the redefinition of words, where now words aren't really truly defined, but they're just this emotional impact.

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It's not about what these words mean, but it's how it makes you feel. So when you look at, in many cases, legitimate hurt that came from what happened at Mars Hill, you still want to realize that, you know, just because someone experiences hurt does not definitively mean that this is a cult or this person because they're flawed and fallible and there's not checks and balances.

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That doesn't necessarily mean that they're a cult leader. So I think it's important as we unravel this conversation, one is to realize that, you know, we are approaching this from a

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Christian worldview and knowing that there are specific standards given as far as what the biblical role of an elder should be, not laying hands on someone that quickly.

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You know, there's a reason why the Bible talks about those who are going to be teachers are going to come under a stricter form of judgment.

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So I think that's something we want to unravel too, is that, you know, we are not here, we're not here to say that Mars Hill was a cult.

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There's people who I think would make that, would try and say that, but almost using postmodern language or even kind of look at who

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Driscoll was would probably put him categorically. I just want to clarify, that's not our position and that's not what we're stating in this podcast.

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But what I do want to maybe just get your thoughts on though is a couple of things. One is when you look at right now, given -

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Jeremiah, Jeremiah, can you hold for three seconds? Yeah. Because here's all I would, like what you said about, you know, as Seattle goes, so does

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Mars Hill. I would say one of the errors from a church planting and everything else, that's a riff off Tim Keller.

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The center of all culture is cities. And that's where Mark got that. That's where, you know, that kind of mentality that, no, if we're building it and we build it big in a city, therefore we are somehow relevant.

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And, you know, that by that impact, that kind of cultural impact, which is pop culture, then somehow that validates us as a church.

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And I would say that that's not biblical. That your validation, that those who, that it's the

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Lord who plants the church and tears it down. And, you know, we can talk about institutionalisms and all kinds of stuff, but that,

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I mean, I would say that Mark just took Keller to its logical conclusion and here's what we got.

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And that's difficult. I respect Tim Keller. I'm a PCA elder. And as you know,

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Tim Keller is PCA. Like we are not only brothers in Christ, but we are also in the same denomination.

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However, I do feel like that's a, you know, as you're evaluating churches and as you, you know, any listener who's thinking through and talking about this overemphasization of, you know, taking the kind of the cultural mandate in kind of a pop culturist way.

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That's what Driscoll did. Yeah. What do you think though? Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that's a great point as well too.

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So when you look though at the ranking of how popular this podcast has been, you know, the, all the episodes are ranking the top 50 in iTunes.

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Like, what do you, like, what do you think is the appeal right now? We've got tons of messages asking us what our thoughts are.

24:59

We mentioned just in a live stream, we're getting a lot of interaction because when I think about just the titling and the way they depict it,

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I'm thinking of like the Hindenburg, right? And watching this thing going down in flames where you think of those

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ESPN 30 for 30, almost like this Greek tragedy of sorts.

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And people just want to see that. What do you think is the appeal? And give us your thoughts, especially as someone who was there in the midst of it for over a decade.

25:25

I mean, it's voyeurism, I think at its heart. Like that's the difficulty is that, you know, all of us, unfortunately, you know, in sin, we would rather, as opposed to turning in prayer when we see heartbreak or we see, you know, even

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Mark going to Arizona, you know, near you guys, the outcry from those at Mars Hill, both in leadership and other things, were to, you know, scream and yell is,

25:56

I don't think that it was necessarily prayer for like, you know, even impregnatory prayer.

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Like I'm not saying like prayer for success. I mean, like turning to the Lord, knowing that it's his judgment that brings these things to us.

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And also, you know, that it's for our refinement and for our sanctification.

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So I guess that, you know, I think it's voyeurism a lot. I do also think that there are a lot of people who are like, yeah, what did happen?

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Like I heard, I mean, here's the thing. I even learned things. We left in 2012, before real marriage.

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So that would have been right around 2012 -esque. And there were people who, so there was a lot that happened that I learned happened.

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And I was still relationally connected to a ton of people there. But I found out things happened from the podcast.

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So there is definitely a whole group of people who are like, hey, yeah, whatever did happen, that guy,

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I liked that guy. Or I didn't like that, you know, whatever it is. It's not necessarily voyeurism, but I do think there's a huge contingent that we just, we kind of want to see,

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I don't know if it's we want to see the downfall of others, but especially if they're not on our team, that we kind of want to, we don't want well for them.

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And I mean, you know, Jeremiah, you and I know, like we rib each other on all kinds of theological issues.

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You and I, we work together, but I, even if you're inconsistent on a lot of areas,

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I pray for your best, you know, and I pray that also when

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I'm confronted, and I am not a standard whatsoever, but I guess that my thoughts, what

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I think about the podcast is my prayers that those that listen to it don't look outward, but their response, whenever they want to get mad, whenever they want to go, and they get that kind of, you know, dopamine of like, yeah,

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I knew it, that they actually look at themselves and go, you know, where's my heart wicked in this?

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Not in the reaction, but like, I'm like, you know, the reason I didn't fall into these traps, you know, if we all just kind of go, hey, the reason

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I didn't fall into this is because I didn't have the opportunity. It's not because I'm so strong in my faith.

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Like, I just, I feel like repentance is what we need as American Christianity, that we need to stop evaluating kind of this cult of personality, that we need to stop, you know, for growth's sake or missional, whatever, that we actually would repent of our sins as opposed to having to have

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God teach us by raising up dudes who aren't qualified to then, you know,

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I mean, have a wake or a bus in the Mars Hill sense, you know, that everyone's trampled under.

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And the reality is, is we both deserve it, and we actually want that, because we don't want to have to look at our own sins, repent of them, and then maybe not have a sexy, you know, religion that, you know, your guy gets to be a

29:03

New York Times bestseller. Mm, that's a good point. Andrew, I see your, I see your, thankfully

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I can see you now via Zoom, but I'm seeing like your, it sounds like you got some things you were thinking, like just what are your thoughts so far here?

29:17

Well, it sounds to me like Christianity Today and the type of podcast that they put out with the issues that they were covering is very similar to how, let's just say, you know, they were looking at the culture to try to invade pop culture to make a big move in a wave in the world, when really the measure of success is in the faithfulness to God and the word of God with the church.

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Christianity Today is pretty much doing the same thing with the podcast that they have. They measure up Mark Driscoll, not by necessarily the word of God, maybe a little bit, but they're measuring up by pop psychology, right?

29:54

They're measuring them up in secular standards. They're measuring them up using an NPR -sounding podcast, using secular thought processes.

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I'd say they're kind of doing the same thing. Where's your humility in this? You know, where's your submission to the word of God to actually say, well, this is the issue, and now here's how we solve the issues through the word of God, instead of being just like any other secular, let's say, like vice doing a piece somewhere where they don't really have an answer for anything.

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They're just trying to give you all this ooey -gooey news. Does that make sense? There's no real answer. It sounds like they're doing the same thing, essentially.

30:29

Yeah, I mean, that's what was difficult in listening to and in hearing is, you know,

30:36

I know Joel Brown, I know Brad House, you know. Hopefully we're still friends after, you know, me commenting on all of this.

30:45

And I think that obviously you can creatively edit all kinds of people.

30:52

I know, oh, Tim Smith, man, I love the Smiths. Like, I mean, I worked with Tim, Tim was on there.

30:59

He was early on, was friends with Mark. I mean, tried reconciliation, all kinds of stuff. Like, you know, it's down in Portland ministering.

31:07

You don't know how hard it is to minister the gospel in Portland, especially today. Like, I have so much respect for these guys.

31:15

And I do, you know, I appreciate so much that was said on the podcast.

31:20

I mean, honestly, but I don't feel like, I don't feel like the point was what you're saying.

31:27

I don't feel like the point of the podcast was to say, then how do we do better?

31:33

But that's how they presented it. Or how do we not fall into those traps? And that's how they presented it. But what they gave as a solution was exactly what you're saying, pop psychology.

31:42

There's no reference to scripture. There's no reference to qualifications. There's no reference to, you know, I mean,

31:47

I loved it. One of the guests was like, you know, and the over -sexualization part, one of the guests was like, you know, here's what it, you know, kind of hung it on complementarianism.

32:01

That's the problem. And that's where it comes out of. And she cites like 1970. And I'm like, hey, why don't, if you want to like, if you want to get something, go back to the

32:09

Puritans, where people were under -disciplined for not having sex. That's the Puritans.

32:15

Like, don't pretend like that's somehow this newfangled thing in a Christianity that just came out.

32:22

Like, whether you agree with it or not, at least be honest. And that's where I don't know.

32:28

Maybe it was a sin. Maybe it was just, they didn't have time. Like, I want to be as gracious as I can be, but there's a lot of hurt and pain.

32:38

There's a lot that went on. I don't want to dismiss that, but I just, I do feel like the goal was never to figure out, okay, well then how can we present, how can we be more effective in proclaiming the gospel in a city or in a place like Seattle or in a place in a major city?

32:56

How can we be more faithful to scripture? That never seemed to be the goal. Yeah, and I think even as cultists, when we've dealt with a broad variety of topics and we just continue to cover them, and many a times, whenever I've talked with a couple or just someone who's come out of a cult,

33:12

I just, I normally automatically assume that they've been through something, that there's some level of spiritual abuse, especially if it's anyone who's like a young lady who came out of a cult.

33:22

It's almost, I'm typically surprised if there's not some level where they went through something or something happened to them, whether it's physical, sexual abuse, emotional abuse or something of that nature.

33:31

So there is, we do need to take that incredibly seriously. And I do think, however, is that there is a lot of times where people have experienced legitimate hurt, whatever it is from the church, that sometimes

33:45

I've experienced it too. I remember there was a time where I was going to a large mega church and I remember I just got burned out because I saw just a lot of the celebratization of people

33:54

I knew and I saw them behind closed doors and I saw the hypocrisy. And there's a period where I didn't go to church for two years.

