WWUTT 1490 Q&A Reviewing The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a very popular podcast about Mars Hill Church and the infamous

Mark Driscoll. It's got great production value and good storytelling, but there is a huge omission.

Many of the

Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me today, and I'm even late getting this episode published.

I've been trying to set some things up at home so that we could do some recording at home. We don't have to try to get down here to the church and do that.

But I'm behind on so many deadlines. If I would eliminate something so that I can meet at least one deadline, maybe everything else would fall into place.

But yeah, hoping to have her back on the program next week, maybe if I get the studio set up at home.

We are going to G3 in Atlanta. If we've never said that definitively, we will be there.

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That's part of what's going to help us get there and even me putting the studio together in my house.

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Being Friday, we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

I have one topic I'm talking about today, as you already got from the teaser at the beginning of the episode.

This email comes from Billy in North Carolina. He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I was wondering if you had the chance to listen to the rise and fall of Mars Hill and what your thoughts were.

It's a short run podcast put out by Christianity Today about what made Mars Hill Church in Seattle the success that it was and how it collapsed so suddenly.

I'm kind of liking it in that it's hard to turn away from a car crash sort of way.

I would say a bus crash. For those of you know, the reference Billy goes on to say, but I can't help but notice how little correction or Bible it actually contains and are and are all of the interviewees false teachers.

Thanks for your podcast. This next email comes from Carter in Chandler, Arizona. Pastor Gabe, great to hear you back on the podcast.

You were missed. Hey, did you get the chance to review the rise and fall of Mars Hill? I think I saw on Twitter that you were going to do a critique and I wanted to make sure

I did not miss it. Thank you for your emails, Billy. You are correct in that this podcast, though it is produced by a

Christian publication about the rise and fall of one of the most famous pastors in the new millennium, contains no

Bible. There is no biblical correction whatsoever, which is a shame because the

Bible speaks plainly about a false teacher like Mark Driscoll was and still is.

Driscoll is currently the pastor of the Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is a fairly large church of several hundred people, at least according to the photos that I've seen.

He's currently going through a series in Romans. He's got a successful ministry website.

All in all, Driscoll is doing pretty well for himself, despite his infamous public reputation and Mars Hill's epic collapse, which happened in October of 2014.

I still remember reading about all that plainly when it was all going on. But Driscoll does not meet the qualifications of a pastor given in First Timothy three, one through seven and Titus one, five through nine.

He is not qualified to teach at Trinity or Mars Hill or anywhere else. First of all, as First Timothy three, two says, a pastor must be above reproach.

And Driscoll is not. He is not above blame or guilt. His teaching and his behavior have been reprehensible from the very first time

I heard Mark Driscoll, which was in the mid 2000s, doing silly gimmicks that he was doing even back then. I knew he wasn't he wasn't qualified going on here.

A pastor must not be violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

Does any of that describe Driscoll? We know Driscoll used nearly a quarter of a million dollars in church funds to cheat his way of The New York Times bestseller list with his book

Real Marriage, a book so scandalous, by the way, so pornographic, so outrageous in its subject matter to married couples.

That book alone would be enough to disqualify Driscoll.

He's still pushing that book on his website. What Mark and Grace Driscoll permit in that book, as far as sex goes in your marriage, without so much as a blush,

I find so disgraceful. I don't want to give the details and put those ideas in your head on this podcast.

So let me say that if you're interested in reading all the problems with the book, Heath Lambert wrote a review for the

Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. It's entitled The Ironies of Real Marriage, and I'll put a link in the show notes of the program.

Shame on everybody who endorsed that book, by the way. Now, some of these names are no surprise.

Andy Stanley, Darren Patrick, Perry Noble, James McDonald. But then there's

Danny Akin, the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said in his endorsement, quote,

This is a book that we will gladly use and recommend to others who care about healthy biblical marriages.

We believe both husbands and wives will be blessed by and benefit from its content.

