“The Ethos of Mark Driscoll: A Summary of an Undergraduate Thesis”

by Benjamin Sherick | Xchanges 11.2

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Church

Mars Hill Church (MHC) was co-founded by Mark Driscoll in 1996. The church began as a Bible study group in the home of Pastor Mark and his wife Grace and over the next 18 years would grow in size, prominence, and influence. MHC began as a local Seattle church and eventually grew into a multi-site network of churches, first adding a second campus in 2006 and eventually expanding to campuses in five states: Washington, New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Arizona. In 2011, MHC hosted what it called “the largest church service ever in the Pacific Northwest” at Qwest Field stadium with 17,500 attendees.

Toward the end of 2013 and throughout 2014, Mark Driscoll found himself constantly embroiled in controversy. On March 5, 2014, World Online magazine posted an article claiming that MHC had paid an external marketing company a sum of at least $210,000 to guarantee Real Marriage, a book co-authored by Driscoll and his wife Grace, would make it onto the New York Times best-sellers list (Smith, 2014). Although not technically illegal, the act had an air of deceitfulness that seemed incongruent with expectations of a pastor’s character.

The turmoil continued when, on July 27, 2014, Matthew Paul Turner published a selection of highly offensive posts made by Driscoll on a MHC web forum in 2000. The comments, made under the pseudonym William Wallace II, were highly crass, misogynistic, and homophobic. Driscoll’s initial post began, “We live in a completely pussified nation” (William Wallace II, 2000, para. 1). The post was a long diatribe on the state of Christian men, who Driscoll believed had been emasculated by a strong female influence in the church.

Concurrent with the release of the offensive blog posts, Driscoll communicated with his church via video, addressing the emerging controversy. During the course of the video, Driscoll claimed that some of the difficulty the church had experienced stemmed from the anonymity of its accusers — a comment that infuriated former members of the church who had openly and publicly identified themselves in their criticism.

For many, the revelation of the offensive comments, combined with the tone-deaf response of the church, was the last in a long line of offenses. Members of the church’s Board of Advisors and Accountability resigned. Acts 29 Church Planting Network, an organization co-founded by Driscoll, removed Driscoll and MHC from membership for “ungodly and disqualifying behavior” and recommended Driscoll “step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help” (Throckmorton, 2014d, para. 3, 5). Lifeway Christian Stores pulled Driscoll’s books from their shelves. Twenty-one former MHC pastors brought formal charges against Driscoll regarding his style of leadership. On October 14, Driscoll submitted his resignation to the church. By the end of October, MHC elected to dissolve as an organization, with the dissolution taking place at the end of December 2014, with the remaining MHC campuses becoming eleven autonomous churches.