34:01

Now, were there aspects in what they were doing that maybe it was probably wrong, kind of embracing that cult of personality?

34:08

Yes. Does that justify me as someone who is a Christian to ignore the promise of don't forsake the assembly of God's people?

34:17

Yeah, that was wrong and sinful of me. And I suffered as a part of it, as a result of it.

34:22

And I remember I became like very cold and different and bitter and angry for God for nearly two years.

34:28

I'm like not going to any sort of assembly or church. So I do think, however, when you look at kind of the marketplace of ideas behind this podcast and the appeal of it,

34:39

I think there is a big aspect where there's a lot of people who have experienced real hurt and pain.

34:44

And now it's all this, now you want to see someone pay. We want to see this church that kind of fell apart because maybe there's ways in which some of the things that Mark said is sort of emulating or sort of vicariously, like reenacting on some level what

35:00

I went through. And I, what I - Or legitimately did. Yeah. Or, you know, like there's a,

35:08

I mean, or legitimate, like I don't want to shelter Driscoll at all.

35:13

Right. And, you know, there's real, not only, you know, vicarious hurt, but I think you're right as, and I'm sorry,

35:22

Jeremiah, for - No, you're good, man. But I think you're exactly right. I think that the weird part and kind of the insider view of why you have such, in my opinion, why you have such a, like you'll talk to people who went to Mars Till who their entire lives were changed for the good.

35:43

They don't even understand why Mark walked away. All kind of, they were involved in their community group.

35:49

I mean, there's so much, there's such different people. Those who were really close to Mark had the most hurt.

35:55

And I think that that speaks more to the person, his, you know, all of the things that were, you know, brought up by former pastors.

36:06

You know, then I get that, you know, hindsight's 20 -20, but I'm sorry. Like, I have a difficult time, and now

36:14

I have friends who signed letters, you know, after the fact. And, you know, I also have friends who stood up in the middle of it and got ostracized and got kicked out.

36:23

And so I kind of value those opinions that actually stood more than those that signed something, you know, later, that said, oh yeah, by the way,

36:33

Mark used to be, you know, Mark was hurtful and I just now realized it. And I get that. You know, people do just realize it.

36:40

But I think that the difficulty in kind of looking at the experiences of Mars Hill is that for so many people, and I remember

36:48

I told you this, Jeremiah, like, Mark stopped being my pastor, I don't know, 2008, 2009, maybe, in the sense that, like, how could he be my pastor?

37:00

Mark never, like, Mark rarely counseled anybody. He didn't minister outside of Sunday. Sunday became, and, you know, the podcast talks about the brand and all those types of things.

37:10

Like, the reality is, if you were at Mars Hill and you wanted to become a member, you had to be in a community group to be a member.

37:15

That's who did your membership interview. So every single person that was a member actually had a group of people that they were doing life with.

37:23

So the church became their small group in a real, like, taking care of needs and doing things.

37:31

So you could dismiss a lot of the shifts that now that we look back and we can see even

37:38

Mark, you know, changing in the podcast, I was like, yeah, I remember when Mark said things that, you know, like, he was one guy and one vote.

37:48

Like, I remember him saying that, and I remember that being in then the slide where, you know, then all of a sudden, and it wasn't all of a sudden, but it was this shift where Sunday became the focus, this missional outreach and Mark being the only one who could effectively proclaim.

38:07

And that's what everyone, you know, it became the institution in the brand became more important than the gospel.

38:14

However, if you were just on the ground, you were just, you know, a person in the pew, you were working out and your salvation, you were like, you were with people who were your small group.

38:27

So there was this weird dichotomy between Sunday and the rest of your week.

38:33

And that's, you know, I mean, that's where it gets kind of weird. And it gets to where I would say, if we actually wanted to diagnose

38:40

Mars Hill, I think that we've got ample, you know, we, the podcast hangs it on reformed theology.

38:48

And I would ask, well, then where is Sunday being about covenant renewal?

38:53

Where's that if we're actually gonna talk about it being a reformed issue that spurred

38:59

Mars Hill? Because, you know, so much of the Reformation had to do with actual worship.

39:04

It didn't have to do with God's sovereignty and, you know, Calvinism. But Mars Hill became a thing where the show and the performance on Sunday, and that aspect was where all decisions were made.

39:18

That's why we had to keep going was because, well, that Mark's gonna be the most effective, you know, proclaim as we didn't have multiple people in the pulpit, because Mark would be the most effective proclaiming because Sunday was primarily missional.

39:31

Sunday was to proclaim the gospel to people who, you know, weren't believers. Which when you put it that way, you're like, wait, what?

39:41

Yeah. Okay, so Sunday isn't for me to grow, for covenant renewal with my

39:46

Lord to come and partake of the body and blood of Christ for there to be a covenant renewal with my

39:52

Savior. Sunday was for, you know, a missional outreach. Yeah, that's really interesting too, especially because what you'll see as we unravel it is that there was a time, especially with the arrival, especially in the early 2000s of just the iPod era and kind of the iTunes, the

40:14

MP3s and the media distribution that affected that. And all of a sudden there's a difference too. I mean, anybody who's ever been behind a camera, there's even been times with me personally, where I see the first video,

40:25

I think the Bethel video, and that just went huge. It's only the second video of cultists we'd ever filmed. And to count a couple of hundred thousand views and there's my mug behind it, believe me, there's a little part of me that like that creeping in, like, oh,

40:37

I'm somebody now. It's like, no, but now it's like all these years later, I think there's levels though, in which I'm just Jerry.

40:44

But, you know, I think you do have to be careful because a lot of us can look at someone like Mark or these other celebrity pastors, but I mean, especially now in our social media,

40:54

I work with us for every day with the work that we even do together. It's so easy now, if you even look at the documentary,

41:00

The Social Dilemma, how we're all tied to our phones and anybody can start a TikTok account and become a micro celebrity.

41:07

And I think there are a lot of lessons, not just as far as people who are pastors, but just from a sanctification level as a

41:13

Christian about how easy it is to be kind of, to make yourself, you know, it's all about me. And I can do those on so many different levels, but even just jumping back to the whole conversation about the rise and fall of Mars Hill.

41:25

I remember in part one, they started off with Mark's resignation letter. So it almost sort of starts off like this

41:31

Greek tragedy, like the beginning of the end is the beginning. And you see all that, but I think just also, a lot of people are looking at this through the realm of being hurt by the church.

41:42

And somewhere in the very beginning, the main guy, you probably, what was his name again? You knew him, right,

41:47

Tim? Well, I know they had Joel on there, Joel Brown. But he,

41:54

I mean, man, I listened to all of them. Yeah, well, just,

41:59

I don't remember his name off the top of the head. I'm going to paraphrase it, because I don't want to - I know Tim Smith was early on and he was the one who planted it in Portland.

42:07

Yeah, well, I just remember the very beginning of it in part one, the first episode, is that there was a level in which

42:15

I don't want to mischaracterize it. And I'm only going to paraphrase it. It seemed on some level, he was giving a level of understanding and almost justification for both people leaving the church and for deconstructing.

42:27

Like, we just need to really understand why they're doing this. And it's Mars Hill's fault, where you could even say, using

42:35

Mars Hill as a catalyst to demonize reform theology. But there's two different issues from a scriptural standpoint.

42:40

There's one, there's people who are being disobedient. Like, listen, I'm not, and I'm not accounting the fact that trauma happens.

42:47

There's real spiritual trauma and abuse that takes place in many different cases. But just because something happens to you, that doesn't give you an excuse.

42:55

You have to work through it. But that doesn't give you an excuse to be disobedient. Right? So I may have, there's certain times where, you know, there's something that may jolt or the pejorative, you get triggered and all of a sudden you get tempted to react or, you know, in Andrew, like your marriage, there's something, say something happens and you and Kayser are in an argument or disagreement, and there's just something that gets under your nerves.

43:18

And there's that moment where you want to say that one thing, right? And then be like, no, I'm going to choose not to say that.

43:24

I'm not going to act in a way because that's sin. So there's levels in which it doesn't give me an excuse to be disobedient.

43:30

But yeah, like you have to work through that stuff, but also, you know, understanding people who deconstruct, who abandon, who apostatize and enact what it says in 1

43:41

John. They went out from us because they were not really of us. So you see that, but it's like, we need to just really understand, be more empathetic.

43:49

Well, I guess on some level you do, but these are people who are abandoning Christ. And I don't know the way that they're dealing with it.

43:56

It just, that, I don't know. How'd you feel about that, Tim? You know what I'm talking about, right? No, I know exactly what you're talking about.

44:03

You know, I, man, I have a ton of friends, you know, and I'll do that kind of in the scare quotes because, you know, they were brothers or sisters that I, you know, ministered next to that now are like, yeah, full -on line and sinker.

44:21

Like, let's do the deconstruction and that sort of thing. And, you know, honestly, we, it's heartbreaking.

44:30

It's heartbreaking on a lot of levels. I mean, I've seen marriages implode. You know,

44:36

I've seen just destruction of, you know, children.

44:43

I, early on in Mars Hill, I, my wife and I, before we had kids, and then when we had Elijah, which

44:48

Elijah's, you know, 16 now, we helped oversee, and we're a part of, we were youth leaders, you know?

44:56

So a lot of these kids that were in kind of the youth group, if you will, at Mars Hill were, you know, their parents were going to Mars Hill and they're just collateral damage in this whole thing.

45:08

It's ridiculously sad. I guess that, I guess how

45:14

I feel and how I process that is, is although I 100 % agree with you,

45:23

I take, you know, what I would say, and I'm going to butcher the quote or anything like that, but I take the

45:28

John Owen perspective in that, you know, I want to call every single one of those people back to their baptism.