Unquote. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to make you own that one, Dr. Akin. By the way, Tom Buck found an article written by Alvin Reed, who was the professor of evangelism at SBTS in 2009.

He defended Mark Driscoll and called any blogs or articles or warnings against him.

Witch hunts, disunity and pharisaical legalism, which is hilarious because that was what

J .D. Greer was saying at the Southern Baptist annual meeting last month, which I covered on this program. He was calling his critics pharisaical legalists.

It's the same playbook they've been using for decades. When someone points to the Bible, just call them a pharisaical legalist.

Whatever the Southern Baptist elites are calling you a pharisee for today is what they're going to be apologizing for tomorrow.

If someone in the good old boys club of the SBC, if they're calling you a pharisee, rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 512. Back to Driscoll's disqualifications. First, Timothy three, seven says, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

If Driscoll's public reputation were not so reprehensible, this podcast would have been unthinkable.

It's because of his reputation that the rise and fall of Mars Hill was made and is so popular.

I'm going to come back later to the absence of any biblical weight. That is, of course, the program's most inexcusable omission, because Christ, his gospel and his word do not have primacy over the story that are being that's being told in the rise and fall of Mars Hill.

You also don't have any theological heavy hitters like John MacArthur and Phil Johnson or articles like the one

I mentioned from the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood who were sounding the alarm about Mark Driscoll long before Mars Hill's collapse.

But let me speak here about what I do like about the program.

Why am I listening to it and why would I continue to the end of the series? The high production value and the quality storytelling.

Many of the reviews that you'll hear about this podcast talk about its stellar production quality, and I agree it's well produced.

I'm not real crazy about the song selection, but that's I mean, that's really more of a personal thing. This is kind of like the

E true Hollywood story, but it's distributed by Christianity Today. So it's it's more like the

CT true megachurch story. And I probably would listen to more programs like this one if they did them.

Now, Christianity Today has a reputation for having become a theologically liberal publication.

I don't think anyone at Christianity Today would argue with me when I say they would sooner prop up Rachel Held Evans than John MacArthur, which, by the way, is exactly what happens in this podcast.

Mike Cosper, the show's creator and narrator, is egalitarian. He believes women can be pastors.

So, of course, the show has an anti -complementarian objective. Episode five in particular aims to punch patriarchy in the mouth with help from Kristen Dumais, Rachel Denhollander and LGBTQ advocate

Sarah Bessie, whom Christianity Today editor Kate Shellnut calls godly. I expected this kind of crowd going in.

Somehow I was able to stomach Tony Jones and Ed Stetzer in the first episode to keep listening. The production quality and unfolding drama are what keep me and many others coming back, no matter what your doctrinal convictions.

I have I have learned some things about Driscoll and Mars Hill that I did not know before. And there have been some interesting stories.

I must add this, though. The show is not nearly as structured or as organized as it comes across.

Episode four was published late and Cosper gave a disclaimer about it at the opening of the program, saying that they were doing real time reporting.

He took a week off then to kind of catch up on production. This is one of those programs that I think needed to be a little more finished in production before it went to publication.

This is a personal opinion, but that's just the way I feel. The kind of approach they're taking seems a little wandering, like they don't have a clear destination.

We're just seeing the sights as we go. It's fascinating. It's just not a well planned out tour. In the first episode,

Cosper did say that they've reached out to Driscoll for an interview and they're hoping to hear back from him. I hope they do, because that would be wild, but I would be shocked if he actually participates.

However, that's something you could always tack on to the end of the series, like a bonus episode. You don't have to adjust production for something like that.

Now, why make a show like this? That question is actually answered at the end of the first episode in the closing eight minutes,

Cosper interviews Christianity Today news editors Kate Shellnut and Daniel Sinelman. He tells them that listeners will ask, why make stories like this?

Shellnut says, when we don't tell these stories, we communicate something that we don't believe, which is that the church is perfect and we only tell stories that make the church look good.

She also says that by sharing the accounts of people who have been abused by the church, it helps others identify these patterns of abuse earlier or stop them from happening again.

