Ten Quotes about the Driscoll Podcasts

In an exceptional article on Religion Dispatches by Jessica Johnson, whose book Biblical Porn: Affect, Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Evangelical Empire, is based on eight years of social scientific study of Driscoll’s Mars Hill, we encounter penetrating and scathing observations of the kind of complicity that:

(1) cannot be denied and

(2) should send a warning flag up the pole for all those presently involved with authoritarian white males playing power games and using fear to keep everyone in line.

It is not enough, however accurate, to say the man corrupted ministry and is still doing so. Johnson’s work does the right thing: it examines the larger cultural framework in which people like Driscoll find a platform.

Platformers need more scrutiny. Think of those who went to the next level by given endorsements and a platform by Sovereign Grace, by The Gospel Coalition, by Together for the Gospel, by the Passion Conference. At some point someone will write a history about the platformers and their lack of discernment.

Beware folks, here are ten quotes:

Johnson puts CT itself under the microscope for imitating Driscoll’s own methods:

After all of this research on Driscoll and Mars Hill, I know mimicry when I see and hear it; and the graphics, music, and method of storytelling that shape the narrative and experience of the podcast are clearly produced by someone familiar with the milieu in which Driscoll accrued followers and celebrity, while cultivating and capitalizing on its ethos (with some help from the blueprint my book provides, without crediting me beyond the two episodes—Four and Five—in which I briefly appear and Biblical Porn is mentioned in passing). 

She takes on Cosper himself for not living up to his own analysis of Driscoll:

The podcast works the listener like Driscoll worked a crowd

Cosper was a worship leader at Sojourn, a church in Louisville, Kentucky, which adopted the same Christian counter-cultural style and GenX-indie atmosphere as Mars Hill, went multi-site, and was affiliated with the church planting network that Driscoll co-founded, Acts29, before starting their own. Cosper asks his audience why “we” platform and attach to leaders, becoming acolytes of and serving personalities “whose charisma outpaces their character,” when in fact he has first-hand experience in doing so himself in the case of Sojourn’s Daniel Montgomery, who resigned from his position as lead pastor as Driscoll did his at Mars Hill, after issues were raised concerning his leadership. 

Charisma as a virtue is examined in ways few have done:

Tellingly, “charisma” is frequently attributed to Driscoll and taken for granted as a spiritual and secular value throughout the podcast, a presumed God-given gift of communication bestowed specifically on white male leaders. Of course Cosper, who is himself a product of the subculture that produced Driscoll, fails to interrogate this core concept in any meaningful way. A more productive approach would be to examine charisma itself as a manufactured commodity whose value must be reinforced by the labor of local congregants and online followers. 

Charisma is a term repeatedly used in relation to Driscoll, particularly in Episode Six—”The Brand”—but there’s no discussion of the work done to prop up and promote this charisma by the throngs of volunteers who provided free labor by serving the church as team members in worship; technology; media production; marketing and publicity; community groups; children’s ministry; women’s ministry; men’s ministry; security; building maintenance; facility multiplication; and hours spent outside of formal church service in a variety of ways and roles. None of the exploited labor extracted to support the seemingly natural, godly gifts of Driscoll is discussed at any length or with any depth in the podcast. Instead, charisma is assumed as a known quantity and supernatural quality bestowed by God and possessed by select, unique individuals—a blessing and a curse, according to the podcast’s narrative.

She points her finger at the many men who gained notoriety by connection to and platforming Driscoll:

Rather than admit any guilt or remorse concerning their contributions to the theological, cultural, political, and economic systems that allowed Driscoll to thrive in the face of so much harm, these men extol his gifts. Tony Jones of Emergent Village admits to the clickbait Driscoll’s name provided, funneling traffic to his blog; in the case of others, such as John Piper or Timothy Keller, they are unquestioned and tacitly given the chance to dodge any responsibility. 