45:35

And I want to, I want to view them as if they were, they were not dead, but that they were swooned.

45:42

And that's, you know, that's a bastardization of Owen, where, how he said, you know, like that they're swooned, that we should pursue, that we should, you know, pray for, even as they're giving both fingers to God, you know, and obviously there are limits there, but I mean,

46:00

I think that, you know, that whole deconstruction, in my mind, what it speaks to is a hardcore immaturity, you know, that again, it comes back like, you know,

46:11

I was diagnosing Mars Hill, there was a lack of maturity from Mark, from so many of the leaders, there was hasty making, you know, elders of people and, you know, putting people in leadership that, you know, probably shouldn't have been, and that was the pattern that continued.

46:28

And so, well, what do you get out the other side? You get immaturity where they, they, they say, oh, well, you know, it's obviously, it's obviously the word that has caused this, while looking at people, you know, while using scripture to vilify

46:47

Driscoll, deconstructing it when they apply it to their own lives. And you're like, yeah, hey, you know, you're being, and not saying the irony or the inconsistency, and I think that that's the difficult part.

47:00

And, you know, with a world of American Christianity that will just open their arms with a big hug, and, you know, as, you know,

47:10

I pray not, but as people run headlong into hell, and I think that that's what makes me super sad.

47:17

Yeah. Being with, you know, it's the families that have imploded, it's the wives and husbands who, you know, apparently weren't reading their

47:27

Bible, but only listening to Mark. And that's what, that's what I think hurts. Yeah, and I think that's something, even as someone who is on the outside looking in, as someone who kind of experienced just Mark's teachings, just through, you know, back in the day, having my iPod, you know, the pre -iPhone era, but on the iPod, you know, listening to him on my iPod, even watching some of his videos and stuff.

47:49

And even now, today, as I was prepping for this show, and I'm kind of listening to that whole episode, the first part of God's work, our witness, there was a part of me, like,

47:57

I felt genuinely sad because there's levels in which I think God was legitimately doing a lot of cool things.

48:04

And, but in it, you see a lot of people there that have really kind of put, they believe that they were part of something, they were part of something, but you know, that's not there anymore.

48:14

And there's this whole, there's this part of me of like, where are they now? Like, is this person, are they, and there's part of, like,

48:20

I just think, I hope there is part of me like, man, I hope that they're okay. That's how I felt.

48:25

Yeah, I mean, man, it's crazy. Cause we could like, I mean, we could have entire podcasts about, okay, well, let's actually, let's apply scripture to what happened and let's diagnose and, you know, let's talk about, you know, our propensity to elevate institutions over the gospel, whether that's our own church or our own denomination or the label of being reformed or not being reformed, you know, like whatever it is, or, you know, some particular confession or, you know, you name it, that we, you know, hold onto it above the gospel.

49:04

And, you know, we would prefer, like, I guess that the difficulty that I come in when it comes to Mars Hill is like, would

49:11

I rather have an implosion and a total destruction of, you know, a 15 ,000 person church to then have, you know, 31 ,000 person churches, or, you know, 30 faithful, you know, a hundred person churches.

49:29

And the reality is, is yes, I would rather have faithful churches than, you know, an unrepentant church that cares more, you know, about, you know, like emphasizes things over the gospel,

49:47

I guess. And so, you know, I, I don't know, there's so much there and we could have, you know, we could diagnose, we could talk about institutions, we could talk about, you know, what happened at Mars Hill and where the real collateral damage is.

50:02

And then also, you know, with the real hurt and, you know, those that are a part of it,

50:07

I guess that I don't, I don't want to dismiss the real hurt. And I don't like, there was real crazy that happened.

50:15

A lot of that was because, you know, I mean, it's similar. I mean, it's similar right now in what you see happening with Chappelle.

50:23

Like there are some inappropriate things that are said in particular ways. And there are also, like, here's the deal,

50:30

Mark was more Chappelle than pastor. And I think he would have been better as being a

50:36

Chappelle than a pastor. That doesn't mean that he couldn't diagnose culture, couldn't speak to culture, but he shouldn't have been a pastor.

50:45

Like, that's a tough, you know, delineation that I think isn't always made.

50:51

Yeah, and then that's one of the things I think people, if someone just has not listened in to, like followed

50:58

Mars Hill back in the day, and I feel like it's long enough now where I can say back in the day of being 20, 21.

51:03

I mean, dude, come on, it was 20 years ago for me. You know, over 20 years ago, the first time

51:09

I darkened the door of Mars Hill. Oh yeah, and I think it would have been like 2008, 2009 for me as well too, so.

51:15

Yeah, well, you know, I mean. But yeah, but it's just, you know, just interesting, like back then, and people would say, well, you know, he would say this one thing about this particular person or this particular thing, but it was just, he was like that about everything.

51:28

I mean, he wasn't always the case, but there was always this sort of shock jock mentality, this serrated edge where, you know, there are times where that's warranted, but I think there are cases in which he took that too far, but I think that was one of the difficulties

51:40

I had too with the podcast. It would probably take his most extreme moments and try and paint that as the normative.

51:48

But yeah, just one thing, did you have a thought on that? Well, all I was gonna say is, yeah, no,

51:54

I 100 % agree with you. I think that yes, there are times where, you know, there is an appropriateness there, but when that's all you've got, that's a lack of maturity.

52:05

And I would say that, you know, again, when you have, you know, for all intents and purposes, never been a member of a church, but now you go start a church.

52:13

Yeah. There's some big issues there. Yeah, and definitely. And it's just the one thing I would just wanna unravel before we kind of jump onto the next segment and maybe just address is that if you've listened to this podcast or if you're going to, there is a lot, and I'm not just counting anybody who's been through,

52:29

I've been, again, I've been in similar situations too of experiencing that church heart being burnt out, seeing something happen behind closed doors.

52:36

But there is a level though, in which you do have to be careful because a lot of the talk of what would be considered journalism, more referred to as water cooler talk about, you know, hey,

52:48

I just saw this behind closed door and this is just my side of the store and this is how I feel and this is just how it is. And so I think it's something and maybe you can kind of elaborate on this,

52:57

Tim, because you've told me, because you're an elder at your church, where you go to, there's a lot of times in the world, and Andrew, you probably can identify this with a now too, working with Wade, with a brand new church in Salt Lake City, Utah, where there's a lot of times where there is, there are things going on behind closed doors, but a lot of times it's due to the situation with being a pastor or an elder, and maybe it's a counseling situation, like you are committed to confidentiality.

53:20

So there's levels in which you don't tell your side of, you don't either don't, or you can't, or you won't because of your commitment before God that you're not going to try and vindicate yourself or try and throw this person under the bus to protect you.

53:36

So I'm just saying that as a general principle, I'm someone from the outside looking in at this, but that's just something you need to, as a principle, you need to be aware of in general, but even in the sense of listening to this podcast.

53:47

So could you just elaborate that as well too? Yeah, I mean, here's what I would say. Yeah, I mean,

53:54

I think that's one of the difficult things is when it comes to church leadership, when it comes to a session or an elder board or whatever your ecclesiology is, as Proverbs say, there are actually two sides to every single conflict.

54:14

I think that when we get presented information or presented stuff, whether it's a hit piece advice or anything else, the reality is we only get to hear one side.

54:28

And the nature of being in leadership, of being a pastor, is that you are shepherding, you are protecting, you are also counseling in ways that you will never, ever, ever get to express your side of the story, but you will be judged harshly in the court of opinion.

54:49

And that's just the reality. And so I guess that it is the proverb that there are two sides of the story.

55:00

And as it really specifically kind of plays out in Mars Hill, you know,

55:06

I listened to the entire podcast and here's what I'll say. Every single person who actually was interviewed and actually was a part of Mars Hill, I 100 % agree with the things they said.

55:20

Their conclusions for then what they do with those things, I probably have issue with a few of them.

55:27

It's really then in, you know, the, I mean,

55:32

I met Rachel Held Evans. I've met others because of other jobs that I had in, you know, kind of American Christianity.

55:41

But it's those that were on the outside and are attempting to diagnose where again, there's two sides of a story.

55:51

And I really feel like they're not even helpful. And that's a difficult, like, it's just, yeah, well, you know, here's this and this.

56:00

And it's like, yeah, I mean, you know, like I said about the Puritans and sex and oversexualization, there's so many layers to human relationship.

56:13

And I think that that's where, you know, even why is the pastor holding back, you know, after counseling, why aren't they saying their side of the story?

56:21

Well, a lot of times, maybe because of the kids, relationships that are outside of the frame that you don't even get to see.

56:27

And that's why you're not hearing the whole story. And I'm actually not speaking about anything specific with Mars Hill.

56:34

I just think that that's what wisdom requires. Wisdom requires understanding that you're not gonna ever this side of glory, see the full picture.

56:42

And you're not going to be able to, you know, make a judgment call. The only thing that you should be doing is bringing scripture to bear on your own heart, not attempting to bring scripture to bear on the hearts of others that you can't even know.

56:57

And I think that that's the part that is, I think that we need to do as American Christians, as we hear stories, whether it's stories of abuse or you name it,

57:10

I think that we do need to take them seriously. I think that we need to, you know, have mechanisms that judge and do those things.

57:18

However, us as bystanders to think that, you know, a tweet or a podcast gave us a full picture that now we can drop judgment on others is immaturity and we need to mature as an

57:31

American church. That's really good. Andrew, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, I figured this is appropriate for you to kind of give your thoughts because you are someone now who is directly involved in this sort of now a church plant in Salt Lake City, Utah.

57:45

And if you haven't already, you're going to experience situations like that, both you and Wade. But just given everything that Tim just said, give me some thoughts you have on that real quick.

57:53

No, it's beautiful. And first I gotta preface it too is like, I'm a guy who grew up, I knew nothing about Mark Driscoll.