I would argue that the program does neither of those things. Again, the

Bible is not consulted as the ultimate authority, so how arrogant to think that by their own merit,

Christianity Today believes they can stop sin and effectively help others identify it. Silliman's answer was quite silly.

He begins by saying, quote, as a Christian and as a journalist, I'm committed to the truth and that has to come first and last, unquote.

But then he's downright incredulous toward anyone who would even ask why make a program like this, as if that's offensive or exposes false motives just by questioning, huh?

So you're committed to journalism and the truth, but a person shouldn't question anything that doesn't make any sense.

What neither Casper nor Shellnut nor Silliman answer with is the Bible. There are plenty of passages that would justify doing a program like this.

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Ephesians 511. Test everything. Hold fast what is good.

Abstain from every form of evil. First Thessalonians 521 to 22. Regarding pastors, we are told, as for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear.

First Timothy 520. But again, Christianity today, a misnomer if there ever was one, will not take a stand on the

Bible. Their own judgments are the authority, not God's word. Silliman does make a reference to the cross, not according to scripture, but according to theologian

James K. A. Smith, who, like Shellnut and Bessie, is approving of homosexuality and transgenderism, referencing

Smith and not scripture. Silliman says the answer to evil is Christ dying for the world.

But he doesn't explain what that means. And unless I missed something in the next four episodes of the rise and fall of Mars Hill, I don't remember them ever coming back to that.

Mars Hill was a ship without a rudder and a megalomaniac for a captain, and that pretty much describes

Christianity today as well. I hope they change course, but I highly doubt it. I came into the program believing that it would be a vessel to take shots at patriarchy and complementarianism, and that's exactly what they've been doing.

So you can expect high production value, good storytelling, but do not expect any sound doctrine.

That brings me back to the problem I mentioned toward the beginning, because Christianity today does not submit to the authority of God's word and because the gospel is not the focus,

Cosper does not bring in any solid pastors or teachers to help explain what went wrong and how to keep it from happening again.

Instead, we get pop psychology and pseudo history and personal opinions. It's all very one sided, and that side must lean anti complementarian.

Since this is the approach, there are many people listening who have the impression that no one reformed or complementarian sounded the alarm about Driscoll when they should have said one listener on Twitter, quote,

Why did it take a heterodox Rachel held Evans to bring to light his abusive words?

Maybe something is lacking in reformed ecclesiologies with regards to women, unquote.

Phil Johnson, director of Grace to you, responded and said, quote, Some of us were criticizing

Driscoll's brutish ways and inappropriate fixation with women as sex objects, while emergence, including held

Evans, were not only looking the other way, but also attacking us for not being progressive enough.

Google it, unquote. Wendy also a former Mars Hill member and guest interview on the podcast responded to Johnson and said, quote,

Phil, your methods of criticism were exactly like those that eventually got

Mark disqualified from ministry angry without love.

You created stumbling blocks for real repentance, as those of us who loved

Mark and Mars Hill confronted him privately. Unquote. Isn't that astounding?

Wendy also actually blamed Phil Johnson for being part of the reason why

Mark Driscoll did not repent and that Phil Johnson was every bit as disqualified as Mark Driscoll.

In case you missed the irony, her comment affirmed everything Phil just said, he said.

We warned people. We called out a false teacher, but we were attacked for not being progressive enough. And then

Wendy also attacked him for not being progressive enough. Mike Cosper liked her comment, so that should tell you everything that you need to know about where this program stands.

They're not committed to the truth. They're committed to a narrative. And I get the distinct impression they'll be digging in their heels deeper into that narrative as the program unfolds.

So we're not going to hear from the heavy hitters, those men who exposit scripture, exact sin and exalt

Christ. If they were put on the program, they would call Driscoll a false teacher. And I don't think

Mike Cosper believes Driscoll was a false teacher. He was a charismatic guy with a great vision and a big heart who got messed up by hierarchy and patriarchy in their minds.

