ResearchTyler Tankersley  |  December 6, 2021
When I used to be in faculty within the mid-2000s, I wolfed books via pastors and writers who have been classified “Emergent.” Popping out of my Southern Baptist upbringing, I used to be attracted to expressions of Christianity that gave the impression to have interaction tradition now not as an enemy, however as a possibility for larger contextualization of the gospel.
It gave the impression that a lot of the kinetic power at the back of this Emergent motion was once popping out of the Pacific Northwest. Donald Miller, who lived in Portland, Ore., wrote his ebook Blue Like Jazz. I used to be so captured via his frank and fair reflections on religion that I jumped on the alternative after my freshman yr of school to do an internship in Portland with a fledgling ministry group.
My internship was once to paintings with a ministry to the unhoused based totally out of a small church get started. We worshiped in a film theater, and we hosted nightly occasions the place we washed the ft of and equipped loose haircuts for the unhoused at the streets of Portland. Our small congregation was once a part of a quasi-denominational frame of church buildings known as the Acts 29 Community, a gaggle of theologically Reformed church planters.
As a part of the internship, the opposite intern and I got a ebook to learn written via one of the crucial primary leaders of the Acts 29 Community. The ebook was once The Radical Reformission via Mark Driscoll. In it, Driscoll lays out his non-public sense of undertaking and calling for church buildings to be puts of deep doctrinal reality and likewise edgy reviews of cultural engagement.
“I used to be discerning a decision to ministry on the time, and Driscoll’s concrete sure bet was once interesting at a time in my existence once I felt out at sea using the waves of doubt and confusion.”
I used to be discerning a decision to ministry on the time, and Driscoll’s concrete sure bet was once interesting at a time in my existence once I felt out at sea using the waves of doubt and confusion.
For the following couple of years, I adopted Driscoll’s ministry as it all started to blow up on YouTube. Pals would ship me clips of his sermons, and we might gawk at his audacity to scream at his congregation and curse whilst preaching. Alternatively, his fervency at all times gave the impression to rise up out of a passionate adherence to the gospel and, subsequently, we felt his outbursts and vitriolic language have been merely expressions of his fervency for reality and righteousness. In different phrases: The ends justified the approach.
As my theological horizons started to make bigger, I began to look Driscoll’s sermons in a brand new gentle. I may just now not sq. away his “prize-fighter” model of Jesus with the Lamb of God. I heard too many tales of ladies who have been became clear of the gospel as a result of Driscoll’s rants about “Femi-Nazis.” In the end, via the grace of God, I discovered different voices that led me deeper into the best way of Jesus.
Mark Driscoll preaching at Mars Hill Church (flickr)
Which is why I’ve listened with heightened hobby to the hot podcast from Christianity Lately known as The Upward push and Fall of Mars Hill. For individuals who is probably not mindful, The Upward push and Fall of Mars Hill catalogues the tale of Driscoll, the church he based in Seattle (Mars Hill), its speedy expansion and its much more speedy remaining after Driscoll was once discovered to have fostered an abusive and noxious management setting.
The general episode just lately posted brought about me to mirror at the enjoy of paying attention to this tale of a church’s speedy expansion and surprising crumbling.
The podcast has now not been with out controversy, and I feel one of the vital grievance has been unfair. Some folks have taken umbrage at the truth that the podcast highlights one of the vital certain reviews many had at Mars Hill. One episode includes a stunning tale of a father baptizing his daughter. Twitter exploded with indignation that the podcast was once by some means giving credence to Driscoll’s poisonous theology. However I feel the ones criticisms display an lack of knowledge of the cultural contexts that give upward push to leaders like Driscoll.
We want to listen the ones tales of authentic ministry as a result of they function a caution to those that are lately embedded in church settings. None folks are immune from being blinded via the great things taking place round us to the purpose the place we shrug off most likely poisonous habits from our leaders or ourselves.
As a result of if the one lesson I remove from The Upward push and Fall of Mars Hill is, “Woo. Thank God I’m not anything like Mark Driscoll,” then I’m no higher than the Pharisee status within the Temple with gratitude that It’s not that i am like that tax collector (Luke 18:9-14).
As a substitute, all of us should combat with what we feature inside of ourselves and be prepared to inspect (deconstruct) our personal theologies and views on management. None folks are immune from falling into the entice of changing into a poisonous chief or collaborating within the poisonous tradition of a church or hitching our wagon to poisonous theology as a result of we’ve got by some means satisfied ourselves that the ends justify the approach.
Of their ebook A Church Known as Tov, father and daughter Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer write about how church buildings transform puts of goodness (the Hebrew phrase for “just right” is tov) as an alternative of damage. They draw from high-profile examples of poisonous management equivalent to Invoice Hybels or James MacDonald, however right through the ebook they warn that the indications that led to those downfalls are pitfalls for all folks. They write: “When leaders gain continual, continual itself turns into an agent that can cut back the chief’s capability for empathy and compassion, particularly towards those that are powerless (like girls, in lots of church buildings). This type of self-centered hubris might purpose the private personality of the power-shaped pastor to lose touch with the very essence of Christianity.”
It’s now not that the podcast has been with out faults. I want The Upward push and Fall of Mars Hill had long past a lot additional in deconstructing the tactics Mark Driscoll’s theology arose out of a patriarchal type of Calvinism that leads many down a trail of theological vanity this is continuously disguised as “biblical Christianity.”
“Mark Driscoll’s theology arose out of a patriarchal type of Calvinism that leads many down a trail of theological vanity this is continuously disguised as ‘biblical Christianity.’”
I want the podcast had achieved extra to discuss how Driscoll’s consistent mocking of the rest out of doors conventional gender roles got here from a spot of deep and sinful homophobia and transphobia.
I want the podcast had achieved extra to inspect the tactics Driscoll repeatedly preached the parable of redemptive violence and used battle imagery in damaging and unwise tactics. I want all of the ones issues and extra.
But, I’m thankful for The Upward push and Fall of Mars Hill as it has jogged my memory of the utter necessity of cyclically deconstructing my very own theology and my very own sense of calling.
Might I by no means be stuck within the traps of continual and repute.
Might I by no means be the supply of my neighbor’s non secular trauma.
And might I by no means forestall pursuing the grace of the thriller of God at paintings in damaged puts, at paintings in me.
Tyler Tankersley
Tyler Tankersley serves as senior pastor of Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C. He’s a graduate of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. 
 
Comparable articles:
I lived within the tradition of ‘The Upward push and Fall of Mars Hill,’ and there’s one a part of the tale that’s fallacious | Opinion via Rick Pidcock
3 Management classes from Mark Driscoll | Opinion via Alan Rudnick

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