57:58

The first time I ever heard his words coming out of his mouth is listening to the podcast on this. Like I didn't grow up in that culture, right?

58:05

But I think what the answer is always is the gospel, right? The gospel is the answer to conflict, right?

58:11

The nails that were driven through Jesus wrists and his feet, the brutal death that occurred, the resurrection was the answer.

58:18

The resurrection is what gives us hope. And just in terms of conflict in general between one another, right?

58:25

Like a pastor's job is to be in conflict, not to be the center of conflict, right?

58:31

The gospel is what shatters the bounds. It's the ones that, it's the thing that frees people from their sin.

58:36

But the answer, it seems like in this podcast, isn't the gospel. I heard the gospel preached more from quotes from Mark Driscoll in this podcast than actually the people in Christianity today preaching the gospel.

58:48

I think that should be pretty heavy on someone who's listening. Andrew, give me your thoughts. Yeah, go ahead.

58:53

Andrew, just give me, that's good. I didn't mean to interrupt for you because we're on Zoom with a little bit of time delay. Give me your thoughts, because I thought one thing that you said that popped out to you was in the episode,

59:02

Do You Read the Bible, Ringo? Which is, of course, is referring to Doc Holliday from Tombstone. Great movie, by the way.

59:08

And, but it was talking about when he was dealing with the workshop where he's interacting with the neo, the guy who was the universalist or the liberal

59:17

Christian. And I remember the way the podcast depicted that about it, that Mark was being mean or that he was being a bully.

59:24

And I was listening to what he was saying. Yeah, he was being direct and he was being confrontive, but was there anything theologically sinful about talking about how natural revelation can bring a man from death to life?

59:39

I'm like, this is solid. I mean, there's part of it, they're trying to depict it in a way that's bad. And there's part of me that I'm listening to,

59:44

I'm like, amen, that's good. Like, go, go. Yeah, it's his breakout session.

59:50

Yeah, I mean, I might word it my own way because I'm Jerry, I'm not Mark, but I didn't really, give me your thoughts on that, man.

59:58

Like, what'd you think about that whole segment? Well, you know, number one, it's like their workshop, his breakout session, and you actually have the audacity and disrespect to start shouting at somebody while they're trying to teach.

01:00:10

It's okay if you don't agree, but I mean, if you are gonna shout at somebody, expect for someone to actually confront you.

01:00:18

And I don't think he confronted him in an unbiblical way. Of course you can go, hey man, let's be quiet for now, and then after I'm done with this breakout session about everything you disagree with, we can go in the corner and we can have a nice little talk.

01:00:30

I don't think it was the time and the place for that. I think someone needs to be rebuked, especially when they're treading on the cross of Christ, like what was happening in that situation.

01:00:38

The man needed to be rebuked, and I think that's okay. So yeah, that's my personal opinion on that.

01:00:43

But in terms of conflict and what the answer is, the answer always needs to be the gospel.

01:00:50

Coming from Mars Hill Church with Mark Driscoll, you're not the answer. The gospel's the answer.

01:00:56

Your opinion's not the answer. The gospel's the answer. It's the only thing that heals bonds between us as people, even with Christianity today, man.

01:01:02

The gospel's the answer. It's not calling people who disagree with you fundamentalists in their interpretation of scripture, and that pop psychology is the way you can really view scripture through the lens of liberal theology and progressive

01:01:17

Christianity. That's what we're showing the answer is. The answer that we were being shown is that the Bible may not be saying exactly what you think it's saying, and you might be able to find your answers in other places.

01:01:27

No, all of the word of God is profitable for teaching, rebuking, all of those things. You have it in your word.

01:01:33

You have the answer in God's holy word. You just need to, when you're going through various trials, stay steadfast, pray to God, ask for wisdom, but believe when you ask for wisdom so you're not one who's praying double -mindedly.

01:01:45

Right there in the beginning of the book of James, chapter one, the wisdom literature we have of the New Testament. We need to seek

01:01:51

God, not other options in order to resolve conflict within the body, even without with other people.

01:01:58

You know, this is how it is. Yeah, Tim, what were your thoughts on that episode? So here's what I would say. I would rather have that dristal than the

01:02:06

Nehemiah dristal. And here's what I mean by that, is there was a shift that as you heard

01:02:11

Mark's preaching, where Mars Hill became the center of all things, where, like,

01:02:19

I mean, let's step back and just think about how pompous it is. And Nehemiah was early.

01:02:25

I mean, early -ish, depending on, but I, like, dude, that somehow that Nehemiah going and rebuilding was like Mars Hill Church, that somehow, like,

01:02:40

I mean, there were quotes in the podcast that I think were critical that were right on, you know, when he's talking about, you know, that he beat up, you know, that they grabbed swords and all this sort of stuff.

01:02:54

Like, yeah, you can draw an application. However, that's not you building a modern -day church.

01:03:01

And you're not building it. Like, there's so many things where you're like, what are you talking about?

01:03:08

And I remember that Nehemiah was definitely the start of the end for us.

01:03:14

And it wasn't, it was just because we were starting to overemphasize. And again,

01:03:19

I think this is the logical conclusion of, you know, Keller and others, even,

01:03:25

I mean, we haven't even talked about, like, the whole, you know, giftings of prophet, priest, and king, and how that is even today in churches, and how in Mars Hill, like, those are particular, that's not

01:03:35

Christ being all three, but that's somehow a pastor is, you know, gifted in one way or the other, and all that that played out in Mars Hill.

01:03:43

I guess my point, what I felt about that is, I would rather have that Driscoll that took the scripture seriously and articulated it in such a way, it might, he wasn't,

01:03:54

I mean, I don't know, you could say, can I say ass? I mean, like a donkey. I mean, he was sort of an ass, but I would say he was being honest with what scripture says and was requiring, than the

01:04:06

Driscoll of Nehemiah attempting to make it applicable to all things Mars Hill specific, as if, you know,

01:04:14

God could only work through an American church here in Seattle. Yeah, and I was, just to clarify, when you say

01:04:20

Nehemiah, is that a metaphor that you're giving to him yourself, or is that, because I know he did, always did books of the

01:04:25

Bible, was that as serious he did on Nehemiah, where you gave those examples? Yes, sorry, that was, so if you remember in the podcast, when he talks about Paul Petri and Ben Meyer and the bus analogy, all of that, that was actually in that sermon series of Nehemiah, him going through Nehemiah.

01:04:45

So all of those applications and him talking about that was in Nehemiah. And I can't remember what the title of it was.

01:04:53

You know, this is before Song of Solomon. This is before, you know, some of the other places. I remember this could have been 2007 to 2008, you know, somewhere around there.

01:05:05

But yeah, it was a sermon series where, you know, essentially it was kind of, it was eisegesis in some of the worst ways, in that, you know, that what was happening, like in the organization of Mars Hill, whether it was changing of bylaws or, you know, the centralization of power was somehow justified by preaching through and applying it as a one -to -one correlation in Nehemiah.

01:05:34

And that was just, it wasn't, was wrong and not correct.

01:05:40

And there were glimpses of that. There's a way to apply it to culture, apply scripture to culture that is faithful to the text.

01:05:49

And there's ways to apply it kind of to your own means. And, you know, I don't want to say, you know,

01:05:55

Mark was, I don't know his heart or if it was, you know, on purpose, maybe he did legitimately see that as, you know, a correlation, but I do think the critique, the critique of him yelling and doing it at all five services that Christianity Today does,

01:06:14

I think that's valid. And I think that what that actually is, is someday becoming the most important thing that missional outreach performance on Sunday, when that is the goal.

01:06:31

When, I mean, there were signs in the back and this is right before I left in Bellevue and I was on staff, there were signs in the back where Sunday was game day.

01:06:40

And that just, I mean, that should make everyone want to throw up as if that somehow the point of the first day of the week that we celebrate the resurrection of our savior is somehow a performance that isn't covenant renewal with our

01:06:56

Lord, where we come and partake of the elements, word and sacrament. Right, what I mean, I also know too, that, you know,

01:07:02

Seattle is a big, like the Seattle Seahawks, there's almost a culture in like the fans of, the fan base of Seattle, of the

01:07:09

Seattle or the Seattle Seahawks are almost a culture in and of themselves. And for them, it's like on Sunday.

01:07:15

And I think my sister -in -law, like she's gone up to Seattle, I think her sister lives in Seattle and she just showed,

01:07:22

I remember her just showing me some of the pictures of what it's like on Sunday and just seeing the colors out there and the banners and all that.

01:07:29

Would it almost be in the sense to where, when you talked about how it became a performance, I'm sure that was affected by, you know, the growth in media, especially, like I said, the iPod era and the

01:07:38

MP3 era, but was there a level, say if someone like became a, who was not a

01:07:45

Christian and was a Seahawks fan, like they could tell him, well, now instead of going to Sunday and dressing up and putting on the

01:07:54

Seahawks paint, now all of a sudden, Sunday is now your game day. And this is when the kickoff is.

01:08:01

And this is, you know, and it's almost like you go to take, replace one thing and make it another. When in reality, that's not what church should be.

01:08:08

Is that, am I onto something here? Yeah, I mean, maybe. I mean, I think that the dirty secret of Seattle is we don't really sports.

01:08:17

Like no one cares enough. Like they care, like they're super passionate in the moment, but I mean, it's as a culture,

01:08:24

I would say it's, I mean, everyone's kind of too cool and counter -cultural and like they're, as soon as something becomes cool, say like the

01:08:33

Seahawks or the Sounders, then it's also just as cool to not. And so it's a difficult tension here in Seattle.

01:08:42

I mean, I don't sports and I, you know, like, you know my story in different ways. Yeah, but yeah.

01:08:47

So, I mean, I hear what you're saying. I agree. I do think it's, I mean,

01:08:53

I think it's a combination, you know, Mars Hill at that point was starting to be in all different places, you know, campuses all over.