But God created the universe to be a hierarchy and God created patriarchy.

First Corinthians 11 three. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is

Christ. The head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is

God. So hierarchy and patriarchy are not inherently corrupt. The human heart is inherently corrupt.

The people who got fooled by Mark Driscoll, including Cosper and all sup and Christianity today at all, do not want to hear that they follow false teachers because those teachers tell them what they want to hear and give them what they want to have.

As we are told in second Timothy four, three, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

That was exactly everyone who followed Mark Driscoll and I'm not, I'm not being sanctimonious or self -righteous here.

I've been fooled by false teachers too. I used to follow Rob Bell because I was ignorant in my unbelief.

As Paul says of himself in first Timothy one 13, the Bible tells us why we listen to false teachers and God gives us false teachers to either test us or judge us.

The people who follow Driscoll do not want to admit that the reason they liked him, and you'll hear this on the program.

The reason they liked him is because he was cool. Oh, I love this music.

Oh, I love how this isn't my grandma's church. I love the lights.

I love the vibe. I love the community. I love the way we're all dressed. I love that.

I can drink my coffee. I love the Pacific Northwest. I love the way he preaches that it's a little bit irreverent.

I love that I can be this way and have this style and still have a little bit of Christianity to the focus is not

Christ. And I'm not saying no one was focused on Christ. I know there were some genuine

Christians who loved Mars Hill, nor am I saying that Driscoll was never biblical. Sometimes he did preach some really solid sermons.

I've heard him preach the gospel. Sometimes he hit people exactly where they needed to be hit.

But respectfully, I'm not convinced that he was ever qualified to be a pastor.

Mars Hill began when he was 26 years old. He was leading seminars on church planting while he was still in his twenties.

People were clamoring all over him. How do we do what he did? When first Timothy three, six says of a pastor, he must not be a recent convert.

He must not be too young or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

And that happened. Driscoll claimed that at age 19,

God spoke to him audibly and told him to marry grace, his wife to preach the

Bible, train men and plant churches over and over in the rise and fall of Mars Hill.

You will hear Driscoll say, God told me this. God told me that. Jesus says this.

Jesus says that. And none of it is ever corrected with what God actually says in the

Bible, because everyone wants to believe who needs the Bible. If God speaks to Mark Driscoll, he speaks to me too.

Again, the problem for Christianity today was not that Driscoll was a false teacher.

The problem was hierarchy and patriarchy. The problem was corrupt systems, not corrupt people.

All the philosophy, sociology and psychology of critical theory is right here in the rise and fall of Mars Hill.

And the reason people were taken with Driscoll and they let the problems go on for so long is not because they were lured in by superficial carnal worldly trappings.

No, it's because they cared too much. Our problem, they will say is we just loved him so much we were blinded by our own love.

That's exactly what was in Wendy Allsup's answer to Phil Johnson. No, you were the big meanie head

Phil, because you were calling out false teachers. We were the ones who were truly loving because we confronted

Mark in private, not called out false teachers publicly. Like the Bible says, Titus one nine through 11 says that a pastor must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers who must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

The scripture tells us what went wrong with Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill, but that's not what the rise and fall of Mars Hill is interested in.

Some other recommendations for you before wrapping up, I'd also commend to you an article written by Samuel Parkinson, pastor of Emmaus church in Kansas city.

He raised some good concerns about the program. I'll link to his article in the show notes.

Also Jesse Johnson's article in the cripple gate. What would Jesus say about the rise and fall of Mars Hill?

By the way, I just, I have to highlight something from that article. Jesse also draws attention to the fact that Cosper seems to deliberately want to ignore the warnings

MacArthur gave about Driscoll long before anyone else did. He, uh, and MacArthur talked about the way

Driscoll twisted scripture, the way he talked about sex and marriage, how disparaging he was of women.

