ResearchTyler Tankersley  |  December 6, 2021
When I used to be in school within the mid-2000s, I gobbled books via pastors and writers who have been categorized “Emergent.” Popping out of my Southern Baptist upbringing, I used to be attracted to expressions of Christianity that appeared to have interaction tradition no longer as an enemy, however as a possibility for higher contextualization of the gospel.
It gave the impression that a lot of the kinetic power at the back of this Emergent motion used to be popping out of the Pacific Northwest. Donald Miller, who lived in Portland, Ore., wrote his guide Blue Like Jazz. I used to be so captured via his frank and truthful 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 used to be to paintings with a ministry to the unhoused primarily based 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 unfastened haircuts for the unhoused at the streets of Portland. Our small congregation used to be 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 guide to learn written via one of the most major leaders of the Acts 29 Community. The guide used to be The Radical Reformission via Mark Driscoll. In it, Driscoll lays out his private sense of undertaking and calling for church buildings to be puts of deep doctrinal fact and in addition edgy studies of cultural engagement.
“I used to be discerning a choice to ministry on the time, and Driscoll’s concrete walk in the park used to be interesting at a time in my lifestyles once I felt out at sea driving the waves of doubt and confusion.”
I used to be discerning a choice to ministry on the time, and Driscoll’s concrete walk in the park used to be interesting at a time in my lifestyles once I felt out at sea driving 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 appeared to rise up out of a passionate adherence to the gospel and, due to this fact, we felt his outbursts and vitriolic language have been merely expressions of his fervency for fact and righteousness. In different phrases: The ends justified the method.
As my theological horizons started to make bigger, I began to look Driscoll’s sermons in a brand new mild. I may just not sq. away his “prize-fighter” model of Jesus with the Lamb of God. I heard too many tales of girls who have been became clear of the gospel as a result of Driscoll’s rants about “Femi-Nazis.” Ultimately, 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 new podcast from Christianity As of late known as The Upward thrust and Fall of Mars Hill. For individuals who will not be mindful, The Upward thrust and Fall of Mars Hill catalogues the tale of Driscoll, the church he based in Seattle (Mars Hill), its fast expansion and its much more fast last after Driscoll used to be discovered to have fostered an abusive and noxious management surroundings.
The general episode just lately posted brought about me to mirror at the revel in of paying attention to this tale of a church’s fast expansion and unexpected crumbling.
The podcast has no longer been with out controversy, and I feel one of the grievance has been unfair. Some folks have taken umbrage at the truth that the podcast highlights one of the certain studies many had at Mars Hill. One episode includes a gorgeous tale of a father baptizing his daughter. Twitter exploded with indignation that the podcast used to be come what may giving credence to Driscoll’s poisonous theology. However I feel the ones criticisms display an lack of awareness 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 these days embedded in church settings. None folks are immune from being blinded via the good stuff going down 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 thrust 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 an alternative, all of us should strive against with what we feature inside of ourselves and be keen to inspect (deconstruct) our personal theologies and views on management. None folks are immune from falling into the lure of turning 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 now have come what may satisfied ourselves that the ends justify the method.
Of their guide A Church Known as Tov, father and daughter Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer write about how church buildings change into puts of goodness (the Hebrew phrase for “excellent” is tov) as a substitute of damage. They draw from high-profile examples of poisonous management equivalent to Invoice Hybels or James MacDonald, however all over the guide they warn that the indicators that led to those downfalls are pitfalls for all folks. They write: “When leaders gain persistent, persistent itself turns into an agent that can cut back the chief’s capability for empathy and compassion, particularly towards those that are powerless (like ladies, in lots of church buildings). This kind of self-centered hubris might reason the private persona of the power-shaped pastor to lose touch with the very essence of Christianity.”
It’s no longer that the podcast has been with out faults. I want The Upward thrust 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 ceaselessly 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 ceaselessly disguised as ‘biblical Christianity.’”
I want the podcast had finished extra to speak about how Driscoll’s consistent mocking of anything else out of doors conventional gender roles got here from a spot of deep and sinful homophobia and transphobia.
I want the podcast had finished extra to inspect the tactics Driscoll repeatedly preached the parable of redemptive violence and used conflict imagery in destructive and unwise tactics. I want all of the ones issues and extra.
But, I’m thankful for The Upward thrust 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 persistent and repute.
Might I by no means be the supply of my neighbor’s religious trauma.
And might I by no means prevent 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. 
 
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