01:09:00

Man, we could have all kinds of conversations, like why we went multi -site, why it was video, all those things,

01:09:07

I think were oversimplified or have been oversimplified in their conversations. I think a lot of it, again, comes back down to Seattle and being in a super liberal place where you couldn't build, you know, your megachurch building.

01:09:24

I think if we could have, Mars Hill would have built a huge megachurch building. The reality was zoning and other things were like legitimately anti -Christian on purpose.

01:09:36

And in fact, reactionary. So because of some of the big megachurch churches that were built in the suburbs, then the county came in and changed zoning.

01:09:45

And there was, you know, zoning restrictions for religious assembly, how many square foot you could do. So you almost, it required and forced

01:09:53

Mars Hill to go multi -site. And so there was, which was a blessing from the Lord. I mean, because then you actually got growth outside.

01:10:01

And I think that some of those churches that then, you know, planted other churches or at least, you know, reached other people that then went out as it kind of should have were effective.

01:10:12

Yeah, and that's even an example, when you talk about dealing with this from a perspective, especially being a reformed perspective, or I would just say a good, healthy

01:10:20

Christian perspective, is that you would look at a situation where, you know, Sunday was all about the performance and, or even about, you know, just the presentation or the show.

01:10:31

And I mean, the gospel would still be preached there, but there was that the lack of covenant renewal, but as a byproduct, people really sought that out in the small groups and community groups.

01:10:43

So even though that wasn't perfectly run, they were really tight -knit community groups as a byproduct.

01:10:49

So it's almost in a sense, I think I remember you talking about that was like a blessing in disguise. Yes, yeah, 100%.

01:10:55

I think that that's like, that's, I mean, there's so much from a

01:11:01

Mars Hill standpoint that like, I just don't think that it's captured in, you know, those people that continue to be faithful and are faithful in other churches.

01:11:11

There's a huge number of, you know, just a couple of anecdotal stories. I remember when, and I think

01:11:18

I told you this, Jeremiah, I was at like, what would be the equivalent of a Kroger or Fred Meyer, depending on what part of the country you're from.

01:11:26

And, you know, I had three kids under three years old. And so, you know, and then, you know, we had a miscarriage and then we had a

01:11:34

Rocco. And so we had, you know, four kids and they were, you know, six years apart or something, you know, like within six or seven years, so right there.

01:11:44

And so I remember being at the grocery store and like, and I had a Vanagon, cause you know,

01:11:50

I'm a hippie in Seattle. And so I pulled my Vanagon in and I remember there was a truck and it was a little close.

01:11:55

And so I walk around to open the slider and it's just like a clown car. Kids are popping out.

01:12:00

And what I didn't know is there's a dude at the end of the truck who had just come out of the grocery store and was trying to get in the driver's side.

01:12:06

He's waiting and he's just like counting, you know? And again, the thing that gets thrown around from a

01:12:12

Seattle culture that you have to understand is when Mark said there were more dogs than children in Seattle, that's not hyperbole.

01:12:18

That's reality. Like that is normal. Dog parks are more prevalent than actual parks in Seattle.

01:12:26

Like you got to understand like parks with playground type stuff. And so, you know, that was a spectacle.

01:12:33

So it's a clown car coming out and I'll never forget, because again, this speaks to what the impact of Seattle and everything else is.

01:12:41

If you're other places in the country, that's, oh, what are you, Mormon? Or what are you,

01:12:46

Catholic? Like, that's the thing. In Seattle, I literally, and this is not like,

01:12:53

I'm not, this is not hyperbole. All the kids walk out and the thing with the guy, guy's like, man, what are you guys,

01:13:02

Christians? And he literally said that to me. But then he had a conversation with me. He goes, yeah, my daughter, you know, she, her and her boyfriend went to this church.

01:13:11

They got saved. And all they want to do is have kids, which, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, that's the cultural impact that Marcel had.

01:13:20

That it was, that's on the individual level that, and I don't want to dismiss stuff, but he did in Christianity today had this way of somehow taking the dominion mandate, calling it a utopian village, taking a hopeful eschatology and making it somehow anti -biblical.

01:13:45

And you're like, what are you talking about? Like, faithful families, faithful loving of your wife, faithful raising of your children is what you're to do.

01:13:57

That is what's supposed to go on. And honestly, the fruit, I pray the fruit of Mars Hill, at least, you know, with all the collateral that is, especially in the latter years of Driscoll, that what you don't get to see are a bunch of families that were impacted in such a way, sometimes in spite of the preaching on Sunday, but because the faithfulness of the gospel, the faithfulness of the spirit moving in his people.

01:14:28

And, you know, people loving each other and in these small groups that were prevalent,

01:14:36

I mean, 60, 70, almost 80 % at times were part of small groups. You know what that is in a mega church?

01:14:42

Are you kidding me? And so people actually, and you know who wasn't part of small groups? Almost every single, other than Tim Smith and maybe

01:14:51

Joel Brown, almost every single person who was part of, you know, media and communications at Mars Hill, staff members at Mars Hill, pastors at Mars Hill.

01:15:01

Those are the people who were not part of small groups. And I just, like, I think that speaks to a lot.

01:15:07

Yeah, yeah. Speak to that a little bit more. Yeah, in terms of the way that worked. Why do you think that they weren't part of that?

01:15:13

Because, I mean, because they were, there was so much required of them. Because, you know,

01:15:19

Mars Hill was such a culture where you had, you know, a 40 -page style guide and you could get a text at, you know, 1 a .m.

01:15:31

and have to execute on it. Like it was a go -go. As a staff member, like there was a culture of like, of,

01:15:42

I don't know, like, I mean, that's the other thing about Seattle and Pacific Northwest aesthetics, you know, like all the hip, cool, like we could do it better on every level, whether it was music or, you know, the aesthetics of the brand to you name it.

01:15:57

There was a culture of quality and not perfection that was there.

01:16:03

And so the staff members were, I mean, like it was hard being a staff member or being a volunteer.

01:16:09

There are volunteers who volunteer. I volunteered for almost 40 hours along with my job before I became a staff member.

01:16:17

Now, granted, I was a young, you know, married, whatever. However, like that's not an exaggeration.

01:16:25

Like I literally was volunteering, huge. No one at Mars Hill, no volunteer was paid at Mars Hill.

01:16:32

So you had like all these bands and musicians that played all over. Unless they were a staff member, they weren't paid.

01:16:38

And they were doing, you know, five services at Ballard. And so you had this, so in some ways they were just kind of overworked and they didn't see the value of it.

01:16:49

But if you were just in the queue or you, you know, were in leadership in a community group, in small group, that was like your life.

01:16:59

You know, we had a community group in our house every Tuesday for almost a decade.

01:17:06

And I'm still in relationship with, you know, a huge amount of those people. And I would say, you know, 90 % of those that I knew that, you know, are still faithfully live, you know, somewhere going to church.

01:17:21

That's not a testimony to me. I just think that if you were part of a small group, you were more likely to then actually go somewhere else and be a part of a church after, you know, everything collapsed.

01:17:34

And so, yeah, so I can't really speak to why that was just the culture from a staff and even pastors, because, you know, when you think of a pastor, if you did a

01:17:46

New Testament, if you took a biblical perspective of what the role of a pastor was, and then you looked at Mars Hill, it wouldn't mesh.

01:17:57

You know, Mark, although, you know, I would say towards the latter years, he was isolated from everyone. All he was doing was, you know, the big show.

01:18:06

And so he wasn't pastoring. There were very few pastors at Mars Hill.

01:18:13

And the difficult part is the pastors, like Ben Meyer, who, you know, got ran over by the bus and then backed over again, and then, you know, was a pastor.

01:18:25

You know, there's so many collateral, Tim Smith, you know, Brad House, dudes who like were pastors,

01:18:32

Gary Shavey, you know, there's a ton that were actual pastors. They're not in the limelight.

01:18:38

You'll never hear about them. And so it was just different. I, as a non -pastor, but I oversaw small groups in Bellevue, I did funerals.

01:18:49

Like I did funerals, why? Because I actually knew the people. There's a huge difference. You know, so I did a,

01:18:56

I mean, I did a funeral for a baby that didn't make it, you know.

01:19:06

And I'm not, I wasn't a pastor, but I was, you know, this couple's pastor,

01:19:12

I was their small group leader. Wow. Yeah, that's, I mean, I just, I think off the get -go, especially,

01:19:18

I think, Andrew, you can relate. I think there's a challenge too. I mean, you think of the fact that Apologia Studios were under the umbrella of Apologia Church.

01:19:25

I mean, even our ministry were under the authority of biblical elders and then, you know, a long -term vision is to create, you know, an apologetics -focused ministry towards the cult that's of the church, by the church, for the church, so forth and so on.

01:19:38

But even with the, there's a challenge, I think, now with, even now, even more so now than it was during the

01:19:45

Mars Hill era, just with social media and being an influencer and the ability to broadcast, you know, who you are.

01:19:54

And like I said, it's a two -way street. There's times where, I mean, I've known Jeff for 20 years and I knew him way before any of this.

01:20:02

And, you know, there are times where we get people that come into Apologia and they're a little bit, they got that kind of like that starstruckness where they're just so fired up and they're all caught up.

01:20:12

But I think some of that is sort of this media -infused nostalgia. And I don't think it's anything that Apologia's doing.

01:20:19

I think it's just indicative of the culture of where we're at. And I think there are lessons that we can take from what happened there, just from a media standpoint or making something all about the brand.

01:20:31

And even with Cultish, I mean, yeah, we've got some cool logos, we've got some cool intro music, all that. But like at the end of the day, like what really matters?

01:20:40

Is it because we have, you know, a cool conversation, we get to talk with, you know, one of Warren and Jeff's former wives, or just something that would kind of gets that quick media hit, we get a top ranking?