She points at CT’s editorial softener:

By not sharing certain details such as Driscoll’s posts under the William Wallace II pseudonym complaining that the nation had become “pussified,” which could have been supplied in the podcast notes if Cosper (understandably) were reluctant to read them aloud—the vitriolic impact of Driscoll’s misogynistic, homophobic, violent, combative posture in language is lost and drowned out by other content, such as the much lauded soundtrack. The only risks taken by the podcast are the inclusion of any material at all on Driscoll’s preaching on sex and its abusive effects, and the inclusion of academic experts who also happen to be women such as Kristin Kobes Du Mez and myself (automatic turn-offs for evangelicals who consider themselves the gatekeepers of “biblical” authority). 

A well-known piece by The Gospel Coalition’s VP and Editor in Chief, Collin Hansen, used its own softeners:

In 2007, the year that a pastor was fired for questioning changes that would ultimately lead to the concentration of Driscoll’s power (Episode 7—”State of Emergency”), Christianity Today published a glowing account of Mars Hill’s rise authored by Collin Hansen, who would later write the book Young, Restless, and Reformed (2008) detailing the Neo-Calvinist movement led by evangelical elder statesmen such as John Piper, D.A. Carson, and Timothy Keller. Hansen now serves as the Vice-President and Editor-in-Chief of The Gospel Coalition, a publishing network founded by Keller and Carson in 2005 that would give Driscoll a national platform among established leaders, along with the gravitas of their blessing and seeming mentorship. 

Hansen’s Christianity Today profile of Driscoll, “Pastor Provocateur,” starts with the premise that love him or hate him, Driscoll is bringing people to Jesus in one of the least-churched cities in the United States. This line is taken straight from Driscoll’s playbook, a claim that he would repeat often and loudly to pre-empt and drown out criticism of his misogynistic, homophobic, racist language on online forums such as the Leadership Network website or his Mars Hill blog. Hansen’s CT profile was published after two well-publicized controversies over Driscoll posts in 2006 that go unmentioned or are breezed over in the “Rise and Fall” podcast but that are covered at length in my book. 

She questions the viability of Ed Stetzer’s blaming of the internet as there was far more moral questions that should have been under examination:

Towards the end of Episode One of the podcast, Ed Stetzer, Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, makes the case that the Internet is to blame for elevating pastors to megachurch-celebrity status before their character is ready….. However, as my book points out and the evidence that I’ve shared here suggests, Driscoll’s “verbal articulation” online should have been alarming to many. Yet those who promoted and capitalized from the controversy Driscoll catalyzed through the digital medium not only agreed in principle with what he said, but they could exploit Driscoll’s self-proclaimed “riot evangelism” while maintaining a safe enough distance from the scandals and harm to remain clear of criticism themselves. 

What could the organizations who propped him have done?

Unfortunately, those who contributed to the podcast failed to model self-reflection and wisdom in the name of truth and repentance, and those who could have done so were glaringly absent or were represented by heavily curated audio clips or name-drops. The Gospel Coalition and Christianity Today both played vital roles in providing Driscoll the platform, celebrity, and legitimacy necessary to continually apologize before moving on to create yet another scandal in order to inspire more criticism which, in turn, generated more downloads, traffic, and ultimately greater loyalty. 

There is a glaring absence of opening the lens wide enough to see Piper’s ideas at work at times in Driscoll:

Listening to Piper discuss how women should submit to verbal abuse “for a season” and to “getting smacked,” explains how Driscoll was permitted to preach such a spiritually and emotionally harmful theology of gender and sex from the pulpit and for online consumption. Piper’s “seashells” sermon may have catalyzed a Neo-Calvinist revival, but his promotion of complementarianism set up an abusive, authoritarian, heteropatriarchal church culture that took root and played a role in the downfall of many. 

Why?

The better question is: how do known abusive leaders such as Driscoll get a free pass to continue preaching in the pulpit and through online ministry? Charismatic spiritual fathers who sacrifice the vulnerable, while theologically justifying it as biblical, go about their business. This gaslighting at the scale of population isn’t simply harmful to individuals, it’s a systemic problem  for an insatiable evangelical industrial complex that makes new idols out of old and replicates divisive us-versus-them ideologies within and outside of churches. Asking the flagship publication of the evangelical industrial complex to examine itself may yield a slick new product, but it just replicates the same old problems.