In 2009 this was before I became a pastor, but MacArthur did a four part series of articles just destroying

Driscoll's approach to the song of Solomon. The series was entitled the rape of Solomon song about the way

Driscoll preached. MacArthur said, quote, this is not exegesis. It is exploitation.

It is spiritually tantamount to an act of rape. It tears the beautiful poetic dress off the song of Solomon strips that portion of scripture of its dignity and holds it up to be laughed at and leered at in a carnal way.

And Mark Driscoll has boldly led the parade down this carnal path.

Unquote. Let me share with you Jesse's next three paragraphs here. How did people respond to MacArthur's warning?

Well, the week after he gave it, Driscoll was a keynote speaker at the gospel coalition's annual conference where he was assigned the topic of a pastor and pure speech.

Some things you cannot make up. John Piper said that while he was concerned about Driscoll sex sermons, all pastors say things they regret and Driscoll has shown himself to be a quick learner.

After listening to the podcast, going back and rereading Piper's excusing of Driscoll's sex language is frankly even more incredible now than it was back then.

A feat I didn't think was possible. Jonathan Merritt even ran a column picked up by the

Washington post calling Driscoll's demeaning attitude toward women a gaffe and said that the

Christian thing to do is to accept his apologies. He specifically referenced the feud between Driscoll and MacArthur and I can't help but wonder if Merritt regrets that column today.

Allow me an analogy. It is as if there is a man outside yelling, your house is on fire.

Your house is on fire. Everybody run and instead of running, the leaders of the house come up with fanciful excuses for ignoring the man.

Later when the house has been burned down, those who escaped get together to talk about what went wrong.

It is at the very least disingenuous for them to ask, how come nobody warned us?

I would go a step further than Jesse Johnson and say, not only are the Christianity today folks asking, how come nobody warned us?

They're downright blaming the people who did warn them as being just as bad as Mark Driscoll.

Their consciences are seared first Timothy four to Paul goes on in verse 16 to say, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Persist in this for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Thank you for listening. Or if you're reading the transcript on the blog, thank you for reading. You can find my blog at pastorgabe .com.

This has been the rise and fall of the rise and fall of Mars Hill. That's my unofficial title.

There's a lot of potential in this podcast to use this popular and well known story to preach the gospel and convict of sin to show what the

Bible really says about these things and point people to Christ. But I'm not convinced Christianity today really knows what the gospel is.

It would probably sound more like Richard roar than R .C. Sproul. The direction of the program is not even about asking what went wrong and how do we ensure this never happens again?

They're telling their version of the story for their own purposes. The way

Christianity today and Mike Cosper tell that story might be entertaining with great production value.

I hope it makes Christian podcasters step up their game and creating content like this, but don't be fooled into thinking

Christianity today is biblically sound or honest and balanced journalism.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your kindness and goodness.

Thank you for demonstrating your love for us in that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. All who turn from their sin to Jesus Christ will be forgiven.

We will be saved from judgment. The wrath you will pour out on this wicked world, the wrath that every one of us deserves.

Yet we who are in Christ are given the righteousness of God and we will live forever with you reigning on high in glory.

Lord, I pray for Mark Driscoll. I pray that there are some men around him who will listen.

He will listen to that. He may truly repent. He will humble himself.

He'll step down from his pulpit. He will, he'll humble himself and admit his faults and confess that Christ is a great savior.

I pray for the people that he hurt. As the rise and fall of Mars Hill is mentioned, many people have walked away from the faith altogether because of what happened at Mars Hill.

May their hearts be convicted. May their consciences not be seared, but that they would still be pierced with the gospel of Christ.

Believe it and live. I pray for Christianity today, the influence that they have.

May they also humble themselves, repent of their heresy, fire people who need to be fired and get back to testifying the true faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Keep us from stumbling and present us blameless before the presence of your glory with great joy to the only

God, our savior through Jesus Christ, our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time.

And now and forever. Amen. This is when we understand the text with pastor

Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours, but this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good gospel teaching Christ center church to worship with this weekend and join us again