01:20:52

Or is it the fact that at the end of the day, someone heard our podcast that gave them hope, they were spiritually burnt out, they came to Christ?

01:21:00

Like what really matters? I think that's just something you have to really gauge, like as we kind of,

01:21:06

I think we're all in this spot, we have to really navigate, like how do we use media as a gift, but not let it become a curse?

01:21:13

And I think there's a lot that we can learn from that. Yeah, not let it become a curse, but then also let it not be a replacement for an actual pastor, for an actual local body.

01:21:23

I mean, that's the thing, like I don't, I pray that God tears Cultish down and even Apologia Radio, if it becomes a replacement, and then the institution becomes the focus, the preservation of those institutions become the focus as opposed to having an actual pastor, having an actual, like,

01:21:43

I mean, that is what the, that was the institution of Morris Hill.

01:21:49

You had, you know, and the podcast talked about redemption groups and those types of things, you know, we'll create our own, but the reality was, is you had a lot of people who had the title of pastor and very few actual pastors and a huge amount of people.

01:22:08

And, you know, there's all kinds of reasons for that, but I think that that is the, like what you're saying in this social media where, you know, how many people, especially with COVID right now, haven't been to church, but are listening to sermons?

01:22:21

Mm -hmm, a lot. And they view, even if you're in a church of a hundred, if that's what's tough, you can easily hide in a church of a hundred.

01:22:33

And I'm not saying it's the pastor's job to make sure that they know, but it is in some ways to know who's there and be able to, you know, be available and actually talk and, you know, communicate.

01:22:46

And if that's not the struggle, but, you know, we're valuing the production and the show over the actual relationships of those that you are saying that you are shepherding, that would be like me not knowing a lick about either of my twins, you know, me not knowing the color of, you know, my kid's hair.

01:23:09

Like, that's ridiculous. And no one would say I was a faithful father. No, I mean, the last, the mega church that I was a part of a while back, the last couple of months

01:23:19

I was there, I was funny because I was on junior high staff. And I remember just,

01:23:24

I was, I was burnt. I was just burnt out, like the wick had burnt. And I just,

01:23:30

I didn't attend church like the last three or four months, but we have five or six services. So I had this tactic.

01:23:35

People come up to me like, hey man, I didn't see you Sunday last service. I didn't see you at church last week. I said, oh, what service were you at?

01:23:41

Four. Oh, I was at 10. And we're like, oh, were you at six o 'clock service? Oh, I was at four.

01:23:47

Or I was at this time. I just didn't see you. You know, that was my get around, but like I hid and it's very easy to do that.

01:23:53

And even more so online, I think COVID did really, I think one of the blessings too, and total side note is that I think

01:23:59

COVID was a blessing in disguise in the sense too, that it showed a lot of Christians that you can't, you can't go to the

01:24:05

Lord's supper via Zoom. And, you know, and like I said, our elders made the decision to go and to stay open.

01:24:13

And, you know, that was a very difficult decision too, being back in March of 2020, a lot of us didn't know we were this close to doing it.

01:24:20

We chose not to, but at the end of the day, I think, I feel like at this levels in which I took that for granted, cause

01:24:27

I've been there this whole time, but I've lost count of how many people who have come here from out of state.

01:24:33

You know, there's a friend of mine who's from Chicago and her churches were closed down the whole time. And she was like in tears.

01:24:39

And I was like, as I came out, I was like, hey, are you okay? And she's like, this is the first time I've actually been in corporate worship in the last like year, year, since like February, 2020.

01:24:50

And it's like, you know, the beginning of 2021 in a situation like that. So there's definitely a case for sure.

01:24:57

So maybe, I think what we'll also, we should bring up, and this is something that I think is very important is that the, cause you mentioned too about what's, why is it a bad thing to raise children faithfully, to get married and do all that stuff?

01:25:11

So I think it is very important to bring up, I think part five, I believe in the

01:25:18

Rise and Fall of Mars Hills podcast. If I'm not mistaken, it was called What We Do to Women. And in it, it kind of really depicts their view of, they tried to depict, you know, certain times in which

01:25:33

Mark would make, again, he was a shock jock in all areas. I think, and there was times where he did,

01:25:39

I'll give the benefit of the doubt, he did really push the line in regards to the things that he said, just to kind of get that reaction to get his point across.

01:25:46

I think there's ways in which he crossed the line. One, I don't think, personally, I think it was fair to take that assessment and to try and use that to paint complementarianism with a broad brush.

01:26:00

But I think there were just underlying tones that was just, I don't think was fair, but I think there's levels in which you can say, okay, that's actually,

01:26:08

I don't think that was appropriate for Mark to address that topic that way. But maybe if you could,

01:26:14

I mean, I wanna get your perspective, Tim. Can you kind of just, you listened to that episode, you attended Mars Hill for 10 years.

01:26:20

Did you meet your wife through Mars Hill? No, not at all. No, we didn't, but we got married.

01:26:30

Here's the funny part is, you know, the premarital book that was used at Mars Hill early on was

01:26:39

Reforming Marriage, which is a Doug Wilson book. Which to say that that was free in its sexuality and requiring women to always be available to their husband, it would just be a joke.

01:26:56

That's not even close. And so, I think that that episode, here's what

01:27:02

I would say. You know, I appreciated and understood, now again,

01:27:10

I don't know what the point of the podcast is in the sense, I don't think the point of the podcast was to actually apply the gospel to what happened at Mars Hill and, you know, look at the biblical shortfalls so that we don't, you know, replicate those.

01:27:34

I think it was, you know, a pop psychology, like voyeurism of Mars Hill.

01:27:41

That was sort of the point. So I'm not sure kind of what the point was. However, I'll say the first four episodes,

01:27:47

I felt were like, you know, they had a lot of personal people who actually went through it, communicating and I think respectfully, and also, you know, getting to points, obviously with some creative editing and other things.

01:27:59

I would say five, six, and then, you know, seven, as soon as you throw Joshua Harris in there, you're just kind of like, what does this have to do with anything?

01:28:07

Yeah, I've got thoughts and I'll share in a second. Yeah, I mean, so, but yeah,

01:28:12

I mean, here's what I would say. I would say that those that were really close to Mark, like unhealthy close to Mark, and I wasn't there for real marriage.

01:28:22

I thought real marriage was a joke. It was, you know, even the Song of Solomon sermon, like you should have had some critiques of that.

01:28:29

And, you know, even in small groups and other things, again, if you're actually at Mars Hill and you are reading your

01:28:36

Bible, you don't elevate one man and you actually have a huge amount of pastors and others that are there that you interact with, because you probably never interact with Driscoll.

01:28:47

That's the reality. No one interacted with Driscoll other than those people that were on the podcast. Like most people didn't interact with him at all.

01:28:55

So if, as a congregation, if all you're taking is what he said from preaching, you're gonna get a different picture.

01:29:06

Now they, Terry picked something that I had never heard Driscoll say out of when he was in Scotland or some

01:29:12

European tour, you know, in the, I don't know if it was that episode or the next episode, but like,

01:29:22

I don't understand the, I don't know where Driscoll was coming from when he, you know, kind of did the real marriage and him and Grace, as if him and Grace's marriage is the standard for other marriages, because that was the troubling piece for me, was that as opposed to us saying, hey, what does the

01:29:41

Bible require of us as husbands and wives, which I would say was historically where Mars Hill went, that, you know, kind of the real marriage era of things was becoming, you know,

01:29:53

Mark and Grace becoming, you know, pop celebrities, which everyone should just reject.

01:29:59

I don't kind of understand that and being hurt by that. I, with that intermixed with kind of the complimentarian, you know,

01:30:12

I remember my wife, this is early on in Mars Hill, and she was a youth leader, and her having conversations with her freshmen girls and, you know, maybe this is controversial, but in just talking about how the primary role of a woman was wife and mother, and that became like, you know, people would think that and go, wait, what, you can't say that?

01:30:40

And it's like, okay, no one said you can't, like no one's saying, hey, you can't have any place in, you know, you can't have a job, you can't have, you know, like any of those things, which

01:30:51

I think is what, you know, the bait and switch, the shell game that the podcast did.

01:30:58

And also I would say that, you know, maybe Driscoll did, I didn't, I wasn't a part of it, was to kind of have,

01:31:05

I mean, Tim Smith said it, so I believe Tim in that, you know, if a candidate had a wife that worked outside of the home, that they were no longer a candidate,

01:31:18

I would say that what we should gain from that is maybe that's not faithful, and we would already say that Marcel maybe wasn't being faithful to what the call was for elders, the qualifications for elders were.

01:31:32

If we elevate that over biblical literacy and how they manage, you know, all of life,

01:31:42

I think that, you know, that just kind of, it's in the same category. So I guess that the majority, what

01:31:49

I would say is the majority of Marcel didn't have that experience that they're communicating.

01:31:54

I believe that that experience happened. I think that that is, you know, that is the kind of the thing that you got if you're really close to Driscoll, as Driscoll was obviously turning to become, you know, like having more faith in his own mojo and his immaturity in those areas of what it meant to be a pastor and a leader, and, you know, really doubling down on the brand, and that's the difficulty.

01:32:22

And I think that that's what you get out of that, but I don't think that that's the majority experience of most people.

01:32:30

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think also, what I just was wondering too, in regards to episode five, is that they did almost try and depict just, this is the overall culture, and this is how women are viewed in general, that they are less superior to men, that they're just required to stay at home, to stay at home, and that he has to, the husband has to be the primary care worker.

01:32:51

She's supposed to just stay home, give up everything, have a bunch of babies, be sexually available to her husband at all times.

01:32:57

And almost, they try to depict it in this very handmaid's tale sort of way. And so, and again, we're in a culture too, where, and again, this is, and again, this is

01:33:07

Seattle. This is an area where it probably has no point of reference for even any realm of what a family government looks like.

01:33:14

And there, and again - No, not at all. Yeah, go ahead. No one had, I mean, most, I was from a divorced family.

01:33:21

Most either didn't have fathers to, you name it.

01:33:28

So you had, and I mean, I think that in one of the podcasts, someone speaks to that, of Mark trying to do that with the band.

01:33:34

And I think Joel talked about that. I guess that the part that, yeah, that this was some type of like overarching teaching at Mars Hill that was prevalent across it.

01:33:44

I just, I somewhat reject that. I know that that was some people's experiences, again, as they were closer to Mark.

01:33:52

However, I think that if you just listened to, now again, outside of real marriage, because I wasn't there, but before real marriage, if you just kind of listened to what was said from the pulpit, you might not agree on particular applications, but it wasn't, you are in sin if you aren't sexually available for your husband every single day or on any whim.

01:34:14

And that is your role as a woman, which is what I think that the podcast attempted to say.

01:34:21

What I would say is there was never like, hey, you as a man, like Christianity Today tried to say that Mark was making chauvinists take responsibility, you know, take dominion, do that.

01:34:37

And then also say, but only for the boys. And the reality was that never happened.

01:34:43

The reality was like, yeah, it was, take responsibility, you know, have kids and raise them to love and fear the

01:34:52

Lord. And there was no gender specific, only the boys and make sure the girls, you know, are barefoot and pregnant.

01:34:59

That never happened. I would say even in my own family and in so many families that I interacted with,

01:35:07

I would say in my own family, the people you don't want to mess with theologically are my daughters, my brothers.

01:35:14

I mean, my brothers, well, my sons. My sons are going to be way more gracious to you than my daughters are.

01:35:22

No, that's good, man. I love it. And then, and so, do you have any thoughts on that?

01:35:28

Because I was going to say something, but whatever that I think. Well, just thinking in terms of the way they presented complementarianism and egalitarianism is taking one extreme, let's just say that Mark Driscoll had this extreme, let's also preface it as an unbiblical presentation of complementarianism, does not mean that it was actually complementarianism.

01:35:48

And how do I know that? Because of scripture. That's like me, for example, going, well, you know, egalitarianism, we have women, lesbian pastors on the pulpit, right?

01:36:01

Like that, it's just, it's going from one extreme to the other. It's not giving an actual biblical view of the situation.

01:36:08

It's just knowing that there's a narrative of today that there's quote unquote, lots of toxic masculinity.

01:36:15

And here's the answers. And here's examples of it in the church. You're not gleaning actually any wisdom from biblical text on how to correct someone who's an error presenting false doctrine and moving on and moving forward for the beauty of Christ.

01:36:30

No, there's a narrative that's trying to be shown in the situation. That's how I saw when I listened to that episode.

01:36:36

Yeah. And I'll just say this too, is that, I mean, in the episode two, they're picking, you know, the episode from Scotland where he's just talking, you know, that one audio that if you listen to it, you know, just be, don't listen to it.

01:36:49

If you have kids in the room, that's just something to be wary of. But it was definitely over the top for sure.

01:36:56

And there's times, and again, in which he did portray being a shock jock, when he kind of talked about these complimentarian views, but it's not indicative as a whole of how the women were viewed on Mars Hill.

01:37:06

In fact, when I was just doing the live stream, there was somebody who commented and said that I was a domestic abuse survivor.

01:37:13

And I went to Mars Hill and I was treated with dignity. I was restored. I had people who loved me and helped me work through my different traumas.

01:37:22

And this person's commented on my live streams and was saying that, yeah, episode five was totally unfair.

01:37:29

And a complete misrepresentation. And I would even say too, as someone who was a listener to the early days of Mars, at least for me, 2008, not as early as you, obviously as one who attended there, but I don't think they could have made the same argument if they tried to pull clips from Mark Driscoll's series,

01:37:48

Redeeming Ruth. Yeah. Tell me if you listened to that, like anybody, tell me, even if you take

01:37:53

Driscoll out of the equation and you have anyone who just would take the content of that series, anyone else who preached it, like that is a series that showed just the amount of amazing dignity towards like women who

01:38:09

Ruth was and how Boaz pursued her and how Boaz redeemed her. And he not only has redeemed her, but redeemed

01:38:14

Naomi and the bitterness that she went through. It's just an incredible series. And of course there are times where he just kind of goes over the top because it was

01:38:22

Driscoll. But as a whole, that would be an example of where he was right and he was on point.

01:38:28

And I think it just, it was trying to take these niche areas, but again, sometimes you're painting something with a broad brush.

01:38:37

And I think that's really important to kind of, and this is again, why it's good to see both sides. And that's why we're cross -examining it.

01:38:43

Yeah. Well, and I think that that's, you always gotta understand whether it's even this podcast to any story, anything that is, you know, there's obviously an agenda, there's no neutrality.

01:38:58

I mean, you guys cover that, you know, your audience knows that, but I would say obviously there is no neutrality when it comes to how they're presenting and what they're cherry picking.

01:39:08

I would also say that the thing about, that you gotta understand about Mars Hill is, you know, granted,

01:39:17

I would say that a lot of it was, there was probably warranted.

01:39:23

However, you know, they make this like one offhanded, you know, when they're talking about the William Wallace thing and, oh, and then someone dug it up online.

01:39:31

I know the person that released the William Wallace, you know, entire thread.

01:39:38

And it was 100 % because they didn't like Driscoll.

01:39:44

It was not this like, oh, I was searching for truth. It was, I'm holding it for as long as possible until someone cares.

01:39:52

And then I'm gonna get a gotcha. And by the way, that person, is not even like faithful to their family and their children and all those things.

01:40:03

And so there's layers across all of this that's super difficult, that you gotta understand that, you know, even probably these audio recordings and other things, you know, there are other sides to it.

01:40:16

And I guess that, you know, it's painted, my point in it is there is no neutrality, that when you're listening to any of these stories, you gotta understand that it's being presented in such a way and just be aware of it.

01:40:29

No, that's really good. And I do think that especially, and again, this is just my thought as I was reviewing this, is that, and with it being no neutrality, is that as the series progressed, especially towards the end, they started to show their true colors in promoting a more liberal

01:40:49

Christianity or just sort of saying, or trying to promote complementarianism or the standards that they're viewing things.

01:40:56

And even, I kept on even asking myself when they're kind of giving their judgments and their assessments,

01:41:02

I almost started going a little precept. I was saying, well, by what standard is that are you putting yourself up as the judge and saying this is wrong, given your liberal and progressive views?

01:41:14

You know, like, why do you want to, why should I listen to a lot of people about sexual ethics when their ethic allows for LGBTQ plus and transgender pastors?

01:41:27

And again, I'm speaking generally, I don't know what these people particularly believe, but again, Christianity today is representative of a lot more liberal progressive theology and liberal and progressive theology.

01:41:38

One of the definitive byproducts is the acceptance now of homosexuality and these

01:41:44

LGBTQ relationships. And so it was like, why should I give you any quarter to let, no, we have a standard too.

01:41:53

Like if we're consistent, we have scripture as our standard. So if someone says something that's over the top in that case,

01:42:00

I'm like, hey, like, you know, say it's not even Mark, it's someone else. And you could say, hey, taming the tongue, let your speech be seasoned with salt.

01:42:09

You were, what you really pushed the line, you need to kind of really simmer down now of sorts, but we would have a standard in which we can sit, we can kind of address those things.

01:42:20

I think the issue is too, is that the liberal Christianity or the people that are in this progressive camp, give me your license, what's your license and registration please?

01:42:31

What standard are you appealing to that you're sending yourself up as the judge over this whole situation in this podcast?

01:42:38

Yeah, what are you standing on? Like, you know, that's the whole thing. And I do think that, you know,

01:42:43

Driscoll's an easy target and rightly so. I mean, he should be, he should, there should be some exposure.

01:42:49

There should be some, you know, prayerful consideration of that downfall. But I think for the greater culture, the value in it should be, okay, well, how do we not elevate an institution, a person above the gospel?

01:43:06

That should be the evaluation. You know, what were the steps? What are we doing? But that wasn't the point and that's not where they're going.

01:43:14

So yeah, I think that's where it really falls short. Yeah, yeah, and just one of the aspects too, it's just interesting because, you know,

01:43:22

I grew up being homeschooled and I was in the homeschool bubble. And I went to, back when

01:43:27

Joshua Harris, when he was first, because I mentioned him, I think in part, episode seven, I jokingly say that back in the day, like Justin, I mean,

01:43:34

Joshua Harris, he was the Justin Timberlake of homeschooling. Like he would just go over there and he was sort of this rockstar.

01:43:41

He had it when he was 18. He was bringing these major crowds and trying and he would captivate a whole audience.

01:43:47

And I was up there like, yeah, Joshua Harris. You know, he had a magazine, New Attitude. Like I was, I subscribed to that.

01:43:53

Like I would get that New Attitude magazine and I'd read every single chapter and yeah, but it was just very interesting now because I followed when it happened.

01:44:01

And when it happened, when he left the faith, I remember I was genuinely sad that this is a guy that in many ways blessed me.

01:44:10

I mean, his works weren't perfect. And in some sense, you know, people talk about how they were on a personal level.

01:44:17

People talk about, you know, the purity culture and how people were hurt and wounded by that. There's levels in which that his readings and his writings did affect me in a way that if I was someone,

01:44:30

I could view that in a negative light and say that pushed me, that like motivated me to kind of like just push off marriage or just, or have these ideas.

01:44:39

It affected me in a negative way, but now looking back, I can say, no, even though there's aspects of the purity culture that affected me in a negative way,

01:44:49

I see that ultimately God worked it out for good to make me more like Christ. And he has me even right now being single and 40 and putting me through trials, even like in my content in this season to say, no, this is exactly where God wants me.

01:45:03

And he allowed every single thing, even some aspects of the purity culture that had some influence on that.

01:45:09

He like, he's worked that out for good. And I have no reason to be bitter and angry and to shake my fist at God.

01:45:15

And this is just the path that I've been on. But, and even in the sense too with Josh Harris in that interview, you know, he's talking about the challenges that he had.

01:45:24

You know, I think he had the church alongside C. Jimmy Haney, and he kind of talked about some of the issues that went along there.

01:45:29

But at the end of the day, you know, he saw a lot of the difficulties similar to what you went through,

01:45:35

Tim, just kind of seeing what goes on behind the scenes of sorts. But it was that,

01:45:41

I don't think his identity was really rooted in Christ. It was rooted in the aspect of being a Christian celebrity and the brand and all that.

01:45:49

But as soon as that implodes, like where's your real identity at? And that's part of that made me sad because he's sharing about these different things and seeing how both at Mars Hill, and also

01:46:01

I forget the name of the church that he was at along with C. J. Mahaney. Yes.

01:46:07

They're just talking about what he saw and observed there, where it's one of those things too, that I think as a whole, and I think

01:46:14

I was talking with Andrew about this earlier, I think Christians in general, especially American Christians, like we don't have a real healthy orthodoxy for suffering.

01:46:24

Like, what does it really mean to suffer and to go through things? Not just physically, but also spiritually, like how do we,

01:46:33

God actually uses, things happen to us that, like spiritual trauma happens to us and God ordains that ultimately like for our good.

01:46:40

Like how do we actually process that in a way where we realize it's good, it's for our good. And in fact, one of the things that I, when we were talking about this last week at Darren's house, you were talking about even how you looked at the misplacement of authority and how they govern their elders and mistakes that were made in Mars Hill.

01:47:01

And you made your adjustments to your presbytery with how you ran things to avoid someone becoming, the head honcho or having those checks and balances.

01:47:11

So I think that was a really good thing. Talk about that real quickly. I think that's a really good to see as someone who went through all that.

01:47:18

Yeah, so I mean, I guess what you're referring to, and the couple of kind of last points that I'd say is, yeah, so at least here, let me start with the podcast.

01:47:29

Like I think Joshua Harris is the appropriate ending to Christianity Today's podcast because they're critiquing a cult of personality, which is

01:47:44

Mark Driscoll, and ending it with a cult of personality, which is

01:47:49

Joshua Harris. And the irony is lost on him. Like, that's what I love about it, where you're just like, dude, you've got a guy who his whole thing is about himself and his journey and how he's, you know, like all this stuff, and you're giving him a platform and elevating him while critiquing a dude who is doing the exact same thing.

01:48:08

Way to go, so brave, so strong, you know, like whatever. I mean, so it's funny,

01:48:15

I think the irony is lost, but, you know, and so, but I would say, you know, the collateral damage of Mars Hill, we were planting a church, a

01:48:24

PCA church in, and the time of when Mars Hill was imploding and ultimately when they did, but, you know, so that was 2012 to 2014, we were planting in the

01:48:35

PCA, and, you know, we were a missions church, which is the way you do it. We were a missions church with a temporary system of government.

01:48:42

And then when we particularized, and I'm using all kinds of Presbyterian language, so I apologize. But when we became a church, we, on purpose, because of some of the bait and switch and things that had happened at Mars Hill, we put in our bylaws even more protection than traditionally what was, according to our book of church order in the

01:49:06

PCA. And that was that if we called a congregational meeting, which to vote on certain things, say to remove a pastor or anything like that, we would have to do that as a congregation.

01:49:19

Like it would have to be a congregational vote with recommendations and all kinds, like there would be disciplinary, there would be all kinds of different things that we would come to.

01:49:29

And there were a lot of things at Mars Hill that were just done overnight, secretively. So in our bylaws, you know, we put, you have to have a, according to the book of church order, you have to have two week notice for a congregational meeting.

01:49:46

And you have to give the agenda, what you're going to talk about, what you're gonna vote on before, two weeks before.

01:49:54

So that all has to be out there. And you can't vote on things that aren't actually publicly available two weeks before.

01:50:01

Well, we, in our bylaws, we actually extended that to a month before just so that, you know, we could make sure that people, if they wanted to be a part of anything, we were gonna vote, that there was not gonna be any backroom deals.

01:50:16

There was not gonna be anything that wasn't, you know, on the light that everyone would know. We weren't gonna have like, hey, get my friends and we're all gonna vote.

01:50:23

No, we got a quorum and we just selected those people. We wanted to make sure that, you know, that was there.

01:50:29

And so we changed our bylaws. We never, I don't know in the history of a church, if more people who are coming out of Mars Hill who did, you know, ultimately worship with us and were part of our church, which, you know, it wasn't a majority, but there were definitely some, they cared about the bylaws more than I think anyone ever has in the planting of a church because of the collateral damage that happened at Mars Hill and the things that they were just unaware of.

01:50:55

And so, yeah, I mean, I would say that, you know, there's a huge, those that stayed with, that continued to go to churches that were part of leadership at Mars Hill, I would say that a lot of them went into reform denominations just because they wanted procedure and they wanted, you know, some accountability in their ecclesiology.

01:51:23

And I'd say that was a repercussion of Mars Hill. Yeah, yeah, that's good, man.

01:51:28

I appreciate that. I think also it's one of the things too, is that, you know, even like with Apologia and there's like both

01:51:36

Jeff and Luke, when they planted, they were very hesitant, even though there's a while where people were saying, well, you should bring a third person on because there was a while they had a lot on their plate, but they had seen the damages just from the church that they were part of.

01:51:50

Just the dangers when you just lay hands on someone too quickly. Oh, let's just, we need another person. Let's put them on staff.

01:51:56

Well, are they truly qualified? In fact, and so they've really had at least with Apologia because and seeing the damage that was done in that particular order is that, no, we need to actually raise someone from within.

01:52:08

We need to take time to get to know them. Like what is their character? What is the, how do they treat their wife? What is their family like?

01:52:14

And ultimately, even with church planting, and especially, and this is relevant to you,

01:52:19

Andrew, that as part of Apologia Salt Lake, is that, you know, we have, I think it's a very important biblical aspect is that people shouldn't self -ordain themselves or just appoint themselves, that people need to, you don't go from outside, but the healthy way is to raise from within.

01:52:35

The reason why we're talking about that is because the existence of a counterfeit predicates the authenticity of an original.

01:52:42

And I think the lesson is, is that we need to take these avenues seriously about who you place in the leadership and how you go about it, because of the fact, and there are warnings about this, and this stuff hurts people.

01:52:54

And there's, like I said, there's still collateral damage of what happened on Mars Hill to this day. So at the end of the day, you know,

01:52:59

I think we have to take the practical lessons and in the case of Apologia Utah, I mean, how,

01:53:05

Andrew, like how long was the process both for you and Wade, as far as from the moment in time this was considered to when you actually became the pastor, planted the church, like what was the timeframe?

01:53:17

Just talk to people just a little bit about that process. Yeah, so it was about,

01:53:23

I'd say two and a half, almost three years until we actually planted Apologia Church Utah, and I'd say I was a deacon in training for almost a full year before being a full -blown deacon, and then getting sent out here.

01:53:36

But for preliminary, just to even get to that point, it took about two years, and then a year of that, and then coming out here, and then for Wade, for pastoral training, it took him about six years of being at Apologia Church, right?

01:53:50

In Mesa, being with the pastors and then seeing a calling in him and then wanting to breathe into him, look at his life, follow him, and things of that nature, it takes time, right?

01:54:00

There's qualifications in the Bible for a reason, why? Because Jesus cares about who's his under shepherds, right?

01:54:06

Because these are his sheep, that's number one, right? These are Jesus's sheep, and if you stand between Jesus and his sheep,

01:54:15

I can tell you it's not gonna end well with you, because that's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He protects his sheep, he died for his sheep.

01:54:22

He says he loses not one of them in John chapter 17, except a son of perdition, whom it was predestined to occur that he would rebel, right?

01:54:30

Like, this is Jesus that you'd come in between, but there's a reason why it takes a long time, and it should take a long time, because there is judgment reserved for those who trample over the feet of these qualifications, and one of those judgments, for example, is the secular world and secular

01:54:44

Christianity at large pointing the finger at you, that's one of those judgments, and that's a sad thing to behold, right?

01:54:51

That's a sad thing to behold. It should break our hearts as a Christian church. Well, that's a good way to kind of wrap it up, and there's a lot for you guys all to process this.

01:54:59

We've gone off a little bit, and Tim, I appreciate you coming on here, man, and thank you once again, and if you all -

01:55:06

On my birthday, on my birthday. Yeah, happy birthday. Happy birthday, bro, that's awesome.

01:55:11

Yeah, I actually just texted Jeremiah, I was like, bro, I gotta go, birthday dinner. 29, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:55:21

It's my birthday, glad to be here. I think it's an important conversation, especially just to,

01:55:27

I mean, I don't know, I pray for even institutions like Christianity Today, but the reality is, it's like, please,

01:55:35

American Christianity, let's stop holding on to institutions and people when they're forsaking the gospel, and let them die and burn out, and it's totally fine.

01:55:48

The gospel in God is bigger than that. I think that's where we gotta go. Definitely, all right. Well, thank you all for listening in, and if you enjoyed this episode, go ahead and leave your comments, let us know what you thought.

01:56:01

You're gonna be doing that anyways, but I figured I'd just mention it here. Also, if you wanna support

01:56:07

Cultish and help shows like this continue, go ahead and go to thecultishshow .com. You can donate one time or monthly.

01:56:14

So all that being said, thanks for hanging out with us, and we will talk to you all next time on Cultish. Talk to you guys soon.